The stupidity never ceases to amaze me

[Jenny_Jackson]

So, I wrote a story that is, as stated in the author's note, "mostly true." http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=352553

MOSTLY I said. I admit there is some license in the story, because the events occured between the time I was one year old and five. In the story I protrayed myself as somewhat older. In fact, I was a little kid.

So this morning in my email is a scathing damnation telling me I'm an asshole, the story is all a lie because my father could not have been hanged in 1968 (the family stories have said for my entire life that my father "was hanged by the Brits"). Well, does that mean he was litterally hanged? I don't know.

Was I really shot through the side by a British soldier when I was 5? I think so. I still have the scar.

I think the line in the "feedback" that irritates me most was, "...you Americans need to get over it." Get over what? Being shot? Being forced by the Brits to leave my home? The murder my father and other members of my family? Exactly what this moron was getting at is not clear.

Admittely, Belfast is a very different place now as I saw a couple years ago with my own eyes. But dear commentor, you don't get over your own personal history unless you are as callus and unfeeling as you are. Now fuck off.

J Jackson (in an irritated mood)

 

[oggbashan]

Trolls can be British idiots too. No nation is exempt from a proportion of assholes.

If the citizens of every country where we Brits have killed someone as part of a military action were to boycott us we wouldn't have many trading partners left. I don't think we were ever officially at war with Switzerland but apart from Antarctica (and South Georgia is very close) we have fought almost everywhere else in the last 300 years. Even Nepal and Tibet were not immune from the Redcoats.

Northern Ireland is now a very different place. I hope the wounds will heal and people there can live in peace with each other and forgive, while never forgetting, the atrocities of history.

Og

 

[DesertPirate]

Jenny, I read the story and liked it. I don't think it is at all hard to believe. I suspect it is more true than fiction. I have met a few other Irish that left during the "troubles" and your story fits too well. Thanks for a good one.

*since you didn't enable PCs this will do*

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The capacity of the species to be thoroughly horrible to each other passes understanding.

 

[sr71plt]

You seem to be leading with the chin on this. After turning off the voting and comments on the story, why trot out reaction to e-mail reaction to it here?--other than that you are highly emotional about the subject matter, which I got in reading the story.

I don't dispute the "mostly true" aspect of it, but it's not really a story at all, is it? It's an "emotional slice" vignette--it doesn't really start anywhere or go much of anywhere. I thought it was a bit confused and confusing--I had to go through it twice to figure out who the characters were--Linny was just dropped in and I had to go back and assure myself she hadn't been mentioned previously, and, yes, the timing aspect seemed out of whack. I only read it at all because it was at the top of the daily list, where the selectors tend to put stories they think worthy of notice.

I don't really even see where it presents more than a hazy view of the issues at stake--either on a political or a family level. It doesn't seem fully digested, let alone reformed then into a cohesive story presenting more than a rather hazy sense of loss. But I did get a sense of the emotional turmoil involved--as I do with the "still confused" heat of your response to one of your e-mails and your need to hash it out publicly on AH after cutting off any possible direct public response to it where the story is located.

I'm sure you will rail at this too, but, sorry, I don't see an "eh what?" response to the work as stupid--just as possibly not getting to the point of the "eh what?" I'd like to see a real story, fully digested, and cohesively imaging/presenting clear points emerge from this.

 

[sweetness6280]

You seem to be leading with the chin on this. After turning off the voting and comments on the story, why trot out reaction to e-mail reaction to it here?--other than that you are highly emotional about the subject matter, which I got in reading the story.

I don't dispute the "mostly true" aspect of it, but it's not really a story at all, is it? It's an "emotional slice" vignette--it doesn't really start anywhere or go much of anywhere. I thought it was a bit confused and confusing--I had to go through it twice to figure out who the characters were--Linny was just dropped in and I had to go back and assure myself she hadn't been mentioned previously, and, yes, the timing aspect seemed out of whack. I only read it at all because it was at the top of the daily list, where the selectors tend to put stories they think worthy of notice.

I don't really even see where it presents more than a hazy view of the issues at stake--either on a political or a family level. It doesn't seem fully digested, let alone reformed then into a cohesive story presenting more than a rather hazy sense of loss. But I did get a sense of the emotional turmoil involved--as I do with the "still confused" heat of your response to one of your e-mails and your need to hash it out publicly on AH after cutting off any possible direct public response to it where the story is located.

I'm sure you will rail at this too, but, sorry, I don't see an "eh what?" response to the work as stupid--just as possibly not getting to the point of the "eh what?" I'd like to see a real story, fully digested, and cohesively imaging/presenting clear points emerge from this.

