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I’ve got questions to answer, and even a couple of statements to make, so there’s plenty to write about today. It will be chopped up into different posts, because, for one thing, I’m at work at this moment.
Before questions, I have to tell this tale. Last night Chris and I were out at a small Italian restaurant we were visiting as we were trying to get out of the rut of constantly going to Chili’s, Tin Star, BW3 and Chipotle all the time. The food was good, Chris had some vegetable pizza with spinach and artichokes and more, which I stayed safely away from with my bowl of pasta.
On one projection television they were showing the food network, but over the bar, there was a television with Fox News on it, close captioned. As many of you know, Fox News likes to cover any missing white girl story it can find, especially when there’s news that makes Tom Delay, or Dick Cheney, or George Bush look bad that’s being covered by other channels. The “human interest” of an abducted or disappeared 16-25 year old woman with decent photos from the last spring break is definitely newsworthy.
So, there it was, the needed story about some girl who was missing from her spring break trip, with the crying parents and all. It is sad, but not national news. Then they turned to another missing persons story, one about a male college student who apparently was drunk, and his dorm mates threw him down a trash chute, and now he’s missing. Apparently he got dropped into a trash truck, and now officials are looking for him in landfills in the area. It’s a terribly odd story.
Of course, not wanting to say anything bad about the likely dead, I still couldn’t help thinking about a quote from the movie, Better Off Dead, so I turned to Chris and said, “Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that.”
Now onto the first question I want to answer. John (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pteroglyph) asks me this about the post I used to solicit questions:
Why would one agree to answer all in a public venue and be open and honest and then, well, not?
Well, the first thing is, I said “ask me anything”, not that I will answer any question. Semantically, it’s different. I know that it’s a bit of a cop-out answer, but truly, it’s what I meant.
Now, to the deeper issue, why would I solicit questions and not want to answer? Really, there isn’t much of a reason to not answer, but I do have a couple of categories that I will deflect, or answer obscurely. First, I don’t want to answer a question that would end up having to try to think what someone else’s thoughts might be. I’ve run into a couple of entries I’ve written where I tried to guess what someone’s opinions of me, or a situation we were in, and I’ve gotten it wrong, and been called on the floor about it. I’d rather deal with questions about me, and not about others – unless it’s “is so-and-so hot?”, or something.
Second, I don’t want to answer a question that might put someone else in a compromised position, or reveal something that they may not want revealed. For example, Yes, I might have done something in a moving motor vehicle during TBRU, and I’ll own up to that, but the others may not want that revealed, so my truthiness factor is not telling all, or observing the lie of omission.
So, yes, you can ask me about anything. I will answer as honestly as I can, without hurting others. That’s the intention, and that’s what I’m sticking to.
If anyone wants to ask me a question, I’ll continue answering over the weekend.
Before questions, I have to tell this tale. Last night Chris and I were out at a small Italian restaurant we were visiting as we were trying to get out of the rut of constantly going to Chili’s, Tin Star, BW3 and Chipotle all the time. The food was good, Chris had some vegetable pizza with spinach and artichokes and more, which I stayed safely away from with my bowl of pasta.
On one projection television they were showing the food network, but over the bar, there was a television with Fox News on it, close captioned. As many of you know, Fox News likes to cover any missing white girl story it can find, especially when there’s news that makes Tom Delay, or Dick Cheney, or George Bush look bad that’s being covered by other channels. The “human interest” of an abducted or disappeared 16-25 year old woman with decent photos from the last spring break is definitely newsworthy.
So, there it was, the needed story about some girl who was missing from her spring break trip, with the crying parents and all. It is sad, but not national news. Then they turned to another missing persons story, one about a male college student who apparently was drunk, and his dorm mates threw him down a trash chute, and now he’s missing. Apparently he got dropped into a trash truck, and now officials are looking for him in landfills in the area. It’s a terribly odd story.
Of course, not wanting to say anything bad about the likely dead, I still couldn’t help thinking about a quote from the movie, Better Off Dead, so I turned to Chris and said, “Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that.”
Now onto the first question I want to answer. John (
pteroglyph) asks me this about the post I used to solicit questions: Why would one agree to answer all in a public venue and be open and honest and then, well, not?
Well, the first thing is, I said “ask me anything”, not that I will answer any question. Semantically, it’s different. I know that it’s a bit of a cop-out answer, but truly, it’s what I meant.
Now, to the deeper issue, why would I solicit questions and not want to answer? Really, there isn’t much of a reason to not answer, but I do have a couple of categories that I will deflect, or answer obscurely. First, I don’t want to answer a question that would end up having to try to think what someone else’s thoughts might be. I’ve run into a couple of entries I’ve written where I tried to guess what someone’s opinions of me, or a situation we were in, and I’ve gotten it wrong, and been called on the floor about it. I’d rather deal with questions about me, and not about others – unless it’s “is so-and-so hot?”, or something.
Second, I don’t want to answer a question that might put someone else in a compromised position, or reveal something that they may not want revealed. For example, Yes, I might have done something in a moving motor vehicle during TBRU, and I’ll own up to that, but the others may not want that revealed, so my truthiness factor is not telling all, or observing the lie of omission.
So, yes, you can ask me about anything. I will answer as honestly as I can, without hurting others. That’s the intention, and that’s what I’m sticking to.
If anyone wants to ask me a question, I’ll continue answering over the weekend.
