J-William

I hate to be annoying and tell you what you felt. You were not alone, but you were lonely. It's easy to look at someone with no "friends" and think they are lonely. It takes a good deal more to see the loneliness surrounded by a crowd of "friends". How could you have ever had a really deep connection with anyone? If you did get close it wouldn't matter cuz you'd move again soon. Anyone you started getting close to would realize consciously or unconsciously that you were leaving soon and not want to get fully invested in the relationship. It looks like you've done a fine job of getting your toxic FOO out of your life, but you have yet to deal with the toxic stress they inflicted on your body. This is a very real possibility. The body is amazing at healing once you take away the toxic stress.

So I'm in China and I just don't use Facebook all that much. Yesterday I posted a link to a discovery channel video about the harmful effects of spanking and connection to criminality. My aunt, who I don't like very much, posted a comment in defense of spanking and two acquaintances of mine hopped in to argue against spanking, and she has stuck to her position. This may be a simple question, but my first impulse was to reply with a comment to the effect that I'm not speaking to my dad because he hit me and would likely defend their father's actions in the same way she is, and I'm ending the cycle of violence now. My hands were shaking and I felt incredibly nervous writing the comment, I didn't post it but instead took a trip down to the store for some batteries. Now what I'm thinking is why bother? I mean she's old and saying anything to her about it is likely to just invite the FOO to try contacting me in some way. I'm pretty sure that debating her won't change any minds, so there's not that value. Why not just quietly unfriend her and leave it at that? Is there any benefit to engaging with this woman?

Hi Peter, this sentence leapt out at me as super strange. What's wrong with saying "I was a lonely kid with lousy fucking parents"? The way you wrote it is so disconnected and passive. Were your parents not actively making decisions? Did your father not actively decide to do things that were harmful to you and make poor decisions about who to bring into your life? Your life has been a mess, and somehow documents were not earned, by you? I don't know, you didn't say. Maybe it was Jesus who didn't earn those documents. I'm not trying to be hard on you, but this disconnection is part of why you don't feel anything. And you're making excuses for him. he wasn't evil, he just chose a woman who beat you frequently for your mother, he spat in your face, and flew into a rage at your disagreement, and didn't have enough courage to call you back and apologize. You should fucking hate his guts. There is a lot of anger inside that you are not experiencing. You do not need to pretend he was a good man. Good men do not spit in the face of people that have valid complaints about their actions.

Sounds like good fun, I've got a bucket of dirt and a video camera...

ah, you've summed up the argument quite succinctly. Also, I'm hearing from various places that Israel is expanding settlements after their latest attack... not like that's a surprise, given that taking all the land has been their aim since 48. it is enlightening, and anyone who thinks that jews have some special understanding because of the holocaust... You don't learn philosophy just by being a victim. I really wonder why they bother, anarchists aren't likely to vote or support politicians... on the other hand I think Ayn Rand and other pro-Israeli libertarians were quite effective at blunting libertarian opposition to Israel, so perhaps they have experience in this game.

Haha, I agree with you. he is pretty awesome!

I say, what a swell idea...

You've just made the decision, and it doesn't sound like you need to rush, so good on you for waiting. I've had a number of roommates and it can be hard finding a good one... I had lesbian roommates who were good. I had a roommate/landlord that wasn't awful, but wasn't great. Aaand a roommate who did time for being an accomplice to murder... which I didn't find out from the company that owned the apartment and placed roommates together, but in fact learned from my lesbian roommates who just happened to be in the university orchestra with this asshole's ex-girlfriend. It was seriously fucking dangerous. I called the cops on him because he hit me when I complained about him smoking in the apartment. If I had known he was a psycho I wouldn't have confronted him about smoking, but instead moved out in the night without making a sound and slept in my car. So, avoid any situation where you get stuck with people you don't choose. Trust your instincts about people, and failing that Google people because many arrest records can be found online. and don't feel bad about coming back to FDR and asking people here. I love helping and so do others. I would suggest your parents, but you wouldn't be here asking if your parents were real good people to ask. From my experience I think the people with the highest standards were the best. The lesbian roommates wanted to chat online and know a lot of info and... I just had a thought. Do you think you'd be comfortable telling people where you live? Maybe someone here can help you out more directly. I think that would be a good way to find a safe place. Failing that, roommates.com was the service I used and it asks for lots of information and your preferences and may be better than craigslist.

hehehe

They've been demonizing Putin in all the right places. lefties hate him cuz he's a conservative gay homophobe. neo-cons hate him because he's Russian and they think the cold war didn't end or at least shouldn't have ended. So why not build bases to counter this tremendous threat to peace justice and the american way? One must also drop the context of the biggest threats to peace and justice in the US being easy to locate in Washington DC... but the media wouldn't be doing its job if it helped us remember these small details.

It doesn't matter to me if you could choose to be gay or not... I mean it's not like I chose to be into females, but supposing I did make that choice, there's no moral content to choosing to date women or men. But since the science suggests that sexual preference is not chosen, getting upset about it makes as much sense as getting upset at your dog for having a short tail when you wanted him to have a long one.

