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Post 80

Friday, July 24, 2015 - 9:41amSanction this postReply
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Although NCSSM loves to make a big deal of its annual Food Drive, this analysis offers somber food for thought about how bad an idea any food drive really is.



Post 81

Saturday, July 25, 2015 - 11:45amSanction this postReply
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Thanks, Luke! Between regular employment and freelance work, I volunteer -- for my self-interest, of course... I serve as the secretary of my local coin club. I mentioned my state guard service. I just signed on a project to help rebrand a local food bank.

 

Here in Austin, we have a fairly mature NFP support community, as you can imagine. On my team, we have a Project Manager (certified PMP), a web-designer, a customer liaison (sales contact), and me (content developer). We work for an agency called "Leap to Success" which finds these projects. The two-fold benefit is first, it gets things done for the NFPs, and, for us, it fills in the resume with projects between jobs. Rebranding an organization would be a new achievement for me.

 

Also, Laurel and I are members of the Wheatsville Food Co-op here, as we always have been co-op members wherever we lived. There's a lot of communism in the culture, for sure, but, I run into the occasional libertarian who responds to "We Own It".  They always have food donation boxes at the door.

 

Now, I have to think about this... 



Post 82

Saturday, July 25, 2015 - 3:56pmSanction this postReply
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NFP?

 

Natural Family Planning?

 

That was the hit I got on Google.



Post 83

Sunday, July 26, 2015 - 2:04amSanction this postReply
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NFP = Not for Profit. That's what we were discussing, and among them, it is a common TLA (three-letter acronym). But, I apologize. Friday, I assured a Fortune 100 company that I always write with the ultimate reader in mind.  "Always" is such a hard word to live up to. 



Post 84

Friday, September 18, 2015 - 4:58amSanction this postReply
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Post 85

Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 1:20pmSanction this postReply
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A recent thread on transgenderism made me think of the significantly disproportionate number of LGBTQ students at NCSSM.  Many such students apply to NCSSM to escape the stiflingly intolerant atmospheres at most normal high schools in North Carolina.  I was rather shocked at how many of my classmates came out during and after my years at NCSSM.

 

Anyone who applies to NCSSM needs to keep this in mind as the condition relates to the applicant's own personal comfort level around such people.  How much of your spiritual power will be consumed to accommodate the company of people so different from yourself?  Only you can decide.

 

Do you wish to share a dormitory room, locker room, or restroom with a transgender person like Jazz Jennings when at least one notable psychiatrist has argued that such a persuasion is in fact a mental disorder?

 

Jazz Jennings

 

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 10/10, 1:50pm)



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Post 86

Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 2:25pmSanction this postReply
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Context is king.  Would you feel uncomfortable around someone who believed in communism?  Yes?  Well, what if they only believed in it as a voluntary association, like a commune?   What if they try to push their beliefs on those around them?  On the other hand, what if they keep their beliefs to themselves? 

 

Different contexts generate different reaction. 

 

Do they understand that in the relevant context your beliefs, your nature, your reactions are very different?  If not, are they open to understanding that you don't want to interact in those areas where the differences exist?   Transgenderism is of course very different from political beliefs but I think that the concept of context and that of setting boundaries holds true.

 

For me, sharing a locker or locker room or bathroom would be no problem at all.  I'd only be concerned if the other person seemed to have some psychological boundary problems - if they wanted to flirt or interact in a way that felt sexual I'd just make a friendly remark that let them know I wasn't interested.  If they had some unpleasant attitude, I'd react in the same way I would if someone who was a straight male had an unpleasant attitude.

 

Carl Jung's concept of the shadow is interesting in this context.  If we have a negative feeling or discomfort when a transgendered person is close by (like in the same locker room) even if they are doing absolutely nothing overt, nor attempting to interact with us, then that is what Jung would have called a shadow reaction. 

 

It is something that lives in the shadows of our subconcious that is reacting to what we see -  something that we buried away long ago.  There is a lot of that in the United States (and Britain) that relates to sex.  It doesn't mean that we have buried sexual identity issues, but that we are uncomfortable in a way that is totally unnecessary and implies a weakness that might have been felt when we were young and still becoming a man or a woman.  But it is totally unecessary as grown adults. 


In other words, if we are in a locker room with someone like Jazz Jennings and she sees our private parts or we see hers, our parts won't fall off, nor will we suddenly 'catch' transgenderism.

 

Much of Europe has had common bathrooms for men and women for decades.  Many places have nude beaches, nude swimming pools, and not for the purpose of titillation or voyerism, but because their culture doesn't have the same degree of prudery that we do.



