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1. What are your pet liberal issues (glbt, women's rights, guns, death penalty, environment etc)
Public nudity, and the shameful lack thereof (especially by Salma Hayek). Right behind that, I'd probably have to say environmental issues and education (or the lack thereof, in this country). And I think the lack of universal health coverage in the USA is a national shame, and urgent need, and essentially a matter of national security. Of course, the common root of all these evils are the neocons and their ilk that preceded them in various guises.
2. What's the worst injury you have ever had?
I've had lots of painful ones, most rather transient, by virtue of having spent a lot of time outdoors doing things that all too often hurt way too much. Probably the most serious discrete injuries so far have been when I almost cut my right big toe off as a kid (and was trying to pull out from the wound what turned out to be my bone) and when I had my worst motorcycle crash, at age 20, and broke my leg and completely dislocated the foot (it could do 360s). No spinal injuries or anything, thank goodness. Motorcycle helmets saved my life perhaps as many as four times, and for sure twice -- it's moronic not to wear one (if you're riding a bike, I mean...wearing it to a Tupperware party, for example, would probably be a bit of overkill).
3. How long is your ignore list?
Getting longer all the time. I didn't have one until recently. Now it's got 16 people on it. So far I've only included people who annoy me beyond all reason or whose yapping dilutes the content of this place far beyond any civilized extent, not people who are mean and nasty or who were actually out to get me (the worst offender there is tombstoned now, anyway), and not probable Freepers (I come here so infrequently that they're usually already axed by the time I come back, and they're easy enough to ignore the old-fashioned way).
4. When did you join DU? Was it better then or is it better now?
I'm not sure when I actually joined. I know it was at least 2003 but I feel like it was earlier...I read DU for a long time before I signed up, perhaps explaining my uncertainty.
It was better then. I know a lot of people here will claim the usual counter, that it's always been what it is and that there was always good and bad, but it was better then. Somewhere in 2005 (I was absent most of that year) it changed, very fundamentally, and a new cohort was very obviously dominating the Lounge. On top of that, a nasty PM-driven set of personal attacks, that resulted in a war that was more often than not fought so covertly (albeit often in plain sight, just with great subtlety) that most people here were at least as oblivious as I was, changed the tone here markedly. It was pretty much a loss of innocence for DU, I think, even if most of us had little or no idea what had happened -- I see it as the single defining event that changed DU for the worst. It resulted in some bannings, but its other effects are still felt and skirmishing still happens here along those old battle lines. And, of course, the people on my ignore list pretty much know how I feel about the unprecedented 'dumbing down' of DU in the last year or so.
I think DU's last glimmers of a 'golden age' were somewhere in late 2004. Yes, it's common enough to look back on the 'good old days' no matter how good they actually were, but I do not believe that this is an artefact derived of nostalgia for me. I don't think DU will ever be any better than it was then (or even is now), and not solely as a consequence of larger numbers of participants.
5. If you went to college, where did you go?
I went to two, in two different countries. Don't want to name them right now because I've already had enough fun with a deranged stalker from this forum.
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