32 Comments

Re the DBD topic, my best friend’s wife insists that if she were alone in the woods she would rather come across a bear than a man, and it was really kind of sticking in the craw of my buddy who kept complaining to me about it one day. I told him it is intentional hyperbole meant to provoke the exact reaction he is having! ☺️

It seems possible to me that bear/man thing is part of a larger trend - a lot of that Jonathan Haidt book “The Anxious Generation” is about how pre 1980s, parents generally let their kids roam free because they trusted other adults in the community they don’t personally know to help their kids if anything were to happen. Now, after the prevalence of “stranger danger” that arose with Etan Patz and similar publicized cases, parents not only don’t trust other adults to help, but see them as dangers. In SF there are even signs saying adults without kids cannot enter public playgrounds. The effect of this is to keep kids much more inside and online where, paradoxically, the real predators are. It also makes other adults feel like they could only be a danger to other people’s kids, removing any thought or expectation that they could be helpful, and as a result making them less helpful.

Back to the bear and the man in the woods, I know it’s meant just as way to playfully skewer men, but I wonder if that kind of framing if repeated could have a similar effect on men relative to their interaction with women - a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts that tells men they are only predators and as a result makes them so.

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Women are not joking when they say they would rather be in the woods with a bear than a man they don't know. I 100% would choose the bear. I think men don't really understand just how dangerous men are to women. There was a survey several years ago in which women were asked, what is the first thing you'd do if there were no men in the world and the overwhelmingly most popular answer was "walk by myself after dark." Seems simple but women can't safely do it, and only because of men.

How many men walk to their cars with their keys laced between their fingers so they can gouge an attacker's face? After one too many incidents of being attacked by men over the course of my life, I will exit an elevator I am riding alone if a solo man I don't know gets on. Certainly, not all men are threats, but a large enough percentage of them are that it creates a very different safety calculus for women than for men.

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Sounds about right…Murr from Impractical Jokers once said that everything in the woods is trying to either f-ck you or kill you…

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Back in the early 1960s, I used to read advice columnists Dear Abby and Ann Landers. (They were twin sisters. One of their columns was in the SF Chron.) Even way back then, they said 'I would NEVER get into an elevator alone with a strange man. I'd wait for the next elevator."

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women run into strange men ALL the time.

women NEVER run into bears.

this can be said for kids and men and just about anyone else who doesnt live in the forested areas frequented by bears.

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Ran into a Tahoe bear last night!

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Yeah I mean a bear without even intending harm could kill you by accident just due to how much more powerful of an animal it is than a human. It’s absurd I think to posit it as a serious question or choice; is intentional hyperbole in service of making a point

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CAL

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Started my NCAA '25 dynasty with Cal. Started with 2 blowouts, but this Auburn game is annoying. Their new crowd noise feature has it that when it's pumping, you can't even call the play that you want.

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Other thoughts? Worth getting? Xbox or PlayStation?

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It's fun, I'm playing on Xbox. Another annoying thing about playing Cal is they made our kicker REALLY bad. Like REALLY bad. I can do a perfect kickoff, and it will land at the 20. And I can't make a freaking FG because even if it's aimed at the correct direction, his accuracy is trash. But that gets solved by recruiting a better kicker next season.

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Too bad about the kicker! Makes me long for the days of the Game Genie. I had 3 of them, one each for Sega Genesis, Super NES, and Game Gear.

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Yup! I've played a bit more now. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but using custom conferences (to rebuild the Pac-12) seems to be a huge PITA and it leads to some wonkiness because you're forced to stick to the current ACC scheduling. I ended up restarting the dynasty just as an ACC team to make it easier.

Recruiting actually has some depth to it, which is nice. You have a certain allotment of "hours" you can spend as a coach focusing on all the different recruits.

The actual football side is pretty much Madden, but with college football playbooks. It's been fun to learn how to RPO since that was never a thing back when I still played Madden.

What I'm interested in is whether or not I can change the Cal game day atmosphere by winning enough since currently it's accurate (half empty).

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Former Bear Steve Birnbaum retires due to health issues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/07/16/steven-birnbaum-retires/

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Go Bears!!!

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PRO

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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DBD AV CLUB

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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For those of us going to the Auburn game and apropos to what one is drinking, the official state spirit is Conecuh Ridge Alabama Fine Whiskey. I've never heard of it before today.

https://www.distillerytrail.com/blog/what-is-the-official-state-spirit-of-alabama-conecuh-ridge-alabama-fine-whiskey/

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looking forward to sampling some.

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I think someone asked in the last DBD "is the ACC done?" I'll just enter this as evidence to the contrary:

https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1813197571277390028

Big Ten, SEC unlikely to add Florida State if it leaves ACC & ACC survives, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. Big Ten & SEC don’t want FSU because adding FSU doesn’t make financial sense, no desire to expand & “they’ve been a disruptive partner,” sources said

LOL FSU

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The bigger FSU/ACC defection rumors are a 4-6 team exodus from ACC to Big 12, w payouts just under SEC/Big 12. Note McMurphy’s statement above is qualified by “if ACC survives”…. More big conference swings to come, I hope Lions is on top of it for Cal.

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These are typically rumors dreamed up by Big 12 fans, and frankly FSU and Clemson probably do not care about moving from the ACC to the Big 12.

From the article:

"Last week, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said his league is “not looking to add more schools” and is focused on integrating eight new schools the Big 12 added recently."

It doesn't seem like there's much appetite for conference expansion right now. Could it happen eventually? Sure. Probably. But FSU wants out within the next few years and that seems very unlikely.

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FSU is basically the hot but crazy GF of CFB.

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I think FSU's hotness is diminished by its craziness.

"You're just not worth it."

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It’s time once again for Oski Disciple’s question of the day.

Did anyone else think that a cocktail was a specific kind of drink when they were a kid?

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My family, both sides, were enthusiastic drinkers so I became exposed early to the rituals and vocabulary. Cocktails, the term, I found incredibly interesting. It had a ring to it. Though early on, I seriously thought that Old Fashions were a varied class of drinks aka cocktails, from, say the early 1900’s. But mainly because my Grandmother always insisted one be made for her.

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Not this specifically, but “white wine or grape wine” was a memorable goof of mine in front of a small crowd of giggling adults.

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(raises hand)

Though I wasn't curious enough to know more until, well, beer and wine came onto my radar.

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i guess i knew they were a class of drinks when i began to know such things. since my parents didnt drink i found out at a later age which probably made it easier to avoid any confusion.

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Cocktails are roster rectrices, no?

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