Post 87

Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 3:36pmSanction this postReply
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In an environment that already makes so many demands on a person's psyche, throwing transgenderism as another load on a person's psychological ship could be enough to sink it, at least for some.  As I mentioned in the original article on NCSSM, I knew of at least two suicide attempts during my two years there.  For those of us raised in a very traditional, old school, religious way, and who never knowingly signed for these unexpected burdens challenging our core beliefs ... well ... some of us will just have to disagree with the "package deal" of having to cope with these extra, unannounced, disagreeable burdens.

 

Even now as an atheist I would find having to share a room with a girl who "thinks" she is a boy -- or a boy who "thinks" he is a girl -- profoundly disturbing.  I am told the current roommate matching process has greatly improved over the years.  Typically an LGBTQ enrollee will self-identify on the roommate questionnaire and the matchers will attempt to match such an enrollee with another enrollee who checks the right "comfort level" box on the questionnaire.  Staff have told me that numerous LGBTQ enrollees have not "come out" to their families and so the questionnaire is treated as privileged information not readily available to their parents.

 

My junior year roommate and I fought so much about nonsense that I tried hard to select a viable roommate my senior year.  So I named the incoming junior from my old high school as my preference.  Unfortunately, after his mother cried twice about her boy leaving home so young, he changed his mind and stayed home.  So I got the senior no one else wanted, a boy who apparently suffered ablutophobia or fear of bathing.  Phew!  Luckily he stayed out of the room most of the time to engage in Dungeons & Dragons with his pals and left me in peace, but his odor lingered.  I learned always, always, always to try very aggressively to select decent roommates in college.  That had mostly good results.

 

Experiences like these lead me to encourage any students who have viable opportunities on the home front to live with their parents while attending high school and college for as long as possible.  All this crap about "growth opportunities" offered by dealing with the aforementioned situations is exactly that -- crap.  I attended college to place those credits on that transcript toward that degree in service to that career ... period.  Anything that enhances that purpose is good.  Anything that inhibits it is bad.  Dealing with LGBTQ issues inhibits rather than enhances that purpose and so is bad ... period.

 

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 10/10, 3:39pm)



Post 88

Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 4:20pmSanction this postReply
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Luke,

 

I would find having to share a room with a girl who "thinks" she is a boy -- or a boy who "thinks" he is a girl -- profoundly disturbing.

 

It shouldn't be.  Think about it.  Why is their issue about their sexuality a problem of yours?  You make rules about how you share the room and then go your own way.
---------------

 

I knew of at least two suicide attempts during my two years there.

 

No one commits suicide because they found themselves with a transgender roommate.  That doesn't happen.  People commit suicide over very powerful issues of their own.
---------------

 

For those of us raised in a very traditional, old school, religious way, and who never knowingly signed for these unexpected burdens challenging our core beliefs ... well ... some of us will just have to disagree with the "package deal" of having to cope with these extra, unannounced, disagreeable burdens.

 

If being raised in "a very traditional, old school, religious way" makes sharing a locker room with a transgendered person into a "disagreeable burden" that "challenges core beliefs," then those core beliefs should be rooted out and discarded - entirely.  If such a person is still upset with or burdened by the presence with an LBGT person that means that not all of those beliefs have been rooted out and the new beliefs have not been fully integrated.

 

To move away from traditional religion and to become an atheist involves a long period during which nearly every belief acquired while a religious believer has to be suspect.  And not just ideas, but also attitudes... in this case, attitudes surrounding sex.



Post 89

Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 5:13pmSanction this postReply
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Once again, Steve, we will just have to agree to disagree.  I have strong preferences about the people with whom I must share close living quarters.  As the saying goes, "The more people are like each other, the more they will like each other; the more people are not like each other, the more they will not like each other."  Trying to rationalize this away leads to disaster.

 

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 10/10, 5:14pm)



Post 90

Thursday, December 29, 2016 - 2:34amSanction this postReply
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NCSSM expansion causes concern

 

From the comments:

NCSSM isn't the best school in the world. Or even in the state. Worst two years of my life and most abusive. I would rather the current school be shut down than open a second.

LOL!



Post 91

Sunday, August 13, 2017 - 8:14amSanction this postReply
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But Somebody Obviously Did Ask for This Western Campus

 

At that comment link, I observe, in part:

As a side note, private conversations with various students over many years have revealed that, yes, some candidates decided not to attend or even apply because of the long distance from home. Others who did apply and gained entry did so to “escape toxic home environments” rather than because of the academic opportunities. Furthermore, most NCSSM students at the campus never get to take advantage of the research and other advanced opportunities that ultimately benefit only a small cadre of highly favored “top performers” at NCSSM. Most students will attest that the main benefits of NCSSM are freedom, friendship, challenge, and, yes, escape from toxic home environments. The western campus can deliver those same benefits. Consequently, that the western campus will have fewer research opportunities should not deter its establishment.



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