Doc Finds Name That Fits School Sock Puppets “Laden” With Logic Disorders
1 05 2008Great parody of Greg Laden’s anti-homeschool piousness passing as critical thought, over at Alasandra’s — if you can stomach the Tiny Cat Pants-style side show spectacle he’s staging in her comments. I still find it pretty tawdry but it IS hard not to gawk in disgusted fascination . . . .
Here’s the rotten vegetables he and his trolls are flinging at dear Alasandra:
If you have a chance, go over to this site and tell this girl that she should change the name of her blog post. I don’t mind that her post is a parody of a post I wrote. I mean really, I’m made out of rubber and she’s made out of glue … etc. etc. … But she really should not use the term she uses in the title of her post. This girl has shown evidence in the past of being a bit of a follower and I think this term is used a lot by “Doc” the home schooling mommie. But still, she should know better.
At heart I think she is a good person, if also a bit mean spirited, terribly misguided, and, well, not very smart. So if a few people tell her that derivations of the word “retard” are not OK, maybe she’ll have a learning moment. . .
Thanks
You know Greg and his followers are very amusing. They don’t know what something means so they decide it must mean such and such. They don’t bother to ask.
You would think that as a scientist Greg at least would know better.
I think it’s not from ignorance but determined ideology, just as they accuse the Young Earth homeschoolers of — they’re just like the anti-homeschooling feminists over at Tiny Cat Pants, howling because I skeptically retorted to their pronouncements of what “we” need schools to teach all children to know and do, “Who’s we, kemosabe?”
Gasp! The K word!
And now Dana extends the conversation to good effect:
And in Dana’a comments, Sunniemom coins a new word we can critique instead of Doc’s edutard: “Ladenblather” which sounds to me like lederhosen, which inspired me in turn to coin a new word perfectly fitting Greg Laden’s sock puppets — drum roll please –
Ladenhosen!
Good job JJ- now we have three new vocabulary words- The Ladenblather from the Ladenhosen who are too busy being Lessenberries to actually engage in intelligent debate!
And our new song can be “Don’t bring me Downes” .:p
Out of the last four anti-homeschooling rants the only one who was reasonable and interested in the discussion was a young guy in college I posted about last month. Great guy up for a real talk. All the real Lessenberryish edutards (this is fun!) have been educated older men who simply do not like being questioned. I’m guessing they especially don’t like it when the questioning is from a bunch of moms.
Odd that Greg’s sock puppets won’t comment here, or on my blog. Probably because wordpress comments (and viewable IP) can see that all the socks come from the same drawer…..
Or maybe our grammar is so good they can’t find anything to attack.
Ding, ding, ding! Dawn has the Ladenhosen all figured out and gets the Thinking Parent prize today.
And sunniemom, if we creatively layer their Ladenhosen — by whatever names they make up — over their Lockstep Edutards, we could perch them all up on the regulatory runway and gawk at them, as next season’s Back-to-SCHOOL fashion buyer’s show. . .
Oh, wait. Except there would have to actually be more than one human hoserack up there or it wouldn’t be much of a show.
Ladenblather! Ladenhosen! How wonderfully ridiculous. The stocking doesn’t fall far from the . . .
Nance
http://principleddiscovery.com/2008/05/01/why-do-we-care-what-greg-laden-has-to-say/#comment-755502
And there are some interesting comments at Dana’s. Mine included now.
But more interesting, to me, was Dana’s post about some edutard in FL — http://principleddiscovery.com/2008/04/25/homeschooling-cuts-children-off-from-oversight/ — and I have to go read more about that.
Sadly, I am wondering if there may be so many reasons to use the word “edutard” that we will all get tired of it pretty soon.
I love a new word but you can’t beat them to death. A recent new word here was “sprough.” I like it anyway.
Nance
Nance: okay, I’ll bite. Tell me about sprough!
Doc: You called it, wordpress blogs shine when it comes to troll puppets. NotJC and Snook swap the IPs to be sure we get them all covered. “CMF” used this one earlier today sniffing around:
IP 71.63.207.25
Dawn: You’re right about “Steve” seeming to be intellectually honest and wanting to have a real conversation, and so I was thinking you should invite him to join our “Panel of Steves” on Think TV?
When he reads that post, he’ll see what a HUGE honor it is to be included in that company!
Sprough is a new word. It means the action of pulling through a parking space into the empty space in front of the one you entered, either to park or to leave your parking space.
I heard about it when the creator of a new word list was on NPR. I couldn’t find a link just now but he had some proposed new words and this was one of them. He said if we used his words they would catch on like any other word. I don’t remember any of the other new words but I think of this one every time I park in a lot.
