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Do you mean to imply that, because it belongs to the public, any individual member of the public has the right to do whatever she or he wants to it? That just isn't so. Public ownership is collective, not individual. Decisions about public property are to be made by the public as a whole, by...

It Isn't Romantic, Is It? Continuing with my observations from the post-mortem: Second, I think I have a very different understanding of relationships than most people, including she-for-whom-I-still-have-no-nickname. The difference concerns the idea of romance. I just don't get it...

Further Adventures of a Damned Fool I've been posting too much, these days. In my defense let me say that I've had a lot to process, as my mind seems to be in the process of rearranging itself, yet again. At the moment, I'm thinking through the crush that came to such an abrupt end last night...

Am I blue? Am I blue? Ain't these tears in my eyes tellin' you? (I was secretly hoping for a day of purple . . . or to see if the mods could pull off plaid.)

Falling to Earth Well, she wrote back. She was very direct, and really not at all unkind about it: She does not share my feelings; she has only ever thought of me as a friend. She asked about exclusivity in relationships, two years ago, simply for some perspective on a struggle she was having...

In some feminist literature I've read - thinking of Karen Warren here - there is a distinction between hierarchy and domination; in combination with dualism, they make up the substance of structures of oppression. Dualism is just the notion that natural kinds can be divided neatly into two...

Fools Rush In I wrote to she-on-whom-I-have-had-a-crush (etc.) a few hours ago. I should come up with a nickname for her, but I'm not sure I'll need one, now. I had intended simply to ask a follow-up question to our conversation on Monday: Going back to the conversation we had about...

What Scientific Skeptics Should Ask Themselves I did try to raise some of my questions, though they seemed not to fit the mood and purpose of the session. It's only after the fact I realized my error: it was the equivalent of interrupting a revival meeting to question the validity of Scripture...

Formality There's a beautiful story about the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who is even now often mocked for the formality of his ways and his principled insistence on duty above all. Just days before his death, he was being attended by a friend when his doctor arrived for a visit. With great...

Yeah, way back in the day . . . in the 1990s. I'll have to think about my tendency to be or to come across as old-fashioned. Maybe it's just a nicer way of saying I'm uptight. Or maybe I only seem uptight because I hold myself to standards of conduct that seem to have become obsolete. I think...

HOT PINK?!?!? That's cool.

"Pay no attention to the mod behind the curtain!" . . .which reminds me of one of the best bits in the original book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that was left out of all the various movie adaptations: if I'm remembering it right, the Emerald City isn't really green, but everyone in the city is...

A worthy experiment, but there are puzzles. In the list of who is logged in at the moment, some names appear blue, some green. When I switch to "Invisible Mode," my name still appears green, but with an asterisk in the "who's on" list, and with a red dot when I look at my forum posts. The...

Oops, there goes that hypothesis! I just found a new member, with 0 posts, whose name appears green. Curiouser and curiouser.

Yeah, I was looking for the pattern. "New members" seem to be uniformly blue; "banned" folk are uniformly red; but green follows no such pattern: some "senior members" are blue, some "members" are green. I wondered if it has to do with recent activity. I've been posting a lot, lately, and so...

Okay, I give up. Why is it some user names now appear in green, where before they were only either blue or red? My username is among those that shows up green, and it's not that easy . . . No. I won't go there. This started only today, regardless of the platform from which I access the forum.

Hm. Even if I wanted to contact the organizers of APW, I'm not sure I have any way to do so. I've looked through the entire website for the event and found no contact information whatsoever. I did, however, find this: What if I'm not polyamorous (or [insert label here])? We welcome...

I was wondering that, myself. But then, one of the organizers of the conference was on the skepticism panel . . .

An Urban Picnic I haven't yet come up with a nickname for she-on-whom-I-have-had-a-crush-for-nearly-two-years. I'll have to come up with one, soon, though, because I can't go on referring to her as she-on-whom-I-have-had-a-crush-for-nearly-two-years. Now, as a bit of background, she is one of...

Double Dogma Dare I hope this will be the last post in which I write about my experience at APW. In particular, I've been picking over my experience interacting with the self-described skeptics at the meeting, and I think I've put my finger more precisely on what was bothering me. When I...