Just so you aren't lost, this is simply carrying over a conversation Randy and I were having. Since it wasn't related to the puzzle anymore, I decided to take it off-thread, and on-forum :)

Well, I think I’m a liberal tree-huggin hippy, but I don’t think I have their stereotypical view of PC stuff =)

I could go into lots of details, but the short version is simply I just don’t like it when stereotypes are blatantly "oppressive" (like how only Mama’s got the magic of Clorox), or the anti-stereotype is blatantly forced (like a textbook referring to something typically male, like an accountant, as a she).

And a simplified version of my POV on the racial labels is simply, why have them at all? I'm thinking of various times when people use them, and I think I can give examples of not needing them at all. Instead of playing the "what is PC today" game, just don't play at all :) Besides, eventually we'll probably all get mixed up and you won't know who's what anymore anyways :)

Nikki,

First of all, you need to consider your target audience. I don’t think there was any need for you to respond to Randy’s ridiculous comment.

When he posted the comment to “Even Sequence” that told you to try looking at prime numbers, I almost replied. I wanted to ask him if he was trying to give a hint to one of the most brilliant flooblers out there. I also wanted to challenge him to state the reasoning behind the numbers he provided as a solution. Then I considered my audience. I mean: “this is the guy who keeps stating that he is god.” I realized that any reply to him would be a waste of time.

You do make some good points though, and I agree with most of your statement. It would be nice if gender could be avoided when describing events, thoughts and actions, but the English language just isn’t set up that way. In the Filipino language for example, there is no term for she or he. Instead they have a generic term for both, “sia.” Unfortunately, the closest we have is the “he/she” sometimes written as “s/he.” I try to avoid using he and she, but as Sam pointed out, it is difficult to write in gender-neutral terms. After struggling around with gender-neutral terms for a while, I will eventual put some “she/he’s” in there. I like to write she first in a feeble attempt to draw attention to my disdain for the term. It would be nice if I could use “guy/guys.” Many people consider this term to be gender-neutral, but then CeeAnne didn’t appreciate you calling her a guy. Did she? It is a struggle, and the only thing we can do is cope and try to influence people when possible. I don’t think Randy is worth your time.

On the other hand, did you actually mean to say:

“Well, I think I’m a liberal tree-huggin hippy, but I don’t think I have their stereotypical view of PC stuff =)”

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you just take a group of people, slap a label on them, and give them all the same point of view? I’m not trying to nit-pick you. Instead I am attempting to draw attention to just how difficult it is to deal the problem of stereotypes and discrimination. We all have our baggage. It is easy to spot someone else’s baggage. The hard part is to notice the baggage we are dragging behind ourselves.

My next question is: How can you not play the PC game when you are doing a PC check? Sorry Nikki, but I think you let Randy piss you off. I don’t understand why. For someone to get to me, I would first have to value her/his opinion. If you, Charlie, Heartberry, Brian Smith, SK, Gamer, Tristan, Federico, Corey Taylor (and there are many others on this site) told me something, I would attach value to that statement. Not so for Randy.

Something completely different: I cut down 13 trees in my yard this summer, and I like trees.

Hey guys =)

Thanks for all your great opinions and points of view. I think it’s great when we can have differing opinions without being pushy and stuff.

It seemed to me that there were a couple times when you guys misunderstood me, though, so I just wanted to clarify, and then also just respond. Of course, it could just be that I misunderstood YOU =D

To Sam –
When textbooks call astronauts, engineers, accountants, or anything else typically male, “he” I actually don’t mind. It doesn’t fall into the “oppressive” category for me. I take it simply as a pronoun, and that’s it. Forcing the opposite pronoun just makes an issue out of pronouns altogether. I do agree that using the gender neutral term “their” won’t work. Not only is it clunky, but also grammatically incorrect. I don’t know if these examples are consistent, but the “Mama’s got the magic of Clorox” thing bothers me, someone at work saying a generic statement like “the project leader should then take his reports to…” doesn’t bother me but “the project leader should then take his… or her!… reports to…” does bother me. I hope that illustrates what I meant a little better.

Oh yes, and you were correct about my reference to liberal tree-huggin hippies =)

To Bruce –
I actually wasn’t pissed off by Randy at all, but I can understand how it seemed that way. Yes, when he made that statement about marriage, for a second my eyes popped and I went “woah!” but then I finished the paragraph and sensed the sarcasm. He was jabbing me for jabbing at the pc topic in the first place. And while I referred to my explanation as being “non-offensive” all I was implying about Randy’s was that it could be taken offensively by some people, but not by me, cuz I caught the sarcasm.

Also, I understand your opinions about whose statements to value, or dignify with a reply. But consider this – there are many well-respected perplexurs (by the way, thank you for the compliment) that weren’t so well liked when they first arrived. I remember how much of a commotion Penny made when she got here, SK even had a few moments, and I know I suffered from snotty newbie syndrome as well which I am ashamed of now. But we all got the “flow” of the site eventually, and I think Randy will too. He has actually mellowed =) Though he might be very excited today about the RedSox =)

I like that “sia” thing… I wish we had something like that here. Maybe we should make one up and submit it to Webster =) Hey, someone invented Ms. so there was a marriage-neutral title for women, so it could happen =) Oh, and I think CeeAnne said she was just joking =)

If you didn’t see what I said to Sam, he was right about my reference to the liberal tree-huggin hippy thing. I do have lots of baggage, but not in this form (I don’t think). Most of mine is parental =)

I suppose I was playing the PC game, but it was meant to make fun of the PC game, if that makes any sense =) The best analogy I can give is that I think certain snobby table manners are silly. I might make fun of someone for doing the “wrong” thing, like “Ohhh! You used the dinner fork in your salad!” but I’m really making fun of the rules and not the person.

