Fugee and the Cheaters
 

1. Yeh, well, what I wish were true and what actually takes place in everyday life are far apart. I didn't say I LIKED bending principles, I just recognize its necessary.

2. I usually say very little when someone makes a racist joke. Politely not laughing or half laughing with a sort of "Yeh, you're obviously white trash" sort of haughtiness is usually far more insulting.

3. If a man has consensual sex with a 17 year old, that's none of my business. Wagner was a horrendous anti-semitic pedophile. Should I throw out my copy of the Ring?

You learn to compartmentalize here in PA. Racist and ethnic jokes are common. You can't take on every offender you see because you'd create a long enemeies list. Its unfortunate, but even a ranting fool like me who's prone to tirades must shut his mouth to protect his sources of revenue.

S(judge, but not out loud)D

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

Can we talk about Peter now? I read about this somewhere else, somewhere that censors dirty words, but lets fvck through and allows the moniker sockcucker. Nevertheless, I find it hysterical that he was arrested for stealing socks. Of all things.
4 days in a Mexican jail for socks.

Fugee and the Cheaters
 

This would kind of be fun. I wish somene would get all pissy and slap me with a glove so I could have a duel. Monopoly at dawn!

I think I have heard of companies putting everyone on unpaid leave for X period of time to save money; I'm not sure if that's considered a layoff, but I think it's legal (though it could conflict with a union contract if she's under one). Which is basically what her company is doing, but it's saying that if she has vacation she can use it during that time and get paid. If the company's vacation policy is use it or lose it, she's better off using it for that time than losing it.

If she's in CA what her company's doing is probably illegal because it seems like all the irritating squirrely things employers do are.* But if she's in CA I don't think her employer can have a use it or lose it vacation policy . . .

*Yes, I realize that the alternative might be that people wouldn't have jobs at all and that if it weren't for those damn socialist DEMS putting in these ridiculous laws CA's economy would be booming and healthy and munchkins would dance in the street and all the statues in the Snow Queen's** castle would come alive. But this isn't the politics board.

**Or whatever the evil castrating bitch in The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe was called.

Edited to make a sentence have a verb and to add asterisked stuff.

I've heard of such policies. They have recently been popular with companies trying to reduce employee costs but avoid layoffs/firings. More usually, I've heard of companies that "request" that all employees choose several days, weeks or months to take unpaid leave. To let everyone take the holiday off seems like it might be unusually thoughtful. But it still sounds like a cost-reduction measure.

TV Guide
 

Damn straight they were offended -- they gave me the cut direct!

It was not a black person that corrected me, though -- it was a white bureaucratic type.

Sniff. But no one puts any effort into understanding *my* unique background as a member in good standing of the Oppressive Patriarchy.

It was merely a bit of historical context; a musing on the vagaries of language.

And my point was, in some places it is starting to be Not Accepted, and someone expressing some confusion over which word to use is not secretly attacking the PC language police, or mourning over the Lost Cause, or whatever.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

I was hesitant to bring this up, because, as ConnectTheDots and I discussed in PM, part of me feels sorry for the guy...

As we also discussed, another part of me wants Dog the Bounty Hunter to stungun him, hogtie him and drag him back across the border to square things with the Mexican authorities after Dog's little adventure down there in the Andrew Luster case...

Unusually thoughtful my ass. Productivity is so low around then anyway b/c so many people are on vacation. Overhead eats up all the profit that might result from the work of the few that remain behind, so overall it's more profitable to just shut down.

Or, that's what I hear from companies that do this. However the memos they send out to employees usually try to act like they are being thoughtful in the hope that their employees are that naive. Clearly RT's relative is not, as she has picked up on the "getting screwed" aspect.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

Shouldn't be a problem. Didn't the last sentence of that piece note that he jumped bail?

That poor sap. Or perhaps just "sap."

Wouldn't any factory almost have to do this--it's not like you can run a factory with only half the workers (well, you can if they don't have unions . . . ). In other words, plenty of companies have a need to coordinate vacation schedules. One way is to tell everyone to take vacation on a given week. At least the potential for pay exists here. Some companies just "furlough" people -- i.e., tell them not to work and that they won't get paid. Sux, but much of life does.