Nance
So obviously the correct pronunciation would be sproooh, to rhyme with through? Because you pull through — yes?
And then you can pronounce it sprow only to denote pulling through, and getting hit! Ow!
I was just composing a pronunciation comment when you posted JJ. The problem with those pesky -ough words is figuring out how to say them.
Maybe it is spruff, or perhaps sprow?
I can’t make any plausible meaning rationale for it but I LOVE spruff — especially if we could spell it that way!
CMF is 71.63.207.25? Interesting, that IP spent quite a bit of time at my blog today.
And amazingly enough, Greg is logged as 71.63.207.25 on a recent comment!
Oh Greg - you just get dumber all the time….
Figures. Meanwhile the matched Ladenhosen over at Alasandra’s are busy reweaving their wool into various illusions and diversions.
My comment there:
“So the Ladenhosen puppet show here is just more street theatre starring Dr. Laden and Mr. Hide Behind CMF, apparently all sharing one tormented soul. No one can save t-him from t-himselves but innocent townsfolk looking on in horror should beware the former sucking you in for the latter to victimize.”
Well, I have always thought of it as “sprough” — space plus through — but I suppose it could be spelled “sprew.” Dang kids want to change the spelling even before the word is established!
Nance
P.S. Spruff sounds like a completely different thing to me and not something you should be doing in a parking lot!
ROFL!
Sprew is too much like spew, hence viscerally unattractive and distasteful. I wouldn’t use it or even want it in my mind by choice. So that pronunication is fine but only if I can mentally “spell” it as sprough!
Spruff can be a completely different new word then, NotJC. Shall we define it or leave it deliciously naughty-sounding but unspecified?
v., -tard·ed, -tard·ing, -tards.
v.tr.
To cause to move or proceed slowly; delay or impede.
v.intr.
To be delayed.
n.
1. A slowing down or hindering of progress; a delay.
2. Music. A slackening of tempo.
Interesting that what they are taking offense at is actually just slang. But the standard definition fits much better so why assume the slang?
Or possibly just “he” as in singular.
Hi Dana, is that a windmill avatar? You make me think of riding in the car with Young Son (12) on the way to his bagpipe lesson the other night, listening to the local public radio. A springtime nursery ad came on, and some Mother’s Day gifts for the garden were being pushed at the end, including a very enthusiastic description for a set of “solar wind chimes.”
Solar wind chimes? retorts Young Son. If they’re WIND chimes then why do they need SOLAR power too??
(Do you know? He was indignant that it must be some really stupid marketing gimmick . . .)
Hey now, I got a set of those for my birthday. They don’t say ’solar wind chimes’ on the package, it just says “solar chimes”. So there. HA! However, they work when the sun isn’t shining…
Greg’s explaining the technology of IP numbers at alexandra’s. He says it isn’t him.
He gives real scientists a bad name.
Young Son did speculate that night, that probably they should’ve just called ‘em solar chimes but the announcer had a habit of mind he couldn’t break– hurray! Then we figgered it out . . . and in Florida at least, solar chimes make more sense than wind chimes, unless you’re on the coast with sea breezes (or in a hurricane, sigh) so why don’t they just SAY so? They would sell great!
Hmmm, so you think if we ever get wind-powered automotive technology, the first prototypes will be habitually called wind solar cars?
Can wind-powered things “store” wind power for use when it’s calm, the way solar-powered things store the sun power for use when it’s dark?
http://71.63.207.25/
So who’s Amanda?
Nance
I’m guessing his wife? His wife is a teacher and SMARTboard is what they use now instead of chalkboards.
Dana at Principled Discovery was a teacher, as was Sandra Dodd once upon a time. Doc has been a professor, as has Pam Sorooshian. I was deputy director of instruction for the whole damn STATE — not a dinky state either, one of the biggest — until the testing craze cranked up and I began to see how government was going to use the tests against teachers and schools and kids, which is when I quit and came home.
For GOOD.
This whole “my wife’s a schoolteacher so I am an expert” is so far beneath anything civil, much less analytical or intellectually honest or scientific, that it’s pretty discouraging to hear it go ON and ON . . .
That makes sense, Dawn.
And, yes, JJ, saying your wife is a schoolteacher is a pretty meaningless argument for or against anything.
As big an industry as ps is, we all have some relative working in it or connected somehow.
Nance
Oh, and didn’t he say his daughter was in seventh grade but a better writer than all of us commenting? Well, Favorite Daughter wasn’t commenting so I guess he wasn’t slamming her (again) but all of FavD’s college professors (and me too!) are quite clear that her writing ability is so singularly impressive precisely because she was NEVER schooled . . .
