there's definitely no logic
np: Amy Ray, Lucystoners.
Which the title, of course, is not taken from. It's early, and I've still not perfected the Big Gulp French Press.
Spent last night with Dan and The Irresistably Cute Lisa watching Gryffindor Grand Rapids stomp the Wolves into the ice, as they always do. It's their Seeker; the kid is good, as long as no Dementors come out on the. . . ok, that joke is dead.
At one point, Lisa claimed she was not aware that Smith -- which she's been accepted to, and will (probably) be attending come the fall -- was a women's college.
Did I mention that Lisa is blonde?
Thinking about something Lawrence Simon said about trust the last time I did the FFAF thang -- that's open until Sunday night, by the bye -- and also a half-remembered quote from Glenn Reynolds about how he doesn't allow comments because it's like handing someone a can of spray paint to deface your site.
I dunno, maybe I just have a different view of human behavior.
This isn't just a Chicago thing, pretty sure I saw the same thing in Minneapolis when I lived there: in winter, if you're walking and see someone whose car is stuck in the snow, most people will head over and give 'em a push to get 'em moving again.
Pretty sure that's not taught in Driver's Ed -- which isn't mandatory in schools in Minnesota, as you can tell by how the fuckers (can't) drive -- and seeing as my agnostic ass does it, it's not about hoping Saint Peter is looking down and taking notes. It's just. . . you see somebody needs help, you help 'em. Since that's normal behavior, not much point looking into it much. It's the folks who don't should be studied, to figure out what the fuck is wrong with them.
Ain't a profit motive involved either, because no one expects the person in the car to pay 'em. There's a sort-of hope that if you're in the same sitch, someone will do the same for you, but absolutely no dream that it'll be the same person you helped. You might not even get a look at the person, so you wouldn't know anyway.
And since you're not getting a look at 'em, it goes without saying that gender, race, class, orientation, religious affiliation, all those cool things that divide us up into tribes. . . make absolutely no fucking difference whatsoever.
Ok, I might pass by someone in an SUV with a Bush/Cheney 2004 bumper sticker and a Jesus fish on their ride, but only if I noticed same before stepping up to give the thing a shove.
None of which has anything to do with opening your site for guest entries, I suppose. Eh, what's the worst thing that can happen? Someone abuses your trust and uses your own site to post a vicious personal attack? Been there, done that, not really that impressed, actually. And the nice thing about having the worst thing that can happen, happen, is that afterwards there's really nothing to fear.
Unless you react to said worst thing in stereotypical, "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged" fashion.
Which'd be silly in this instance. This place is by no stretch of the imagination high-traffic, but there's a couple hundred people coming through per day. Just because one of 'em is an asshole is no reason to treat all the rest as potential assholes. Oddly, treating people like potential assholes. . . tends to make 'em behave like actual assholes. Go figure.
Which is the pre-caffeinated explanation for why I encourage comments, and participate in Free-For-All Friday.
Or something.
Update: Probably should clarify this. Every once in while, I'll possibly write something mean about Christians. This should be taken as short for, "people who claim to be Christians, but are in for a nasty shock when they die, hopefully soon."
Tend to forget to mention this on forms asking after volunteer experience: when I lived in Shampoo-Banana, worked on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve at the Winter Emergency Shelter, a crash space for the homeless in a church basement. This was run by actual Christians, and it's really hard to find bad things to say about them. Never noticed 'em proselytizing among the guests, except maybe through setting a good example, and no one ever tried converting me. Either because my (lack of) beliefs never came up, or if they did the person I was talking to looked at me skeptically and asked, "So, you're an agnostic who just up and decided to volunteer at a homeless shelter in a church basement on Christmas Eve out of. . .?"
I take it back. There is a bad thing to say about actual Christians. Smug bastards.
Any road up, went in on those particular nights because most volunteers were students, and headed home for the holidays. There were always a zillion folks willing to come in on Thanksgiving itself, or on Christmas, but God forbid -- don't pardon the expression -- the volunteer coordinator tell them that there were more than enough people for those nights, but if the person calling could come in the previous evening, it'd be much appreciated.
Because those people calling in? That'd be the fake Christians, the ones who seem to think that even though God is omnipotent and omnipresent, that He won't notice their good works unless there's a camera crew present and He catches 'em on the local news. Wasn't nobody reporting live from the shelter the nights I was there, just a bunch of guys didn't have anywhere else to go.
I have no point. I'm just typing.
Update 2: Added a link to the actual post at Amish Tech Support about "guest-blogging." Didn't feel the need at the time to point out to him that I'd done it several times before. . .