green

Ahhh, grrl, I am pleased that you have enjoyed my input. The truth is that you have created a very special environment for folks who are or who were chubbly-wubbly to frequent. This is cool, you know, and how could it not be, eh....huh...and or whatever,... whatever....:rolleyes The truth is that it is powerfully important for us to be able to be able to connect with our community.

Disg/cay is never disgusting ,eh, is it?

Green is always annoyed by Christians. She gets really pissed off by their messy grammar, their bossiness, and the over all lack of intellectual rigor with which they take care of business. She figures that there has got to be a sweet, sweet standard and that those Christ-lovin folk have got to spend their time under the same microscope as the rest of us.

The simple truth is this, is is it not? - and that is that we must all be sufficiently freed from our own personal fears of being viewed as racists, and of course we must be sufficiently loosened up that we can feel comfortable with being aggressive and with noting the difference between humour and cruel bloody racism.

Ah, Cusano, my kinda sorta old friend! Once again I would argue with you because you have chosen to take refuge - in a thoughtless and knee-jerk fashion - behind a certain political position. This is never a wise nor an interesting approach sez the lovely and bi-ethnic green. Oy, yah, she looks awful damn white on the outside and yet the grrl throws off occasional knee jerk twitches of life from time to fuckin time. There is a kinda halo of DNA which we all leave, do we not?

396, I realise from the quality of your posts that you don't get out much and so here are a few facts of which you are unaware: those terrorists of which you speak are religious fundamentalists and many, if not most, have ties with al-Qaeda. This is a group which has its roots in the Wahhabi approach to Islam, a fundamentalist approach to religion which has its roots in Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich country and also a so-called friend of BuSh America. It should also be noted by your own fine self that Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, is a member of a very wealthy and powerful Saudite family. You should be interested to know that Iraq was the only Muslim state in the region which was controlled by a modernist non-religious type government at the time that George Bush da 2nd chose to invade the country. Yes, Iraq, thanks to her horrible leader, had certainly been behaving badly, that is for sure. At the same time it is crucial to your understanding of the complexities of the Middle East that you recognise that Iraq - a modernist and secular nation - had nothing to do with either the philosophies or activities of the al Wahhabiist al Qaeda activities. Iraq's bad behaviour vis-a-vis its expansionist behaviour into Kuwait in the early 1990's was an act which was largely devoid of either political or emotional cant.

Yep, that's the one. Razzie is short for raspberry as in 'blowing a raspberry' or making a farting sound with your mouth.:biggrin1: That Jenny McCarthy movie was another one that I really liked. It had the funniest menstruation scene I have ever seen - totally tasteless but it tapped into all my menstruation fears from back when I used to be bothered with that kind of thing.... I think I have a real appreciation for tasteless comedies. I loved Borat! :heh: I wonder if there is a support group for people like me other than teenage boys.:phanvan

I loved that movie White Chicks! None of my friends got it or me for that matter. Did you know that it won a Razzie for being super bad?

I've always wanted to go to Myrtle Beach. Lucky you! How was the shopping?

When younger people ask me how I feel about growing old, I tell 'em that it is not that pleasant but better than the alternative.:phanvan

I got married to a musician when I was 22 and we split up 5 years later. Then I spent a period of time trying on a number of men before I met my better half. He is a guy that I would have overlooked when I was younger: too quiet, and not as well-educated as I am. Sometimes a grrl has to kiss a lot of toads before she gets it right.....:tired

Al Sharpton is a racist in that he is an individual who has two sets of optics; he will judge your bad activities based on the colour of your skin. With respect to the Imus situation he was up front and central but I have never heard of him engaging in issues to do with rap language and as we all know it has been rappers who have been floating the concepts and language of violence over the past few decades including the term ho. Of course this indicates that this individual carries with himself a vivid double standard. It is for this reason that this fellow strikes me as being a racist, an opportunist, a gas-bag, and an anti-intellectual. Imus certainly did f!!k up and this is where your country has the opportunity to engage in something more than meaningless rhetoric in the style of Sharpton. It would be far more noble of this man to take a low-key approach and to open up a discussion into the issues hingeing on racial damage. The plain truth is that Sharpton is none too bright and he is a political opportunist who is playing the racist card. Also true is that his approach of stirring up Blacks against Whites is not useful given that both Blacks and Whites live in America and will continue to do so. Nor is it a Christian love yer brothers kind of philosophy, is it?