Fugee and the Cheaters
 

Horsepoopie. If a man kills his kid, is it "none of your business"? Of course it is. We have social rules that are everyone's business, accepted in order to preserve the society, of which you are part.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

It said something like he paid $1100 in bail and hightailed it over the border... which seems to imply that he won't be going back.

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

Apropos of nothing, I always kinda thought she was kinda sexy. Didn't she run amok in London in The Magician's Nephew?

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

Ms. Keaton broke the story here some time ago.

Maybe PT needed the socks. He's been out of work for some time and he goes through them rather quickly.

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

It's a sweet gelatinous confection often made with pistachio nuts mixed in, or covered in chocolate.

Bored on a conference call; still thinking about public radio
 

It depends upon your definition of monogamous. Do threesomes (or any group encounter that includes the SO) qualify?

Dua(I don't cheat . . . and I don't sock)lit

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

I thought these were two different witches, but apparently Not So.

http://www.geocities.com/kawebb99/char-j.html

She's sexy in LW&W (esp. the animated movie I saw as a kid), but she's really butch in TMN, as I recall. Part of the reason I thought they were different people.

Turkish delight is an actual confection. I guess kids in 1940s England were mad for it, but nobody's heard of it since.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

Let's quote it for the lazier amongst us (as it is only part of an article):

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0335/guthrie.php

"Peter Thottam, a 32-year-old lawyer from Los Angeles, found himself in the midst of the new crackdown in June when his tourist guidebook disappeared inside a Sanborns store. Thottam set about looking for it, opened a door to the street, and was nabbed for almost stepping out with a pair of the store's socks in his hand. Unable to convince the staff in his broken Spanish that he had planned to buy the socks, Thottam was carted off for a four-night stay in the city's overcrowded prisons.

Thottam was crammed into a cold, damp cell designed for four with 13 others, who slept on the floor back to back. Guards and inmates were constantly hitting him up for cash because everything in the jail—access to the bathroom, mess hall, and visitors—cost money. "I couldn't get over how surreal it was," Thottam says, "all over a pair of socks."

Luckily he had a friend in the city to front his $1,100 bail so he could hightail it out of Mexico. "



Personally, I find it fvcking fvnny.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

This also might be a calculated plot to gain "street cred" in the Change Agent community...

Tell the story of how he was mistreated, take out the part about the socks, insert some bullshit story of oppression, and all of a sudden he is a "prisoner of conscience" instead of a royal dipshit...

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

You just haven't enjoyed enough desserts, Atticus. You're descended from Puritans, aren't you?

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

I have had people bring it to me from Turkey as a treat. Gelatinous and flavored with rose water. I did not like it so much. My current Turkish friend brings me jewelry and makes me really yummy baklava for Xmas. Much better.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

This is the part of you that feels sorry for the guy, I gather?

Can't say you're wrong, though.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

I didn't say they were EQUAL parts...

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

Right punishment, wrong crime.

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

I believe I will buy the whole series and reread it. Need to find chrono order of them though -- easier to read that way than starting with LW&W. There was a WAR on (or one had recently been on). They were just happy to have stockings. Probably thought oranges and nuts were Xmas day treats. Of course, my stupid father* also seems to think they are and sticks them in our stockings which is really quite annoying.

*uh, I mean Santa Claus. Once again we're having to keep up the pretense because there are kiddies now.

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

Nice editing...

(for those that missed it, go back and look...)

Its all subjective
 

Fucking a 17 year old and killing a 17 year old are very different things. One is defensible while the other is not.

TV Guide
 

I'm of the, perhaps old fashioned, opinion that, unless there is some specific reason to discuss someone's racial or ethnic background, in which case one should probably discuss it with the person concerned first, there is no particularly defensible reason to be discussing someone's "background" at all.

