Rampop II wrote:

Any truly neutral moderator would do well to allow such back-and-forth discussions to play out, only stepping in when needed for the sake of ensuring that all parties keep things civil.

The problem, of course, is that many of the type of poster who inserts their unsolicited political taking points into threads are not really interested in "civil back-and-forth discussions".  Probably because they're trolls?  And indeed will almost immediately claim some kind of persecution or harassment as soon as anyone engages them, even in good faith.  I suppose a mod could adhere to the policy of "don't feed the trolls" and promote non-engagement, but, as crumbs pointed out, then why would the mods not delete these troll posts?  Until they're reported as such?  Because these mods are incapable of determining troll posts with their own eyes?  And then after a pattern emerges, not ban the trolls themselves?  Or that other kind of troll which we know so well, who will engage in highly bad faith discussion, only to frustrate and waste time and effort through numerous fallacies and dissembling, only to reset the debate every so often back to the beginning in a useless cycle of redundancy.  Any mod worth their salt, having any sufficient experience in online discourse, should be able to quickly identify this behavior as well.

No, with this tit Yoda I'm more inclined to see a complicity rather than incompetence.  He has expressed sympathy for criticisms against "woke"-ness in Hollywood, usually involving issues of race and gender.  As I've pointed out, not only during the time I was there (which was about a year) not only was there no identifiable evidence that the forum had any posters of color, but there was no evident concern about this fact.  Now, note that the forum has an explicit "no politics" rule, and yet posts questioning the value of diversity or the cultural contributions of African-Americans (an entire thread about "Rap isn't Music"), or the constant deriding of feminism - and this isn't even limited to the handful of already acknowledged trolls.  Clearly this forum has made such casual sentiments comfortable.  And yet, we're led to believe, the mods don't understand these social issues as inherently political.  No, I call bullshit on that.  It's that they are actively privileging their conservative political presumptions, and the "no politics" rule is exposed as a pretense to enforce this privilege.

........

From the Reiner story, it isn't a surprise that son Nick had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia if one has taken a dip into any of the several of interviews he's given, either with his father promoting their Being Charlie fiasco or on his own on a variety of addiction-focused podcasts.  There was something clearly wrong with Nick which was more profound than drugs.  In addition to schizophrenia, I'd suggest some, um, neurodivergent issues.  Not autism, per se, or anything on the spectrum.  I mean, maybe they gave the child some lead-painted toys to suck on?  Rob Reiner, 46 at the time of Nick's birth, may not have had the quickest sperm by that point.  Even when Nick alleged to be sober (which is admitedly dubious) he sounds stupid.  Just dumb as dick.  I'm sure the Reiners themselves took great care to make him feel special in spite of this. 

Here's a fucked up number - he had 18 rehab stints over the course of a 7 year period.  I don't even know how that's possible, except that the Reiners could afford a bottomless insurance policy.  After, I don't know, the 8th, let's say the 12th rehab, I might just tell the kid, "Hey maybe you're not coming home just yet, maybe you need to sit tight for a little while, like a year".  At this rate, what possible difference could it make?

Rampop II wrote:

Dayum, so they've got str8–up troll accounts over there?

Where are there not trolls?

Rampop II wrote:

oh, I'm not the right skin color here, either?

It's not that blatant.  (It rarely is.)  Like I said, there's no evidence of any posters of color there.  There is a lot of evidence of a brazen tolerance of anti-woke, anti-diversity, anti-social justice sentiments.  Meaning that if there were any posters of color there, then they know better than to publicly advertise the fact.  That itself is a completely different scenario than I've experienced on other forums.

Condolences.

Maybe it's appropriate that Brigitte Bardot also had to pass away in the same year as Claudia Cardinale.  So competitive to the end.

Jinnistan wrote:

Picking in Peace, Rampop's Pop.

crumbsroom wrote:

Condolences.

Rock wrote:

Please accept my condolences, Rampop.

Thank you, everyone. Means a lot to me. 🥰

Speaking of picking, it just so happens that all throughout the day of his passing, his guitar played in my head (we used to jam together on the regular). Clear as a bell, it plucked out one of the familiar dittys he used to finger-pick whenever he had his Martin Dreadnought in-hand. It's a cheerful, carefree lilt I singly associate with him, and it accompanied me all day, a comforting song of reassurance from "The Other Side."

And here's something really amusing, if you've seen Bardo: I never knew what the song was! 😆 After his health started going downhill, I did my utmost to leave nothing important unsaid, and to leave no "unfinished business" (though as Jinnistan has imparted, there will always be unfinished business no matter how we try, so the wise thing to do is be at peace with that truth). 

Unsurprisingly, the question "What was that tune you used to play" hardly found its way onto my list of priorities. For all I know he wrote it himself, in fact he might have, and now it's quite possible I'll never know. So that irony fascinates me, and naturally the metaphor now feels infinitely more profound. His unnamed tune it now remains, fading from earshot with his exit, as he strums his way off to the Realm of Unanswered Questions.