I suspect that the issue here is one of love. Carlene and her husband were friends with the original couple, and had known them for a very, very long time. They had come to see the marital relationship of this couple as being both profound and loving. Certainly this couple had had an unusual start and one that was, well, powerfully romantic. (See Carlene's earlier commentary.) It is certain that this relationship seemed to be a solid one and one which would undoubtedly last a lifetime. That this woman's mate so easily unhooked himself from his dying wife while she was in extremis and then so quickly transferred his allegiance to another woman would be painful for any friend of this couple to watch. How could it not be? Well, this was the position in which Carlene found herself while her friend was dying. That her friend's husband had suddenly shown himself to be utterly careless, insensitive, egotistical, and libidinous in the face of this loss must have been both appalling and painful. That her husband had appeared to sanction this by continuing to remain friends with Mr P cannot have been reassuring to Carlene for the offense is two-fold: not only has the so-called loving husband of the newly dead woman both betrayed her and treated her like trash; but the carelessness with which other folk approach Mr P's behaviour both indicates a degree of sanctioned disrespect towards this maltreated dead woman and also holds the threat of a sanctioned disrespect towards all of us who die first. Let me speak quite bluntly. It is not a pleasant thing to consider that you will be casually dumped into the nearest garbage bin once you cease to be emotionally, financially, and sexually viable. Loving mates who leave first are supposed to be quite happy to find that their partners have found solace and company. They do, however, want to be properly grieved over and given their dues. That is their proper right, is it not?

Neither LBT nor a doctor's office is an appropriate venue for any of the following: a shock jock's schtick, a rapper's terminology, or a South Park approach to the issues which we discuss here. We come from a wide range of backgrounds and we hold a wide range of values dear to ourselves: we come here for serious discussion and the employment of such language in this context is obviously entirely inappropriate. But again I will go back to this issue of provenance/context. Black people have decided to own or take back the 'N' word; this doesn't permit White people to make use of it, too. Certainly some taboo words are more no-go than others and I guess that the N-word is the most powerful of those which are taboo. Other words which are deeply offensive are in the process of being taken back or apart or forcibly deconstructed by comedians these days. It might be argued that Lenny Bruce was the comedian who first wandered into these waters. Of course there has been a comedic history of exploration into this whole business of loaded language: George Carlin has been at this for ages and Dave Chapelle and Chris Rock are two other notable comics who investigate this zone. Of course there are many others.... The taste for this type of comedy is not for everyone, just as the taste for middle of the road rock or American Idol is not for everyone. Nevertheless, I do appreciate humour which pushes the envelope for this is often the fashion in which we finally figure out the hidden hypocrisies and paradigms of our societies. Humour is iconoclastic: it has to break the rules. Oh, for sure Imus went way too far. Those girls did not merit that cheap throw-away comment and the dude should certainly be required to do some serious public grovelling as well as suffer some serious financial loss but as for having his career ended, I disagree. You see, sensitive, refined, middle-aged and middle-class women are not Imus's target audience and he should not be required to pay their price. When the choice comes to listening to a shock jock, rap, country, or listening to Celine Dion/Whitney Huston/or whatever, we do have certain options, have we not? We can twiddle with the radio dial until we find something appropriate to our personal needs. Young white males like listening to shock jocks. Most women prefer to listen to country or to soft rock and to the current array of divas. Well, this grrl only likes jazz, classical, and shock jock and so she is in a minority, go figure, eh. And like everyone else she would be comfortable in defending her tastes as being the most valuable and therefore the only ones worthy of respect. Imus had a mandate from his owners and his advertisers to play up to a certain audience. He certainly did f!!!k up big time with his fuzzy-headed wisecrack but this was not due to his own racism: rather the poor bastard took what he thought might be an amusing quip far too far and now he is being publickly smacked for this. This is certainly warranted but is he a racist? No. Does he deserve to lose his job? No.

It is true that widowers tend to remarry extremely quickly after the death of their wives and that this may be seen as an act of homage to the first wife for it indicates that the widower found great happiness in the state of marriage, but in this case it does seem as though the wealthy Mr P did run willingly into the arms of a conniving broad some considerable time before his wife was actually dead. Now she has managed to get her granddaughter on the payroll, too, by getting the old guy to adopt her even though the kid has a father who is alive and well. Carlene had reported earlier that Mrs P had been pretty much abandonned by her mate once he became involved with her caretaker. It seems that Mrs P was ultimately warehoused in a facility and this is where she died. A further affront was that Mrs P, a Catholic, was not given a proper funerary Mass and burial. Her importance to her mate, indeed the very fact of her existance, was more or less tidied away and brushed under the rug. It is very painful for a friend to observe such a death.

