Skatje writes about love, sex, and long-distance relationships. She explains why it makes perfect sense to fall in love online, and why it makes none to ditch an online partner for physical reasons, like “he’s a bad kisser.” Having my own not completely positive experience with long-distance relationships, all I can say is “Right on.” I think long-distance relationships’ main problem isn’t lack of sex, but, at times, lack of good conversations. In half an hour together, Katie and I would have good conversations conveying as much information as a five-hour MSN session.
Via Appletree: Israel and Hezbollah are holding talks about prisoner exchange. Previously Israel refused to hold talks, but now it apparently agreed. It’s as usual a positive development – the prisoners in question are always political rather than criminal – but it would’ve been a more positive development if it had occurred in July, before Israel lobbed bombs on select areas of Lebanon.
On Feministe, Lesley fisks the parts of the Kendall porn-rape study that I didn’t. She explains that the study critically lacks offender profiles, doesn’t distinguish porn consumption from non-pornographic net use, and fails to control for variables that specifically impact rape rates rather than the general crime rate.
Lindsay talks about the safety crisis in New York. Lack of enforced safety standards makes New York’s scaffolds very likely to fall, killing the people on and below them. This is especially significant to the current election, since New York State’s comptroller, who’s running for reelection now, has made it a priority to enforce safety standards by auditing cranes and scaffolds.
There’s an online poll for the scholarship I attacked earlier for being too parochial. There are ten finalists, the top vote-getter of whom will win the scholarship. I know about two bloggers out of ten, Shelley and Jenna. But I have to play favorites based on who’s on my blogroll, so I’m going to root for Shelley, who’s only third, with 1780 fewer votes than the leader.
Abstract Nonsense 
Skatje’s got it right on – but I would never ever ever let myself fall for someone over the internet again. Unless it automatically jumped to how you and I talk now, which is a lot less time consuming and irritating to how we tried to talk when we were… ‘together’.
I think the main problem with long distance is your lacking the ‘togetherness’. There is something to be said for being able to just sit together sometimes. You can’t really do that online or on the phone. …and I can get a much better sense of what you’re feeling/thinking when I can actually see you.
Just as a random point – I’m going with Jenna for the poll.
Thanks for the vote of confidence!!
It wasn’t that hard, without anyone else on my blogroll. It would’ve been harder if it were you, Vanessa Valenti, Vanessa Gatsch, Jill, and Skatje.
The BBC, which is the source for Mr. Packards information relative to the indirect contacts between the Hizbollah terrorists and the Israeli Government, is totally unreliable in its coverage of Middle East news. The BBC is second only to the Guardian as the most anti-semitic Israel-bashing news organization in Great Britain. That doesn’t mean that the information contained in the story is inaccurate, in so far as that such contacts are taking place; however, one can be assured that the spin put on the story by the BBC will be heavily slanted in favor of the Hizbollah terrorist organization. The necessity for these indirect negotiations is due to the incompetence of last Summers’ excursion by the IDF into Lebanon and the failure to destroy the Hizbollah terrorist infrastructure because of that incompetence. It also appears that the Israeli Government is making the same set of mistakes in its excursions into the Gaza strip. Maybe the entrance into the Government of Avigdor Lieberman will provide some stiffening of the governments’ spine and a reduction in efforts to appease terrorists.
[…] Gordo has joined the dark side of people who hate me for no good reason. He’s spreading pernicious rumors about my link posts: [Link] Marketing genius Alon Levy now has a Wednesday Links edition. Hmm…I had link days on Sunday and Thursday, and Alon started a blog and instituted a Saturday Link feature. Now he’s got a Wednesday Link feature as well. Can Thursday Videos be far behind? […]