So I had the misfortune of clicking on a WashintonPost article, and it sounds like the WaPo is yearning for WWIII. War in Europe is not a hysterical idea Extend NATO’s umbrella to Montenegro and Macedonia The West must make Mr. Putin pay for his aggression All of these articles are laying groundwork for a confrontation between the US and Russia (or at least proxies) They all drop the context of what the US and NATO have been doing. Ie the US starting a half dozen aggressive wars, and NATO expanding up to Russian borders etc... Not to mention the context of Putin's domestic situation. He has to manage factions that want war and those who don't, as well as still looking like a man standing up for Russian interests while NATO appears to be walling up Russia. If NATO completes the task Putin and his cronies may have to pack in a hurry for warmer climes, and the guys who replace him will probably have far itchier trigger fingers. And if they start WWIII because Putin made the entire Obama administration look like rank amateurs with their heads firmly implanted in their asses during their ramp up to war with Syria... Well it'll be a sad day for "humanity".

Have you gone to therapy? I just ask because you have a brother who needs to hit people to get himself off drugs, from which I can guess your childhood wasn't great. What about the emotional connection? Do you have a good connection with yourself? When he first started this do you think you could have said something like "That's not cool dude, cut it out."? I don't think that I put out a strong aura of "don't fuck with me" or anything, but I haven't been bullied since high school (other than bullying from my parents) I have a significant history of being bullied, but it's been a while since I have been in school. I have not once been overtly bullied at work, even working some very much blue-collar jobs. I have had difficulties with people, but bullying just doesn't make sense. I'm there by choice, they're there by choice, and if they're assholes I just tell the boss about it... I mean I left a job because I went to the boss about the negative behavior of a more senior co-worker and he made it clear that he didn't care. But I did care, no job is worth submitting to awful behavior. Perhaps it is because I've stood up to my parents and stopped their bullying (by hitting the eject button) that I'm generally unconcerned with bullying in my life now.

Are you actually concerned about "marketing"? I mean it is free, are you monitizing it in some way? If you are, you might want to stir up the controversy pot and get press from people pissed at the name... of course you might have a hard time getting press to bother covering such a boring "controversy"

Back when I was in high school we made lists comparing stone tablets to girlfriends and then uploaded our videos to our VCR channel.... god you make me feel old :-P But not that old, I mean I did think a PC with a gigahertz CPU was pretty sweet back in high school, but it wasn't the stone age :-D

Are you against people talking on the phone? or the other functions of a modern smartphone? A blanket restriction on phones working at over 20mph would mean phones won't work on buses or trains, and also I'd be willing to bet you money that the vast majority of dangerous driving and using a cellphone occurs at 20mph or less. and what happens if you just turn off the GPS because your phone uses too much power when GPS is on... There are so many problems with the idea that even a politician can see the flaws.

I'm pretty sure I know where this is going... But helpfully for myself I've set my preferences to ignore this guy, so I don't need to worry about anything he says. :-D

as far as I know it is supposedly an anti-theft measure and should therefore make the phone completely unusable for any purpose. So yeah, no video recording.

I like Woody, and not just because I enjoyed Cheers back when I was much too young to get most of the jokes... also, I have no idea if they are really his accounts(because I'm in China), but there are a number of Twitter accounts with his name.

The difference between him believing or just putting on a show for an audience. I'm pretty sure his shilling for Israel is not just a show, but something he really believes in. But regardless, the point of my question was, that there is no important difference between him actually believing and pretending to believe to sell books. You can't know, and it's not really worth your time to ponder the question.

Well, under this law police will be able to disable cell-phones in an "emergency"... thus giving police unlimited power to do whatever the fuck they want.

that'll go well!

What's the difference?

I can't see the film on account of being in China. my thoughts are that... well he must have been a sub-optimal parent for his daughters to show so little emotion. I'll give you a little example... a kid I know was raised mostly by his grandmother who died a couple of years ago. He was four at the time, and his reaction to her passing was muted at best. they did not have an especially close relationship despite being in close proximity his whole life. My daughter is almost three, and we have a very close relationship. I know that if I were to die she would be completely beside herself with grief and it would take her years to recover. Now as to why the older girl would smile... I bet she saw him as a bit of an asshole. There are few people I would talk about with a smile at the thought of them hanging themselves (Hitler and Stalin come to mind...). So she is either disturbed, lacks good control of her facial muscles, or in her experience her father was a real asshole.

You can't live your life because of the supposed fragility of your mother. If you want to see how that goes just take a look at the character Mitch in "A streetcar named desire" he's a sad sack who spends his whole life enslaved to his mother. My mom tried that... or my dad did... saying like "your mom is so sad" or something like that. My response at the time was "If my not talking to her makes her sad, just think about how fucking sad I was as a child being hit and yelled at by you people and not having a loving nurturing mother." Honestly, if your childhood didn't kill you then a little taste of her own medicine won't kill your mother.