Al Sharpton is a racist. Imus is only a guy who made a very foolish mistake.

I do believe that we have to look at context and provenance when we examine things which people say. I have heard comedians call each other's mother a ho. On South Park, a show which never fails to push the envelope, Cartman's mother is routinely called a crack whore, the Black kid is called Token, and all groups get dissed. When an offensive word is said out of hatred and not out of ignorance or in order to make - rightly or wrongly - a comedic point we know it and it is for these individuals that we should save our righteous anger. Those who speak out of ignorance or go too far when trying to create comedy should also be educated by the public of course but we should not lose sight of the fact that these people are not true hate-mongerers. They are simply idiots.

You misread my earlier comments. I did say that Imus blew it when he made it when he made that comment. I also say that he is not a racist and that that wisecrack, though offensive, came from a different place. He was trying, and failing badly, to be hip and humorous. As to individuals whom you mention above, the young white males who purchase rap music, those dudes are Imus's target audience. An examination of his idiotic remark displays that he was talking to dudes: he was commenting on the results of a b-ball game and he used the term ho. As to how well I know Don Imus, well, I used to listen to Howard Stern's show for a couple of years and I read one of his books. Through studying Stern I gathered that Imus, his only rival, dealt in the same kind of tasteless yet sometimes wildly funny schtick. You see, I do have a frat boy's sense of humour and happen to detest soft rock, middle of the road music.

Being offensive is Imus's schtick. He is a shock jock and for many years he and Howard Stern were carrying on a serious rivalry for both market share and the title of 'king of the shock jocks.' A shock jock is expected to be outrageous, gross, controversial, and offensive. His target audience is males from the age of 15 to 40, males with a frat boy sense of humour, a target group which is notoriously difficult to attract, by the way. Don Imus certainly did blow it with the 'nappy head ho' wise crack but that is because he is a white guy who happened to diss a team of serious female athletes. Had he been a Black artist he might have been cut some slack. Who knows? Of course Imus is not a racist. He is just a shock jock who pushed the rule-breaking, politically incorrect humour envelope way too far. (Howard Stern may be better protected; his long-term side-kick, Robin Quivers, is a woman of colour and he himself is Jewish.) I would also suggest that the problem which Imus has run up against was in part created by the young Black urban music culture itself. We have, afterall, been listening to black men referring to their women as hos for a couple of decades now. It will become more difficult to remember to prize individuals who seem to hold themselves and those who belong to them in contempt. Perhaps this stupid white man fell into this trap.

Laurend, is there anyway that you can do both? I found that my recovery time from the surgery was very quick and I am 57. I spent 3 days in bed dozing, reading and enjoying the narcotics. By the 4th day I was bathed, dressed and up and about. Carlene, I have been helping my niece with writing some of her B.ed papers. She is a single mum and her child is severely dyslexic. And she suffers from the family curse: she is another depressive. I have been enjoying helping her with her work.

Caramel Cone Explosion has a very, very powerful effect on Green. :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: Tragic but true.

Hah! DQ doesn't do a thing for me but Haagen-D....oh, but that is very, very bad.:hungry: And it is everywhere, everywhere!

I was going to say much the same as Doddie. Cancer in older folks does spread less rapidly than in young people. This is because the overall rate of cell division slows as we age and this affects bad, the cancerous cells, along with the good. And there does seem to be many more survivors of breast cancer these days than there used to be. One of my closest friend's sister was diagnosed with level/stage 4 breast cancer 3 years ago. Level 4 is pretty much a death sentence but the specialists seemed to have fixed her up and now she is back at work. This woman was in her very early 50s when she was diagnosed and she works on the line for one of the car companies. It is understandable that both you and your mum will be scared by this diagnosis of breast cancer. My advice would be that you accompany her to all of her medical appointments. Because she will be nervous she will miss a lot of information and she will neglect to ask questions. This is when two heads are better than one. You can act as both a second set of brains and an emotional support for her. And because you will have a proper understanding of the situation you will feel more in control of your own fears and you can assist her in mastering her fears. from green.

Boy, if I wasn't a happily married Canadian I would go down there and offer the dude some Viagra myself! :heh: :heh: :heh: He could pay me for time share in my bed! Yipes, eh.

Hooray! You're back! You missed out on a lousy dark few months up here.