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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: March 16th, 2024

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  • I’d be !00% on board with including women in the draft. Fair is fair.

    Personally - like I told the recruiter from Annapolis 30 years ago, “trust me when I say that you don’t want me anywhere near your military.” If I were drafted I think I could fail out of basic on my own lack of merit.

    If there were other service options, I could happily do other work. For example: Math, science, or language tutoring for teens. I could have helped out a kid who actually wanted to get into Annapolis but didn’t have strong enough academics.





  • I knew someone this happened to. Several months after moving into their new house they started working on a neglected secondary bathroom on the 2nd floor. They didn’t go back there too frequently because it wasn’t a priority, but it was a really cool space connected to their bedroom via a small dressing room/closet.

    One day she noticed a low, humming drone and checked the wall of that closet. She claimed that the whole wall was warm to the touch and vibrating. That was not an easy or cheap job, but we got to make jokes about bees for a couple of months.



  • a very literal interpretation

    This is literally what Christian fundamentalists believe. If any aspect of the bible is not the literal truth, it all falls apart in their eyes. They are very absolutist.

    And it’s not just Genesis.

    “But translations…” Hahaha no. It varies by sect but it usually falls under either “our religious founder was guided by God to the true translation” or “The King James version was a work of revelation and it undid all the false translations introduced by the Romans and Greeks.”

    “But it contradicts itself on key points.” No it doesn’t.

    “Hey, maybe Lazarus was just in a coma” Get behind me, Satan.

    There is no argument that hasn’t been heard and rejected. Disagreement is an attack.


  • I will reply not with my own view, but of the person who is most likely the author if this tract: Jack Chick. “Catholics are not Christians.”

    Absurd, you say? Of course, and I agree that it’s absurd.

    In the US there are two broad categories of people who would disagree.

    1. Old school bigots, many of whom came from immigrant families and wanted to align with the ruling class in America: WASPs. These were generally families who came from northwestern Europe and Scandinavia. (This describes the oldest members of my own family, who are still scandalized that my uncle married a woman from an Italian family in the 1960s).
    2. Fundamentalist Protestants. There are a thousand different flavors, so it’s hard to give them a single name. They agree that the bible is the literal word of God and that Catholicism is fundamentally flawed - as is any religion that stresses the need to “do unto others” in any significant fashion. “The only way to heaven is through me,” said Jesus. In other words, if you’re a serial killer but you truly believe in Jesus Christ and have pledged your soul to him - well, Jesus must have a good reason for all that serial killing you did. (This describes my in-laws, so yes - my entire family is fucked up).

    The serial killing thing is a bit of an exaggeration, but honestly - these people are almost shockingly mean to each other.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_tract


  • This was extremely well said. My in-laws adhere to one of these high control (fundie) sects, so I have an enlightening and disquieting inside look at it.

    One of my nephews dreamed of becoming a marine biologist from an early age. And even as he got older he never wavered. We privately wondered what was going to happen when he got old enough to realize that he would need to attend a school that taught actual math and science for that to become a reality.

    He’s currently studying to become a nurse at a Christian College. He’s safe from forbidden ideas, but he’ll blend well into the alternate parallel economy favored by the people at his church. In addition to social isolation from non-believers, they prefer to do business with companies run by people from their own or an affiliated church.

    The parallel economy still unnerves me for some reason. Learning about Christian Health Insurance was an eye-opener.









  • In the US they were definitely out of fashion in the '80s and '90s. They were fashion statement that said “I’m a gross hippie” or worse, a BeeGee.

    I was a teen at the time and the consensus among teen girls was that a beard was the ultimate dealbreaker of a physical attribute. Makes sense, really, because most guys our age couldn’t grow a nice one if they wanted to. (And also - hippies are gross). I always respectfully disagreed, and would point to our classmate, Murad. He had pretty well grown facial hair by junior year and he looked fiiiinne.

    The exception that proved the rule? Luckily (for Murad) my classmates generally agreed, but refused to back down from their opinion in general.

    That attitude persisted, with the occasional appearance of a goatee or soul patch in the late '90s, both of which proved to be a gateway drug that led to the appearance of proper beards. I think a lot of guys would have liked to have beards, but realized that they were driving away potential partners. But they were pretty normal by 2010.

    I’ll drop this line from wikipedia, which should illustrate just how boringly mainstream beards have become in the US.

    Since 2015 a growing number of male political figures have worn beards in office, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

    Damn hippies.




  • Oh, my parents take the prize.

    To pick just one thing, I remember a disagreement about how to re-arrange the furniture my bedroom. I remember saying (and with regret as the words were leaving my mouth), “well, it is my room.” Instant shitshow. She announced that since she wasn’t needed she would be Running Away From Home.

    Even at 5 or 6, I knew that this was the stupidest thing ever, but that she also wouldn’t back down unless I cried and chased her and begged her to stay. She got out the front door and slowly walked towards the street, stopping every few feet to look back. She had nowhere to go, obviously. If this were going to be a battle of wills, I held all the cards. I was also six. If I had been 16, I might have thought to lock the front door behind her. In any case, even at that age I knew that if I somehow won this, things could only get worse.

    Yeah, I whipped up some tears and ran after her. But she never tried that one again and I like to think that it was because she got all the way to the street before she got her intended outcome.