Too Outgoing To Be A Pathologist!

[yaah]

I agree with everything except this:

As I found it ironic and annoying that in a thread in large part focused on debunking some of the preconceived notions commonly held about pathologists (also one of the stewed-over topics on this forum), similar kinds of preconceived notions could be bandied without challenge. At best this kind of thing is intellectual laziness, at worst, outright hypocrisy.

I think there are challenges all the time - perhaps you are just not seeing them.

As for me compromising with anyone who agrees with me, all I can say is
I tend to slam everyone in regards to politics. If someone makes a well reasoned or informed point, it doesn't matter if I agree with it or not, it is still a well-reasoned and informed point! Who am I?!? I don't like Massachusetts liberals or southern conservatives. In fact, I am probably more conservative than liberal. Your statement suggests that people should not speak their mind, and that is equal hypocrisy, because you are doing precisely that, and criticizing a statement of mine despite the fact that I have apologized, retracted it, and realized that it was ill advised. And I am also not sure which statements you are referring to that appear pre-conceived. I would be interested to hear what you believe are pre-conceived notions that are bandied about so frequently and need to be challenged, because I must say I need help with that one.

You know what, also? Everyone is a hypocrit. That is human nature. We criticize others for lesser faults than we ourselves commit. We ignore certain transgressions while emphasizing others. We accept certain viewpoints as educated and well informed while dismissing others as ignorant and repressed. A lot of it is due to experience. If our viewpoints and values are never questioned or challenged, of course they are not likely to change.

You are more than welcome to challenge me on anything. Last time I checked, this forum was nothing more than a sounding board and has no real relevance outside of our computer screens. I'm glad you think I have such influence because I have yet to see any money or other results other than lost time and perhaps some sanity.

When we have conversations with each other on this forum, we tend to amuse each other and talk about things that interest us. And yes, we give our opinions, and I enjoy hearing the opinions of others. We are not having these conversations for the world at large at the expense of our own enjoyment and participation. While we are being observed, it is the choice of anyone who is observing to participate, not participate, or simply not observe at all. Your statements imply somewhat that I insist on agreement with my views in order to post here, which has not one iota of truth to it. I am just here because I enjoy talking with people with similar interests and helping to show others that pathology is a great career and one which is perhaps overlooked (although maybe not now!).

Yes - protesting things you disagree with, raising questions, and suggesting alternate viewpoints is wonderful! Please do so! This is not Walmart. We here enjoy most viewpoints and encourage them. Complaining about things immediately will be noted. Complaining about things post facto, and without backing it up, on the other hand, smacks of an equal amount of intellectual laziness.

Thus, you are welcome to criticize, and challenge, and post about fried bananas, or post sonnets on the beauty of clinical medicine and the stethoscope. THE MORE THE MERRIER!!

p.s. I like the spleen poem.

p.p.s. I can't honestly figure out what "reculled" means. I feel like I have heard it before but even online dictionaries have not heard of it.

p.p.p.s. You are more than welcome to get a tattoo.

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[deschutes]

Oooh! More fodder with which to burn the midnight oil!

I found it ironic and annoying that in a thread in large part focused on debunking some of the preconceived notions commonly held about pathologists, similar kinds of preconceived notions could be bandied without challenge. At best this kind of thing is intellectual laziness, at worst, outright hypocrisy.

Thought experiment:

If we go back far enough, everything is a pre-conceived notion. From the moment we call a rose a rose, we are attempting to put an only-human label on an object, a concept. Can the universe be described in an eight-letter word? Hardly.

(But we know this.)

We can attempt to deconstruct every single sentence we speak or type - but what would be the point? We would trip before the words were even out of our mouths, condemned to an anxious silence under the punishing weight of responsibility - the truth of the words lost behind the words themselves.

Every opinion expressed carries a certain risk of being misunderstood.

Bring humour into the picture, and the boundaries of definitions blur even more.

In my experience it is hard to "explain" a joke. The best one can do is explain the context behind the (attempted?) joke.

None of this is an excuse for intellectual laziness, or hypocrisy.

Yet if I don't challenge a certain opinion, it is not necessarily because I agree - I may simply have faith enough in the judgement of the general public to be able to tell for themselves the validity of opinions expressed.

And I plead guilty - I choose to be lazy at times; one cannot always be so very smart or sound. When all else fails, silence allows a semblance of respectability.

Can I reasonably hope that what I am trying to get across is even half-understood the way I intended?

We know that part of communication takes place in many layers beyond words. And that is where culture - the context for language - makes itself felt.

Language is not perfect. But it is the best we have.

Maybe I miss the point entirely, and Pearl Harbor sucked. But this was after all, only a thought experiment.

When I no longer
have a spleen left to vent, then
I will howl jolly.

I swim in your wake!

I would urge you to post more. But you likely value quality more than quality, and so I will desist.

 

[deschutes]

As for me compromising with anyone who agrees with me

I think salt was referring to GWB. But I might be wrong!

 

[yaah]

I think salt was referring to GWB. But I might be wrong!

Ah ha! Now it makes more sense.

Sorry Salt! I misinterpreted. I think that whole use of the word "reculled" threw me off.

Deschutes have you ever thought about how we give animals human names? Does a dog really want to be called "Spot" or "Rover" or "Duchess" or "Aristophenes?" I doubt it!

 

[deschutes]

I doubt I have ever seen as much fire on the board. Together we may even give LADoc00 a run for his money.

"Vituperated" threw me off. Nothing like "recuperated", which was what I initially thought. But at least I answered that question.
I cannot find "reculled". I wish I had my Oxford. Now I won't sleep tonight.