Nance, that’s true, I guess we should keep that in mind. And I wonder if it helps as much as it hurts, these days?
OMG, now you’ve gone and done it. You did a search! Amanda, of course, is CMF’s poodle’s name. IT’S NOT GREG, HE SAID SO.
I wouldn’t treat a dog (not even a poodle) the way CMF treats women (and girls, at least homeschool-friendly ones.)
Notice that this CMF signature is linked to, you guessed it, Greg Laden’s blog as its homepage. Go ahead, try it for yourself by hovering the mouse over it, here and/or at the Sweating Through Fog link itself, if you can stomach it.
I need a sock puppet. Jack Lessenberry has Thrasher, and Greg’s got CMF (and CMF and Thrasher are practically clones). My sock puppet will have to be the “nice” guy though….
Great, I can just see it now. Doc’s sock puppet will be some sap!
Doc, I think that’s a great idea. Then you could follow yourself around the internet and defend yourself when people get pissy.
Yes! I created a personality, complete with profile and real name (based on googling some religious fundy who was dumb enough to give out a lot of personal info online) in order to infiltrate a couple of boards I was banned from. I never caused problems, my sock puppet generally lurks and says things like “I totally agree! Our lord is an an AWESOME lord!” She’s been quiet for some time now - I think she needs a blog - that will make her more “real”.
From a comment I made at Principled Discovery:
Dana said
“I would think that someone who is Harvard educated would at least seek out the critics such as Reich and others who can state their cases clearly and present actual arguments . . .”
Me too! So it was a big tip-off for me last year, Dana, that this isn’t education conversation or policy debate on his part, just willful, political, serial attacking of his perceived enemies. Thinking homeschool parents get sucked down his rabbit hole when we come new to his “conversation” innocently believing it’s thoughtful education argument meant to address policy concerns in credible, collegial, civil fashion.
In what should have been a thoughtful, respectful thread about the “radical act of homeschooling” at Rolfe’s, for example, I (Dr. Ross) recommended to an oddly truculent Dr. Laden, the home education criticisms of political philosophy professor Dr. Rob Reich, as work any serious critic of home education would surely study and be prepared to discuss intelligently.
But thoughtful Dr. Laden fading into Mr. Hide Behind CMF, stupidly assumed I meant Rob Reich the former secretary of labor. (??) When I was able to catch and clear up that identity confusion, giving NHEN links where the scholarly arguments can be studied in some depth a la the American Education Research Association, he implied he would follow up and learn about Reich, Apple et al so he could better debate thinking homeschoolers at that level.
But by his new round of willfully ignorant and inflammatory, decidedly un-academic attacks and personal finger-pointing, Thinking Homeschoolers might hypothesize it was just another convenient untruth. . . .
Greg found that “Bitch” article, finally. He’s claiming it’s more interesting than the “loony” homeschoolers from his post. I guess he doesn’t realize most of those interviewed (or begged by the author to be, like me) and a majority of the comments are written by “the cabal”.
This one, you mean? Geez, he needs better sources, that was ages ago in Intertubes time — some feminist student of his threw it to him as red meat, perhaps sucking up for grade consideration in return?
And if his real beef is with the conservatively religious, isn’t he bright enough to read Bitch THAT way — which it pretty much is, or ought to be — instead of as some indictment of progressive unschooling, which is clearly isn’t and wasn’t meant to be?
p.s. — “Mind Your Head About Home Education and Religion
His bait’s stale, for sure.
Oh wait, now I understand. He points his readers to the “cabal”, insists there’s nothing interesting to read at “those” blogs - but he’s banned from reading them, so it’s his hope that his minion(s) report back to him.
Now he can’t read?
He’s having a tough month!
Nance
Not to mention how anti-feminist his foaming-at-the-mouth “CMF” Ladenhosen styles himself, and how painful a read anything in Bitch Magazine would therefore be, and how unlikely then it would be as blog fodder for t-him.
(Well, in a rational universe anyway!)
“Sock Puppetry at Home for Fun and Profit” (the comments are the key)
Sock puppet attack at 10:00! Oh wait, it’s just the computer lab.
Is THAT where all my missing socks wind up, the computer lab?
I always thought socks were wire coat hanger eggs . . .
BTW, it seems rather than being the bane of my existence in their proliferation, wire coat hangers are suddenly at a premium? . . .
Hangers? Whaaaa. . . I remember seeing a few of those a long time ago. Back when I used to have to dress like a grownup.
Nance
DH still has to pretend to be one downtown, so I’m quite chummy with the nearest dry cleaners as we do our “car-schooling” (no way I’m staying home slaving over the ironing board to keep him in dress shirts!)