. hy the heck do you think anyone cares in the first place that you can't get along with somebody?

I don't think Joe is a troll. It just seems like he enjoys sharing his contrarian views, but puts very little effort into actually trying to understand what other people are saying (because he just assumes they are wrong). This has the unfortunate effect of being a lot like trolling, even if it lacks the same malice.

After the last JK post in this thread, NOBODY can convince me that there isn't some weird "leftist/rightist", political/social motivation to the drivel we're reading. Yeesh. Generalizations, hyperbole, rhetoric, intellectual dishonesty...it's all there. I sincerely apologize for my part in starting/continuing this mess.

If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck . . .

the proper shape of ice cubes

Logan Morrison might be an annoying jerk, but he has a position on public breastfeeding that's apparently shared by at least 25 to 40 percent of the population.

I stand completely by my original premises:...(2) If breastfeeding in public is just another normal activity that's perfectly acceptable in any public setting, then there should be no objection to pictures being taken (from a non-threatening distance, etc.).

For the people who believe this woman had a right to privacy while sitting in the middle of a department store, should Nordstrom's security department have shut down all of their surveillance cameras in the vicinity of this woman as soon as she was spotted breastfeeding?

Despite the BBTF lynch mob's absolute certainty that Zimmerman was a member of the Klan, the FBI's extensive investigation apparently yielded zero evidence that Zimmerman is a racist.

And, of course, this.

Other than this, or this, or this. And, of course, this.

The ever-faster evolving social dynamics of 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' is what's most fascinating about a discussion like this, and perhaps what ultimately gets Joe's knickers all in a twist.

Really, it's no more disturbing than people shoving it in at a Golden Corral.

Or gum chewing. Gum chewing grosses me the #### out for some reason and I wish the government would ban it already. Chew your cud in the privacy of your own homes, weirdos!

I made exactly ONE reference to "lefties" — a throwaway, jocular line that I thought would immediately be recognized as a recurring theme of the "OT: Politics" thread and be shrugged off accordingly. I love BBTF, but people take this stuff way too seriously.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, if it's OK to breastfeed in public, then why wouldn't it be OK to take a picture of someone breastfeeding in public? Why would a special right to privacy attach to that specific act that doesn't attach to anything else that's done in public?

Nobody used those specific words, but the fact it's apparently verboten to take a picture of a breastfeeding woman suggests people believe this specific act is deserving of more privacy than anything else that's done in public.

It seems like there's a cognitive dissonance here. If Morrison should have no problem with women breastfeeding in public, then breastfeeding women shouldn't mind having their photos taken by (perhaps classless or juvenile or prudish) people with camera phones.

No, it may be polite to look away, but she doesn't DESERVE it.

Of course she does. We all deserve to be treated politely. We all deserve not to be treated rudely.[/quote}

Do you consider it impolite of me to glance at a woman's exposed breast if she is breastfeeding in public? Does politeness dictate that I avert my head? I want to know exactly what you are considering 'polite' here.

I personally feel like if a woman is breastfeeding in public she should be treated with the exact same level of courtesy as anyone else, no special treatment needed. If I see her breasts as I am walking by, so be it. I do not feel like I should need to avert my gaze. Note that I am not talking about staring, I tend to think it is rude to stare.

Why we feel then need to bash someone who thinks differently is beyond me.

If you don't want to do that, have the decency find some place where you can whip your ### out in private.

Well I think discussing someones comments is more than OK. Attacking the person isn't. I agree there is too much of the second, but there you go. It is, however, not very mysterious, and it is very common on all sides. It is not like JK was an innocent and has never engaged in that behavior but the other posters were all mean to him.

There's a difference between an automated system that constantly takes everyone's picture and a weird, creepy dude with a camera who's only targeting one person. The security camera is obviously not taking her picture for any weird or creepy reasons, because it doesn't have a brain. Whereas there was a person on the other end of Morrison's camera, taking the woman's picture with active intent.