Deschutes have you ever thought about how we give animals human names? Does a dog really want to be called "Spot" or "Rover" or "Duchess" or "Aristophenes?" I doubt it!

I can safely say, I have never thought about that.
Where I come from, a rabbit is called "Rabbit" and a dog is called "Dog".

My Iowa friend has a pet rabbit. Its given name is "Bug". When I was there it was occasionally called "Bunn-neee!"
I preferred to call it first name Stupid, last name Rabbit. She occasionally followed suit.

Told you she wasn't your type

 

[b&ierstiefel]

Salt, it's all good. Keep posting!

 

[deschutes]

From the Merriam-Webster Online:

Main Entry: cull
1 : to select from a group : CHOOSE <culled the best passages from the poet's work>
2 : to identify and remove the culls from



The last time I saw this word used in newsprint, was in the context of pigs infected with (I think) the Japanese Encephalitis virus.

 

[yaah]

Told you she wasn't your type

Now, see, are you sure? I am just as likely to name a rabbit Mahler or Kierkegaard (wouldn't it be fascinating to have a pet rabbit named Kierkegaard? This is Kierkegaard. He sleeps in a box, craps on a newspaper, hides behind the sofa when strangers enter, and eats bran pellets) as I would to call it @#$!head. I worked with a woman when I was in high school who had a pet cat named @#$!head, which caused problems when she took it to the vet and had to give the name. I loved this and resolved then and there to give my pet fish names like that.

So I named my fish things like "fishy" and "yellow fish" and "@#$!head" and "Cal Ripken" and "Bubbles" (named after my latin teacher) and "Oscar the Grouch" and then I got one I named after Mozart.

Try and categorize me now!

 

[b&ierstiefel]

omg yaah and deschutes, what in gaia's buttcrack are you two babbling about?

 

[deschutes]

I didn't mean to imply that you were predictable!

In the same way that I don't pretend to predict my friend's every move.

I highly doubt that my friend would call the "BuhNEE!" a @#$!head. In fact I've never known her to use the two words together. Then again, she wasn't the least offended when a colleague of hers called her pet a sh*tting machine.

I know for a fact that she would never call a rabbit Paganini or Webber or Harry or Bobtail or Furball.

I stand by what I said in the original post.

Would you like her phone number?

 

[yaah]

In the same way that I don't pretend to predict my friend's every move.

I highly doubt that my friend would call the "BuhNEE!" a @#$!head. In fact I've never known her to use the two words together. Then again, she wasn't the least offended when a colleague of hers called her pet a sh*tting machine.

I know for a fact that she would never call a rabbit Paganini or Webber or Harry or Bobtail or Furball.

Now I am more confused than ever. Are you going to call the rabbit Webber or did you mean Weber? I don't know any famous Webbers aside from the NBA star Chris Webber, the reprehensible Andrew Lloyd Webber (well, somewhat reprehensible, mostly for the abomination that was STARLIGHT EXPRESS) and the firm Paine-Webber. Weber, on the other hand, suggests Carl Maria von Weber, who was a star musician and relative contemporary of Beethoven who wrote my favorite opera, Der Freischutz.

But truly, now I have no clue what your friend is like, nor why I would not like her.

And voila, another derailment.


"Gaia's buttcrack"

 

[b&ierstiefel]

Yes. I could have said "what in earth's name" but I thought "Gaia's buttcrack" better represented my sentiments...my desire to throw stuff at the computer screen when I read this thread

Get her god damn number. Enough of this farting around! Run with it yaah...run with it!

 

[deschutes]

I meant Webber, Andrew Lloyd. And I am not even going to defend liking Tell Me On A Sunday.

I think you are confused because naming a rabbit Weber would perhaps mean that she had the same operatic interests as yourself... which is not the case

Again, you misunderstand - I did not say you would not like her. I only said she was not your type! In the same way that certain personalities don't go together. And this is not even about personality.

It will have to remain a mystery for now. I didn't try to explain it before, and I certainly won't now - it is beyond my abilities!

 

[yaah]

I meant Webber, Andrew Lloyd. And I am not even going to defend liking Tell Me On A Sunday.

Actually, that song is one of the reasons I would only partially disparage him. I love that song - I also like "I don't know how to love him" from Superstar which I had the piano music for and I use to improvise with (it had some nice chords and progression potential). And I must admit, I like "Memory" despite how overplayed it is and was. Although the rest of CATS is positively frightening. I saw it in person when I was about 10 or 11 and believe you me, I had nightmares for a long time.

Lloyd Webber also wrote Pie Jesu, right? That's gorgeous.

My type? Hmmmm...I wonder sometimes what my type is. I confuse myself sometimes.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

My type? Hmmmm...I wonder sometimes what my type is. I confuse myself sometimes.

Well for Gaia's sake, I hope you're not like my friend who would settle for any woman that has two legs and a heartbeat!

 

[yaah]

A heartbeat, you say? Sounds sexy. Between 50 and 75 beats per minute (resting), I dare to hope? A nice split S2? The occasional alluring suggestion of a friction rub? A clenched-fist induced soft flow murmur?

I am going to need to see either an EKG or an Echo. No blind dates here.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

that display of nerdiness was a bit overboard

you miss clinical medicine, i know it!

 

[deschutes]

"The Unexpected Songs" sung by Sarah Brightman has got all my favourites. Macavity is my all-time favourite Cats song.
Apart from that I completely agree with you about the musical. I saw it on TV and even then it made absolutely no sense.

As for your type - I would take a guess, but then you would have to kill me

I think we all know what our type is. Some know sooner than others. And it is all too easy to get confused by the appearance (and by this I mean looks, and not the act of surfacing) of what we are looking for.

But then I am single. So I am by definition talking out of my hat