Exhibit A

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

You seem to be leading with the chin on this. After turning off the voting and comments on the story, why trot out reaction to e-mail reaction to it here?--other than that you are highly emotional about the subject matter, which I got in reading the story.

I don't dispute the "mostly true" aspect of it, but it's not really a story at all, is it? It's an "emotional slice" vignette--it doesn't really start anywhere or go much of anywhere. I thought it was a bit confused and confusing--I had to go through it twice to figure out who the characters were--Linny was just dropped in and I had to go back and assure myself she hadn't been mentioned previously, and, yes, the timing aspect seemed out of whack. I only read it at all because it was at the top of the daily list, where the selectors tend to put stories they think worthy of notice.

I don't really even see where it presents more than a hazy view of the issues at stake--either on a political or a family level. It doesn't seem fully digested, let alone reformed then into a cohesive story presenting more than a rather hazy sense of loss. But I did get a sense of the emotional turmoil involved--as I do with the "still confused" heat of your response to one of your e-mails and your need to hash it out publicly on AH after cutting off any possible direct public response to it where the story is located.

I'm sure you will rail at this too, but, sorry, I don't see an "eh what?" response to the work as stupid--just as possibly not getting to the point of the "eh what?" I'd like to see a real story, fully digested, and cohesively imaging/presenting clear points emerge from this.

No, I'm not railing SR. It is exactly a viginette. Linny is my girlfriend of four years. We knew each other in Belfast and met here in the U.S. about 5 years ago.

The timing is confused because of the time span covered (35 years) and the telling and retell over the years by my family has clouded much of the true facts as the occured.

But the point is, although it is based on facts as best as I can recall them from my childhood (admitting that those memories are faulty) this is still fiction.

If someone is offended by my rememberances then it's their problem, not mine.

 

[sr71plt]

No, I'm not railing SR. It is exactly a viginette. Linny is my girlfriend of four years. We knew each other in Belfast and met here in the U.S. about 5 years ago.

The timing is confused because of the time span covered (35 years) and the telling and retell over the years by my family has clouded much of the true facts as the occured.

But the point is, although it is based on facts as best as I can recall them from my childhood (admitting that those memories are faulty) this is still fiction.

If someone is offended by my rememberances then it's their problem, not mine.

But, in presenting it as a story, this is your problem, isn't it? I think there's very good material there for a very good story. I can see why what is there now would confuse a reader, though. And I continue to question, after cutting off all public response at the point of the story, it is popping up here for public discussion. Seems like emotional manipulation to me.

 

[Xelebes]

If the citizens of every country where we Brits have killed someone as part of a military action were to boycott us we wouldn't have many trading partners left. I don't think we were ever officially at war with Switzerland but apart from Antarctica (and South Georgia is very close) we have fought almost everywhere else in the last 300 years. Even Nepal and Tibet were not immune from the Redcoats.

Og

What about Mongolia?

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

But, in presenting it as a story, this is your problem, isn't it? I think there's very good material there for a very good story. I can see why what is there now would confuse a reader, though. And I continue to question, after cutting off all public response at the point of the story, it is popping up here for public discussion. Seems like emotional manipulation to me.

Weirdly enough, I didn't cut off either the voting or feedback. I've never done that. It occured outside my submission.

As far as emotional manipulation it was meant to be an emotional piece of fiction. The actual month I spent in Belfast was an emotional roller coaster. But here? No. That's just your take from over diagnosis.

 

[sr71plt]

Weirdly enough, I didn't cut off either the voting or feedback. I've never done that. It occured outside my submission.

That is weird. So the Web site will impose that on stories? I wonder why.

 

[oggbashan]

What about Mongolia?

I think we were there "helping" the White Russians in 1919...

Og

 

[oggbashan]

Death Penalty in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland

The last person hanged in Northern Ireland was in 1961 - for murder. That was long before "The Troubles".

Link to Wiki Here

Og

 

[DesertPirate]

Have you noticed that some people are born a pain in the butt and others work real hard at it?

 

[sr71plt]

Have you noticed that some people are born a pain in the butt and others work real hard at it?

Yes, I have.

 

[Anschul]

But, in presenting it as a story, this is your problem, isn't it? I think there's very good material there for a very good story. I can see why what is there now would confuse a reader, though. And I continue to question, after cutting off all public response at the point of the story, it is popping up here for public discussion. Seems like emotional manipulation to me.