This would seem like a fairly easy distinction to grasp, even for someone like you.

You know that a lot of people avoid/don't read that thread, right (I mean, that's basically the reason why it's a separate thread)? I would be more careful with this kind of line in the future :) It sure seemed like a random insult.

People of Walmart website to be generally pathetic, classless, and mean.

I'm a big boy and I like mixing it up in these discussions, so the insults don't bother me. But it's comical to suggest that I'm the one who needs to raise the level of discourse around here.

What is the current acceptable age for weening?

I was just trying to maybe isolate where this misunderstanding originated?

I'd be really surprised if Nordstrom's security system was fully automated. You seem to be claiming that it's OK to film a woman while she's breastfeeding, and possibly keep such footage on file for months or years, as long as she doesn't know it's happening. This seems like an odd position to take.

If I was doing something I didn't want to be filmed, the middle of a department store would be the last place I'd do it, since (1) there are cameras installed every 10 feet, and (2) there's no guarantee that some "creepy" guy in the security department isn't compiling a "greatest hits" collection for his private use.

My very first words in my very first comment in this thread were, "Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, ..." I thought those words plainly signaled my desire for a dispassionate discussion of the issue Morrison raised, but instead, people started heaping opprobrium and trying to outdo each other in the outrage department.

but if you're 275 lbs and show up at Walmart wearing a thong and a fishnet bodysuit, class isn't really part of the discussion.

What if you're 7'6"?

Zenbitz, these people dress like this because they want attention, just like the guys with face tattoos want attention.

The security camera in a store records everything that passes in front of it, all the time. It's not picking-and-choosing what gets filmed, like a creepy guy with a camera.

It's also not capable of following or assaulting a woman, which is the natural progression for a creepy stalker who takes pictures of women without their knowledge. It isn't even capable of quietly having a prurient interest in the women it records, because it's a machine with no brain or genitals.

Where did you get this idea that actual human beings don't watch, record, and otherwise monitor in-store camera systems?

Where did you get this idea that actual human beings don't watch, record, and otherwise monitor in-store camera systems?

When a woman starts breastfeeding in the store, or a beautiful woman walks through, do you believe the $8/hour workers in the security department all turn their heads away from the screens, or do they use the available technology to get a better look?

This woman had no clue what the security staff was doing. For all she knows, the next Ted Bundy works in Nordstrom's security department.

From reality. A few weeks ago a local store got robbed. They didn't have their security cameras on. They were nothing more than a visual deterrent.

EDIT: Check that, it was a bar, it and the patrons got robbed.

Yeah, but your argument is that if a store has a bunch of arrested development employees who abuse the security cameras that means, ipso facto that a patron has no basis to complain if some jagoff non-employee takes a picture of her breastfeeding in the store and publishes it on the internet.

Uh, no, we were talking about the expectation of privacy when in public.

I'd love to know how many of the people who are bashing Morrison watched the infamous Erin Andrews tape. That would tell us all we need to know about people's senses of privacy, manners, decorum, etc.

We weren't talking about a bar.

Yes, we were. And since the inside of a store is private property owned by the store, not public property, your example was totally pointless. Women who see a printed notice posted at the store's entry stating that the store's cameras will be recording them and then choose to enter are by definition granting the store permission to record them.

Yes, because it's totally impossible for a rude, creepy person to recognize rude, creepy behavior being demonstrated by other people.

Whatever Joe. If I hadn't double checked what kind of business it was, what would you have said instead dismissing it away because it's not Nordstrom?

This is nonsense. I'm recorded all the time without being served with a written warning.

My point was very simple: Anyone who made the deliberate effort to find, download, and watch the Erin Andrews tape should have absolutely nothing to say re: Morrison's actions.

LOL. How many bars have a security staff sitting in a secure room monitoring the security cameras that have been deployed?

