Ziggy: You're on helium by now!

Early candidate for thread of the year. Just shows how many directions a thread can go in. I love it.

Uh....no...fortunately. It's Friday...and apparently alot of people are looking for the weekend!:)

Oh, I'm not saying we can't be, well, that word I feel I can use and you shouldn't (:) ). I've known some women who were just awful emotionally to their alleged "friends" and "boyfriends." And honestly, if we weren't such catty, backstabbing bitches to each other, I think women would be a lot farther along, politically and economically.

And I agree, Brian, violence is not an ideal situation. But at the base of every conflict, there's that implied threat- verbal fights degenerate into fistfights, not the other way around. And when it's guy vs. girl, one half of the conflict has a physical advantage.

Though how awesome would it be to live in a world where a physical fight was the "light" end of fighting and a verbal battle was for when it got really ugly? Holy cow; I've got a short film in that idea. Nobody steal it!

Nicole there are 2 women I work with who personify the "C" word. If it is deserved, it should be used....even if not to their face.

Once upon a time, in a hidden forest far away there lived a woodchuck (groundhog). Though his mommy told him not to, he loved to fill his little lungs with helium. It made his small voice sound so cool when it came out in a distorted higher voice.
As he was looking to find his way back to the saftey of the hole he'd come to feel such comfort diving into, he came across a snake puppet that he thought was really a snake.
"Holy python!!!" he chirped in a high pitch. (helium does that)
This sound caught the attention of a big bad eagle that was waiting and watching from above.
Swoop!
Happy eagle day! err, umm, not so for ground hogs on helium.
Up up and away!

GR: I can't imagine living in a relationship where there is a implied threat of violence(well I did have that with the old man). Anyone who puts up with that..I feel for.

Oh, what a story-- well, I got on the subway, opened a book, and on comes one of the, ahem, amateur preachers, shall I say, who like to shout at unsuspecting subway riders of Jesus's love, colored by their own political and social opinions. And the damn train was running local, and I had a long way to ride. So, this man starts shouting about slavery, and police brutality, and racism against blacks, lacing his speech with lots of uses of the n-word. He then moves on to shouting about Jesus. And then moves on to homosexuality, and the things coming out of his mouth are just hateful. I mean, awful. And a young man stands up and confronts him about the things he's saying, pointing out that he's saying the same thing about homosexuals that he was just accusing the NYPD of saying about blacks. And the amateur preacher starts shouting how it's not him saying these hateful things, it's Jesus and it's the truth because it's in the Bible. And the young man gives up and leaves the train. And the "preacher" keeps shouting about how it's not him, it's what's in the Bible. And then I start laughing and I can't stop. I want to, but I can't. It's like a little demon is inside me and I keep laughing and laughing. And so the "preacher" starts directing his rant at me, and the more I laugh the more he rants. Finally, the subway pulls into my stop, and as I exit, I have to walk right by the "preacher" and because I'm so angry at the crummy things he's been saying, I say, "Get a job." And he gets mad and says, "I'm working on it; I'm working on it. But this is truth, it's in the Bible..." and keeps yammering but now I'm off the train and on the platform so he (I assume; I dind't look back) holds the door open and continues to yell after me and finally shouts out, "You white, red-haired n*****!" And then, I assume, finally stopped holding the doors and climbed back into the train and continued haranging the people riding it, probably with something about how Jesus hates red-haired people. You know, Judas and all that.

As I said, I applaud his effort to make it a racially neutral epithet, but, it being so far out of my realm of experience, all I could think was, "For REAL? REALLY? That's really what you meant to call me? For REAL? Huh."

But of course, had it degenerated into a fistfight, I imagine he would have kicked my ass.

I don't hate all the amateur preachers on the subway. I liked the one who, in the middle of yammering about Jesus and salvation and whatever, loudly proclaimed, "Human beings has gots to have sex!" Amen, brother!

Apparently...he has a lot of good stuff on that farm...moonshine possibly?

So see, Randall, you tell me and Cajun and Danzig who they are and then WE'LL call them that for you. ;)

LOL. I love NY. What a town. If you have a sense of humor and like culture, its the place to be.

I'm sorry,GR, the amatuers screw up the message as bad as the pros do...sometimes.

Will do.

I hear ya Timm.
TGIF.
Happy woodchuck day!

He's pretty forgiving most of the time....but stay away from politics:D

Well, Timm, of course in an average healthy relationship it's never going to go there. My husband and I have had some very angry fights but I know he'd sooner chop off his own hand than hit me. But then he'd never call me a c*nt, either. (I did hear him call me a "f*cking baby" once, but then when I yelled, "WHAT did you just call me?" he retorted, "You weren't supposed to hear that!" and then I started laughing and the fight was over. I sometimes HATE that he's so darn funny. Ruins perfectly good fights.) But looking at the root causes of why "n*****" is hateful in a way that "honky" isn't, and how "c*nt" is hateful in a way that "prick" just isn't, I think it comes back to who is saying it and who has the power.

And while there's I imagine, no power on earth that would make you strike a woman, the physical fact remains if you did, you could hit her harder than she could hit you. You have the upper hand, and you were given that by physiology. In a way, the stronger person always has the upper hand in a fight, and it's testament to our progress and growth as a society that the stronger one will opt to not ever play that card and choose to negotiate through a fight differently. Because now, most of us see it as more "manly" to keep one's fists in one's pockets. And I think not saying words that say that one is bad simply because one is female or black is another way of keeping those fists in their pockets. It's saying, I'm going to have to criticize you based on what you do, or WHO you are, not what you are. If I'm called a bitch, it's because I'm being a jerk, not because I'm a female canine.