Hello all, allow me to join the discussion...
I don't feel emotionally manipulated at all. I spent time in Belfast during the troubles and then again in 2006. Two different places. The Northern Ireland of Jenny's story is exactly the one I remember. I know people who tell similar stories, and they are NOT fiction. I've no doubt that what Jenny writes this piece is the way she remembers it.
Jen, I said it in private, I'll say it here...a Bushmills Malt 16 to ya.

 

[Boxlicker101]

So, I wrote a story that is, as stated in the author's note, "mostly true." http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=352553

MOSTLY I said. I admit there is some license in the story, because the events occured between the time I was one year old and five. In the story I protrayed myself as somewhat older. In fact, I was a little kid.

So this morning in my email is a scathing damnation telling me I'm an asshole, the story is all a lie because my father could not have been hanged in 1968 (the family stories have said for my entire life that my father "was hanged by the Brits"). Well, does that mean he was litterally hanged? I don't know.

Was I really shot through the side by a British soldier when I was 5? I think so. I still have the scar.

I think the line in the "feedback" that irritates me most was, "...you Americans need to get over it." Get over what? Being shot? Being forced by the Brits to leave my home? The murder my father and other members of my family? Exactly what this moron was getting at is not clear.

Admittely, Belfast is a very different place now as I saw a couple years ago with my own eyes. But dear commentor, you don't get over your own personal history unless you are as callus and unfeeling as you are. Now fuck off.

J Jackson (in an irritated mood)

This is something that has always bugged me. During my life, various things have happened to me. Some people, when I tell them, will say, in effect: "Oh, that's not so. That couldn't have happened to you. It must have been something else, or you must have imagined it."

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Hello all, allow me to join the discussion...
I don't feel emotionally manipulated at all. I spent time in Belfast during the troubles and then again in 2006. Two different places. The Northern Ireland of Jenny's story is exactly the one I remember. I know people who tell similar stories, and they are NOT fiction. I've no doubt that what Jenny writes this piece is the way she remembers it.
Jen, I said it in private, I'll say it here...a Bushmills Malt 16 to ya.

Oh that was you?

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l27/Jenny_Jackson/ScreenShot164-1.jpg Hint!

 

[3113]

This is something that has always bugged me. During my life, various things have happened to me. Some people, when I tell them, will say, in effect: "Oh, that's not so. That couldn't have happened to you. It must have been something else, or you must have imagined it."

Annoying yes, but studies have been done where kids were told about things that did not happen--like ("remember that day when we went to the mall and you hurt yourself on the escalator?). These kids came to "remember" that thing as actually happening to them even though it never had. If a kid is young enough, you can fool them into thinking they recall something happening that did not. You can even make adults remember childhood memories that never happened.

And, no, I'm not saying that Jenny is lying about this, or that kids shouldn't be listened to. I'm just saying that a line has to be walked. On the one side, we can't have people dismissing something just because they think it unlikely or don't want to believe it, like claims by adults that they were molested by a priest as a child. On the other hand, we don't want to end up with a situation where kids, manipulated by adults (psychiatrists and parents and such), "remember" things like molestation that never happened and so send innocent adults to jail.

The memories of both adults and kids can be astonishingly accurate--and also full of holes and mistakes. Some people have razor sharp memories that recall the most amazing details, others have poor memories where details are filled in by the imagination, by what they read in books, by what they wish had happened rather than what did happen. I'd give your and Jenny's memories the benefit of the doubt--but if someone disagrees, I'd give them a hearing *IF* they could offer valid evidence that you might not be remembering it right.

Dismissing your memories out of hand doesn't count.

 

[sr71plt]

Hello all, allow me to join the discussion...
I don't feel emotionally manipulated at all. I spent time in Belfast during the troubles and then again in 2006. Two different places. The Northern Ireland of Jenny's story is exactly the one I remember. I know people who tell similar stories, and they are NOT fiction. I've no doubt that what Jenny writes this piece is the way she remembers it.
Jen, I said it in private, I'll say it here...a Bushmills Malt 16 to ya.

I didn't mean emotional manipulation in terms of the content of the story, and I started my first posting off by saying it wasn't the disabelief part I was responding to--but to the cutting off of comment on what I think is sort of a mish mash of a work in the technical aspects of it and then opening up a public discussion of it here instead based on an e-mail received (not to mention calling the e-mailer stupid and wanting the rest of us to do so as well when the e-mailer very possibility was dead right).