Hey, what's this? It's a copy of the "Security" section of Nordstrom's internal procedure manual! If you go to the top of page 2-12, the bit dealing with security cameras and the monitoring thereof, it says, "As an additional deterrent, signs should be posted throughout the premises, stating, 'This facility is equipped with a video surveillance system. You are subject to recording.'"

Way to totally ignore my point about the store being private property rather than public, BTW. Just because it totally undercuts all of your irrelevant blather about public expectations of privacy doesn't mean that you can't gracefully acknowledge that you were wrong.

Your point was simple, but also wrong, and kind of dumb. People don't need any kind of moral standing of their own to accurately recognize and call attention to bad behavior by others. You ever hear the expression, "Set a thief to catch a thief"?

Well, I thought my post made it more or less clear that most of it is ignored and discarded.

Would you like to actually answer the question I asked you?

Where did you get this idea that actual human beings don't watch, record, and otherwise monitor in-store camera systems?

I'll be happy to stipulate that not every single security camera in America is recording 24/7/365.

Have we all generally agreed that posting of the photograph, although legal on Morrison's part, was rude, regardless of one's position on the appropriateness of the public breastfeeding?

Where did you get this idea that actual human beings don't watch, record, and otherwise monitor in-store camera systems?

I think so, yes. But is it worse than the actions of people who lean back in airplane seats? I think not.

I'm a big boy and I like mixing it up in these discussions, so the insults don't bother me. But it's comical to suggest that I'm the one who needs to raise the level of discourse around here.

I think so, yes. But is it worse than the actions of people who lean back in airplane seats? I think not.

Again, I don't think you are actively trolling, and I certainly don't think you deserve to be called a racist nazi or whatever, but if you consistently illicit the same reaction from an array of people, you might want to consider that the problem isn't solely them.

It's hard for me to get uppity about airplane seats being used in the way they were designed to be used.

Yes, as an additional deterrent to theft, not as an additional privacy warning.

Wrong about what? Nordstrom is privately owned but it's considered a public area for purposes such as this. Nordstrom can't hang a sign that says "Blacks Not Allowed" or "Disabled People Not Allowed" just because the store happens to be privately owned.

Anyone who made the effort to find, download, and watch a video of Erin Andrews' privacy being violated has absolutely no standing to moralize about Logan Morrison's behavior.

The point was that the footage exists, and that the people who are filmed have absolutely no idea what's done with any resulting footage.

They certainly aren't under any obligation to allow people to take photographs of their facilities, employees, or customers if they don't want to do so. As such, from legal terms (since you seem bound and determined to try and argue from that perspective), it's highly relevant that this was a private establishment, rather than a public commons like a park or a sidewalk.

But since they've given their implicit consent by noting posted signs about video recording on the premises and entering the premises anyway, none of that matters at all. They've agreed to be filmed.

Even though it's gilding the lily on your wrongness on this issue, I'm staggered that you can't recognize the moral difference between an automated system that passively collects images without regard for content and a manual system (i.e. a creepy guy like Morrison with a hand-held camera) that deliberately selects and intelligently pursues them. The apparent intent of image collection from the woman's perspective is the source of the creepiness.

I still don't see the relevance of this or how you believe it refutes anything I've said.

But there's no legal requirement to post such signs...

you have no clue if this woman saw any such sign on her way into the store

I've spent far too much time in shopping malls, and I can't ever recall seeing a huge sign in a department store's entryway advising me I might be filmed.

Again, where did you get this bizarre belief that Nordstrom's security operations are automated and unmanned by human eyes? Big department stores have walls of TV monitors on which security staff — actual human beings — watch the customers.

If I was a woman breastfeeding in the middle of a department store, I'd be much more concerned about the 10 overhead security cameras that could be trained on me than I would be about some clown snapping a blurry camera-phone picture.

I don't deserve to be called a "racist nazi"? Well, uh, thanks. At least I have that going for me.

If only I was a liberal, things would be so much more peaceful around here ...