Well, I hope I made my POV a little clearer to you guys =)

Nikki,

Please disregard my "Blatantly Forced" remark. I understand what you meant quite clearly. As you can tell, I did a lot of screwing around in that post. When I re-read it, I realized that the remark was confusing at best, stupid at worst and not funny at it's derivative. sorry

Back to work. I'm learning about the Mean Value Theorem.

Nikki,

Sorry that my other statements were ridiculous enough to make you wonder whether the “mama’s got the magic of Clorox” statement was genuine or not. I really don’t think it is oppressive or offensive, but in my defense, I can’t remember the last time I saw the ad. I rarely watch TV. I prefer to work on stuff in the garage or to play games on the computer. Please feel free to expound. I don’t want to waste your time, so please start with a couple of your most compelling arguments. This reduces the possibility of me forgetting to re-read everything you say and take it out of context. (I love to make something easier for someone else when it is actually to my benefit)

I couldn't tell you about the integral thing. I just got to chapter 6 covering Extreme values, Mean Value Theorem, and Curve Sketching. I worked my way through the first 4 chapters in a little over a month. Chapter 5 took another month to get through, so I have no idea of when or if I’ll get to the integral. I never got as far as trig in HS. Dumb mistakes during my first year and a half of HS severely limited my options. My goal is to be able to help my son in a couple of years when he gets to Calculus in his senior year. Perplexus (upgraded from my previous Flooble) helped me realize that my math skills are not up to par.

Bottom Line: It could take 2 years to infinity to find the integral. Intuitively I don’t expect it to be funny there either.

Ahhhh yes “The Club”. I wondered if you would know what club I am a member of. “The Club” is the group of white males. From what I understand we make all the decisions in society, determining what percentage of everything every other group is actually allowed to have. I have yet to find out when and where these meetings are held, but as soon as I do, things will start to change.

Fourthly, I knew you would get my making fun of the rules jest.

Something completely different: I have been searching for a new, “old puzzle” to submit. I ran across a list of puzzles that attempts to determine origins. While skimming that list I noticed the following:

A. A. Huntington. More on ladders. M500 145 (Jul 1995) 2-5. Does usual problem, getting a quartic. Then finds the shortest ladder. [This turns out to be the same as the longest ladder one can get around a corner from corridors of widths w and h, so this problem is connected to 6.AG.]
David Singmaster. Integral solutions of the ladder over box problem. In preparation. Easily constructs all the primitive integral examples from primitive Pythagorean triples. E.g. for the case of a square box, i.e. w = h, if X, Y, Z is a primitive Pythagorean triple, then the corresponding primitive solution has w = h = XY, x = X (X + Y), y = Y (X + Y), L = Z (X + Y), and remarkably, x - h = X2, y - w = Y2.

I don’t know what this means, but it appears to be a simple method for solving “Moving Day” submitted by Brian Smith. There were also other references to a quartic (don’t ask me) and using the quadratic due to similar triangles.

I tell you this, of course, for no reason.

Hey Bruce,

After thinking for a minute I figured this was the thread you were talking about out in the chatterbox. Let me first say my lack was response was due to NEITHER of those two cases. Of course, I haven't figured out when you are joking or not, so maybe I'm sounding all innocent/naive/trusting/whatever again =).

I think I did start to compose a response with "a couple of my most compelling arguments", but never posted it for one or more of the following reasons.

(1) It got too long.
(2) I got too analytical, worrying that someone would misunderstand so I agonized over the wording (and that can go on forever with me).
(3) I forgot to post it.
(4) I went on a hiatus from Perplexus and forgot all about this thread (sorry!).
(5) I don't know =)

BTW, the lazy/incompetant portrayal of men on commercials/TV shows bothers me just as much as Mama's Clorox Magic does. I'm not sure if you were joking or not when you mentioned it, so maybe we agree and I don't even know it.

It's hard for me to explain why these examples bother me. (BTW, I am not implying that you suggested I didn't understand any of the following). I understand how marketing and target audiences work. I understand that certain portrayals don't MAKE people behave a certain way. I don't expect anyone to suddenly go "I should be a housewife and do 100% of the laundry" or "I can be a stupid oaf to get out of doing stuff around the house? sweet!" after watching one of these commercials.

But I do think it sends a message. The best way I can word the message I think it says is "Everything you see here is acceptable behavior. It is acceptable that women are the only ones who do the laundry, and it is acceptable that men are lazy and clumsy like this." If I were a single father I would get tired of seeing so many things I do being shown as a Woman's job or a Men-Are-Bad-At-This job, because they are everyone jobs. I was so happy to see the comercial for some Johnson's baby night time bath soap where the father is taking care of the baby and bathes it without looking confused or bumbling the WHOLE time. It wasn't forced, it wasn't trying to make a political statement. It was just a commercial and that made me happy :)