This, actually, is my problem with the term "African-American." It isn't just superficially descriptive, so why should I use it and imply that I'm making all sorts of origin-assumptions about people? Whatever one thinks of "black" or "white" (or "cafe au lait" or "red" or "grey"), or whatever negative social baggage they have picked up, the terms are attractive because they are superficially descriptive. Since I usually need to know how to refer to people for fairly neutral descriptive reasons ("You know, Bob, the 5 foot 3 black guy in systems with the purple shoes?"), I think I'm going to stick out waiting for a neutrally descriptive term before I give up on "black."

Of course, everyone should be called whatever they wish. But people aren't mind readers, so there need to be neutral terms that everyone within the applicable society can recognize as, even if not preferred by a specific individual, non-offensive. As Thurgreed suggested, I've not yet found a black person who was actually offended at being referred to as "black," but I've found plenty of people pissed to be called either African or American. Etiam: I have found people get pissed to be called "European americans" as opposed to Russian, or Irish-American, or white, or any variety of things. Contra: Asians seem rarely to be offended if referred to as Asian, despite the fact that they are not Asian but American (or European, or whatever). The most widely known not-specifically-ethnic description, however, "yellow," is universally known to be offensive.

My conclusion from all this is that people are weird. I guess life would be boring if they weren't.

Seems our second most favorite Job Hunter keeps getting more famous.

The crazy cover letter dude has a story about him in a Canadian paper

http://www.canada.com/technology/sto...C-148AD8AAC6B6

McNabb response
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._quarterback_4

I like it. I like that he knows that fighting with Rush isn't going to do anything positive and any apology he gets is empty. I also like that he calls the rest of ESPN on it. It was a bullshit comment, and someone should have called it a bullshit comment.

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

Helpfully, the new boxed sets come in the correct chronological order. NOt that it's too hard to move the books around in the old boxed set, but it helps the noobs i guess.

Now all we need is a Tripplehorny update to complete the Trifecta...

white guy can't jump/black guy can't swim
 

You've got to stop hanging out with so many Midwesterners.

Bored on a conference call; still thinking about public radio
 

Paigs, Hon, don't you remember you already put me on your ignore list?

Also, I thank you for all the attention you have lavished on me. Rarely do I post without attracting comments from you. It is an honor.

And to the love who PMed me so I didn't miss this one, Thank You!

Fugee and the Cheaters
 

How about this -- contrary to what some people think, God doesn't turn you into a Stepford Christian when you believe. I wish I could same I'm nearing the goal of being Christ-like in thought and deed but I'm still human and a sinner so that ain't gonna happen in this life.

But God may be using you to give me the little kick in the pants message from God that I need to work on this some more so I better get working on it.

Fugee and the Cheaters
 

I am not saying you should be a perfect Stepford Wife Christian Saint Pilgrim's Progress The Good Word. My point is that if your GOAL is to forgive/forget and you are working toward that why are you doing something that is directly contra to that. Not that you need to be a saint, but that it seems odd that if your goal is to forgive and forget, you are actively seeking out ways to do the opposite.

What the heck is "turkish delight" anyway?
 

Only on my mother's side. One of them nearly got excommunicated for writing a book that was denounced as heretical (it was the first book banned in the New England colonies), and it was ordered to be burned. He claimed he was misunderstood, then took advantage of two court continuances to transfer all of his property to his son and run back to England.

What that has to do with Turkish Delight, I'll never understand.

Fugee and the Cheaters
 

REPENT AND BE SAVED.

The point is, there is supposed to be repentence before forgiveness. If the person involved recognizes the horror of their actions and asks for forgiveness, I think we all would and should do our human best to forgive them. We may not always be able to, because we are all human.

On the other hand if they strut about looking for their next victim, forgiveness is not yet in order.

Fugee and the Cheaters
 

I would also like to comment that once again, the Man is using me. Damn him. And I'm curious whether your comment was a trial effort at a modern "cut direct"?

When Socking Goes Horribly Wrong...
 

So here's what I don't get...if the guide book disappeared inside the store, why did he feel the need to go outside?