You wanted to talk about reasonable expectations of privacy in a public space, but since a Nordstrom store isn't a public space and doesn't operate under the same rules as one, your entire participation in this thread was totally pointless.

Humans may or may not be watching the tape at some point in the process, but humans are not directing which parts of the store are being recorded, because the camera paths are either static or pre-set patterns of motion.

An automated surveillance system can't be creepy in the same way, in that it is not consciously choosing what it does and does not record, but rather films anything in front of its lens impartially. It is an unthinking machine with no moral standing, a blank slate.

This just shows that you have absolutely no understanding of the way women think. How many women last year were robbed or raped by security cameras?

It's hard for me to get uppity about airplane seats being used in the way they were designed to be used.

This is loony tunes. How many women last year were robbed or raped by clowns who snapped pictures on their camera phone?

That this is what you took from what I wrote only illustrates my point.

Again, I don't think you are actively trolling, and I certainly don't think you deserve to be called a racist nazi or whatever, but if you consistently illicit the same reaction from an array of people, you might want to consider that the problem isn't solely them.

Second, to the extent I "consistently elicit the same reaction from an array of people," it's the same "array of people" who hurl insults at Ray, David, Dan, et al., for having the temerity to have non-conforming, non-liberal views

Show me ONE time this applies to me in ANY way, please.

I don't care. You're being intellectually dishonest in this thread and carrying on in the WORST way possible for constructive dialogue.

If it is indeed an intelligent discussion you were after, you wouldn't be conveniently ignoring facts lef and right and wouldn't be making this some political/social affair

After the last JK post in this thread, NOBODY can convince me that there isn't some weird "leftist/rightist", political/social motivation to the drivel we're reading. Yeesh. Generalizations, hyperbole, rhetoric, intellectual dishonesty...it's all there. I sincerely apologize for my part in starting/continuing this mess.

Nobody's nuked this abomination yet???

I don't know you, or your views. I don't care. You're being intellectually dishonest in this thread and carrying on in the WORST way possible for constructive dialogue. If it is indeed an intelligent discussion you were after, you wouldn't be conveniently ignoring facts lef and right and wouldn't be making this some political/social affair, as if people can ONLY be on one side or another and have to form their opinions/morals based on some silly label/affiliation. Just end the rhetoric. It's really lame at this point.

Second, to the extent I "consistently elicit the same reaction from an array of people," it's the same "array of people" who hurl insults at Ray, David, Dan, et al., for having the temerity to have non-conforming, non-liberal views. I occasionally answer snark with snark, but the long list of insults detailed in #236 suggests that it might be this "array of people" who have the problem here rather than me.

Dude, I'm not exactly liberal or sabermetrically orthodox (for that matter) and no one hurls insults at me. Hell, I couldn't get insulted if I paid people to flame me. I once wrote an article about baseball and Cuba that was linked here and it didn't start a political fight. I could say that I'm glad Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame and no one would care.

So people hurl insults for three pages and it's no problem, but I use the word "lefty" exactly one time and that was beyond the pale. Comical.

Also, if you don't have anything to add, why don't you leave, instead of returning time and again to post comments like these:

I don't ever recall seeing you in the political threads or seeing anyone mentioning you as one of the site's non-liberals.

You're really flailing now. The idea that the middle of a department store is considered a "private" area within the context of this discussion is ludicrous.

What is this, 1970? Security cameras have come a long way from what you describe. People can pan and zoom their security cameras from their iPhone while sitting in a Starbucks thousands of miles away from their home or business.

Except such systems are only automated some of the time, and can be manually controlled as soon as one of the human observers wants a better look at the subject at hand.

How many women last year were robbed or raped by clowns who snapped pictures on their camera phone?

I am going to be Frank Posted: July 27, 2012 at 12:58 PM (#4193691)

What is the current acceptable age for weening?

Do you remember me at all from those? Or has my profile here gone down that much?