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> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen. > Until the end, he was convinced that being exp

> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen. > Until the end, he was convinced that being exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam had caused the disease. He had lived half a century longer than many of the young men he’d served with, and he felt ashamed, I think, of the extra time. > In the weeks after his death, I looked up the logbooks of his aircraft carrier, hoping to piece together whether he would have been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Exactly zero adults have perfect parents. Publicly berating your own father like this is shameful, a sign of a petulant adult stuck in permanent adolescence.

cowpig 2y ago
I find it pretty lame that there are more comments in the HN discussion section upset about these few lines in the backstory intro than comments about the actual content of this article.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  The article is bad both as a scientific piece (more name-dropping than detail) and an argumentative essay (thesis and recommended course of action are muddled and all over the place). If the author writes a whiny diatribe on what could be a slam dunk topic, they're to blame when people take issue with needlessly vitriolic inclusions.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    And yet we have multiple comment threads on those "needless inclusions" and none actually trying to refute it on either a scientific or a rhetorical basis, so pardon me if I consider this to be an obvious attempt at retroactive justification based on an emotional response.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      They're objectively rhetorically bad paragraphs, and they weaken the piece by including them. If the author had just left out the 3rd, 4th, and 5th paragraphs, their argument would have been more pursuasive. Specifically, because it would have had broader appeal to those who might disagree with the author on a political basis.
      - hunter-gatherer 2y ago
        Yes. She should have just left if politically neutral. If anything she is making an assertion that republicans are hostile towards "naturalizing" cityscapes and liberals are not, which is just not true. I think all people want to live in beautiful areas and have song birds and butterflies roaming and shit. She deliberately politized this topic for no reason and has potentially done more harm than good because of it.
        lolinder 2y ago
        Yes. I wanted to like the piece, and wanted to share it with my dad who is getting super into natural local landscaping, but I couldn't because he'd be completely turned off by her implication that conservatives are the source of America's fixation on green lawns.
- hunter-gatherer 2y ago
  Me too. Like others, I found the way she "shamed" her father and self identified both tastless and unnecessary to the point of the article. Nevertheless I looked past that tidbit and tried to learn something and came to the comments hoping to see some insightful comments but many are too distracted bu this. I guess this is could be a good example of _bad_ writing. That being said, I have in recent years embraced a "nature scape" philosophy and am in the process of getting my property habitat certified. I think people can still have beautiful yards that aren't so hostile to the environment. Something I've learned in the process is that it is important to use vegetation natuve to the area, becausr that's what the local wildlife evolved with and has instinct to utilize. Some species adapt better, but I know (for example) we have a local bat species that basically refuses to live in anything but a tall and local pine tree. Bat boxes be damned. It has also be interesting to learn a lot of the plants that I thought were native are actually introduced and invasive, and co tinually sold at places like home depot/lowes. It is a sad state of affairs in my opinion but I seem to be the only one concerned about it my area, which funniky enough is basically just "Liberal Elite".
- lolinder 2y ago
  Maybe there are more comments about the inflammatory content than the substance because most of us had trouble getting to the substance. I'm here because the topic is fascinating to me and I'm very interested in more natural approaches to landscaping, but I gave up midway through because the tone was way too outrageously aggrieved. If a highly motivated audience that's sympathetic to your argument has trouble getting past your tone, that's a problem with the piece, not the comment section.

cowpig 2y ago

I find it pretty lame that there are more comments in the HN discussion section upset about these few lines in the backstory intro than comments about the actual content of this article.

ethbr1 2y ago
The article is bad both as a scientific piece (more name-dropping than detail) and an argumentative essay (thesis and recommended course of action are muddled and all over the place). If the author writes a whiny diatribe on what could be a slam dunk topic, they're to blame when people take issue with needlessly vitriolic inclusions.
- kibwen 2y ago
  And yet we have multiple comment threads on those "needless inclusions" and none actually trying to refute it on either a scientific or a rhetorical basis, so pardon me if I consider this to be an obvious attempt at retroactive justification based on an emotional response.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    They're objectively rhetorically bad paragraphs, and they weaken the piece by including them. If the author had just left out the 3rd, 4th, and 5th paragraphs, their argument would have been more pursuasive. Specifically, because it would have had broader appeal to those who might disagree with the author on a political basis.
    - hunter-gatherer 2y ago
      Yes. She should have just left if politically neutral. If anything she is making an assertion that republicans are hostile towards "naturalizing" cityscapes and liberals are not, which is just not true. I think all people want to live in beautiful areas and have song birds and butterflies roaming and shit. She deliberately politized this topic for no reason and has potentially done more harm than good because of it.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        Yes. I wanted to like the piece, and wanted to share it with my dad who is getting super into natural local landscaping, but I couldn't because he'd be completely turned off by her implication that conservatives are the source of America's fixation on green lawns.
hunter-gatherer 2y ago
Me too. Like others, I found the way she "shamed" her father and self identified both tastless and unnecessary to the point of the article. Nevertheless I looked past that tidbit and tried to learn something and came to the comments hoping to see some insightful comments but many are too distracted bu this. I guess this is could be a good example of _bad_ writing. That being said, I have in recent years embraced a "nature scape" philosophy and am in the process of getting my property habitat certified. I think people can still have beautiful yards that aren't so hostile to the environment. Something I've learned in the process is that it is important to use vegetation natuve to the area, becausr that's what the local wildlife evolved with and has instinct to utilize. Some species adapt better, but I know (for example) we have a local bat species that basically refuses to live in anything but a tall and local pine tree. Bat boxes be damned. It has also be interesting to learn a lot of the plants that I thought were native are actually introduced and invasive, and co tinually sold at places like home depot/lowes. It is a sad state of affairs in my opinion but I seem to be the only one concerned about it my area, which funniky enough is basically just "Liberal Elite".
lolinder 2y ago
Maybe there are more comments about the inflammatory content than the substance because most of us had trouble getting to the substance. I'm here because the topic is fascinating to me and I'm very interested in more natural approaches to landscaping, but I gave up midway through because the tone was way too outrageously aggrieved. If a highly motivated audience that's sympathetic to your argument has trouble getting past your tone, that's a problem with the piece, not the comment section.