But now that you bring it up, no I don't think it helps the situation (in this case the Irish/English, Catholic/Protestant wound) in the least to fictionalize "facts" and perpetuate unfounded rumors/legends in a story to support the emotional wound you are sticking your finger in--and it doesn't make the story as a story any stronger either. I think there's a strong story here--but that it isn't in vignette that was written.

Fiction is made up, yes, but when it's political fiction and it plays fast and loose with the foundations the story is built on, one shouldn't be surprised to be called down on the level of "fair play." Just because it's fiction doesn't mean that it's legitimate to make up an action/position by someone in the story's "real world grounding" and then condemn them for doing that/taking that position and hide behind that as just being fiction.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Annoying yes, but studies have been done where kids were told about things that did not happen--like ("remember that day when we went to the mall and you hurt yourself on the escalator?). These kids came to "remember" that thing as actually happening to them even though it never had. If a kid is young enough, you can fool them into thinking they recall something happening that did not. You can even make adults remember childhood memories that never happened.

And, no, I'm not saying that Jenny is lying about this, or that kids shouldn't be listened to. I'm just saying that a line has to be walked. On the one side, we can't have people dismissing something just because they think it unlikely or don't want to believe it, like claims by adults that they were molested by a priest as a child. On the other hand, we don't want to end up with a situation where kids, manipulated by adults (psychiatrists and parents and such), "remember" things like molestation that never happened and so send innocent adults to jail.

The memories of both adults and kids can be astonishingly accurate--and also full of holes and mistakes. Some people have razor sharp memories that recall the most amazing details, others have poor memories where details are filled in by the imagination, by what they read in books, by what they wish had happened rather than what did happen. I'd give your and Jenny's memories the benefit of the doubt--but if someone disagrees, I'd give them a hearing *IF* they could offer valid evidence that you might not be remembering it right.

Dismissing your memories out of hand doesn't count.

I have heard and read about phony "recovered memories", some of which have been proven to be false. I wasn't really referring to something that happened when I was a small child. Mostly, I meant things I experienced in high school or later, and the memories are pretty solid. Not details; just sort of a general situation.

I would never claim that Jenny's memories of being shot are false, especially since she has the scar to prove it. However, unless she actually saw the shooter, there is no way to know who he was, or what side he or she was fighting for. There were a good many weapons in Northern Ireland at the time, and many of them were owned and fired by members of the IRA. As for her father being hanged by the Brits, it might very well have been by a gang of thugs working with Ian Paisley, rather than the legal authorities.

Of course, I really know nothing of what might have happened to her and her family.

 

[Aerach]

OK, I'll bite and answer because I presume that you are talking about the feedback I sent, and which I'd have been happy to post in public had that function not been disabled.

Firstly let me say I've never read anything you've written before and the only reason I went to your story was because of the title because as I said, I live in Belfast (where I was born and grew up) and thought it would be interesting. I know nothing of your background or family history. Presumably you do not expect readers of your work to know those things? Because without that background knowledge, and also with the mostly true author's note, you have muddied the waters and no wonder new readers get the wrong idea. When something's "mostly true" which bits are they? Am I supposed to know, and how?

As another poster has mentioned, the last hanging in NI took place in 1961 and as far as I know, was not politically motivated. If you do not mean that your father was executed by the British government without trial while in prison as your story implies, then why on earth write it?

You fail throughout the story to differentiate between "the Brits" "Loyalist paramilitaries" and the British Army/Security forces. Maybe you don't know that "Brits" is an offensive term used along the same lines as "taig" and as one "brit" you're damn right I take offence at being lumped in with murderous criminals. You refer to Sean as being in "the Ulsters" which was a British army regiment that fought at the Somme among other places. Later in the story you mention that he was buried in an unmarked grave "with other terrorists", with the implication there that he was in some other organisation.

I never once used the word "asshole" or implied that everything was a lie. You have posted it as fiction so you can hardly take offence when your facts are questioned. The examples I have just given illustrate why I was confused and called into question your implication of "fact". I am truly sorry that you have had those experiences as a child. But as you say, it's hard to get over your own experiences as I well remember my father's life being in danger and his friends getting picked off by IRA terrorists well into the 90's, checking under our car every day for bombs, I remember the IRA blew up a nightclub I was at while I was standing 100m away so I've lived it too, all my life. And yes I said I wish Irish Americans would get over it- meaning the whole ancient history part, the potato famine and whatever. It was their money which flowed freely into the terrorists' coffers for so many years, and sure I'm bitter about that. I assumed that you knew nothing about the situation. For that assumption, I'm sorry.