dessa_dangerous

@LostBetweenCountries I feel fairly certain that it's an alt of a long-term member, possibly either saying their true feelings or exaggerating them as a wind-up.   It's interesting how people drift in and out.   But telling peeps to go back to Africa just for funsies is obviously not on, so while I can tolerate a bit of shenanigans here and there, a line def has to be drawn somewhere, and this time it happened to be right way over the mark there with the rest of the Ku Klux Klan.

  For Thanksgiving this last November I received a looooovely invitation in the mail (that sounds sarcastic but it really was lovely, especially as it's so rare to get a "proper" invitation to anything these days that isn't a wedding) from a pair of dear friends.  It was gorgeously penned and decorated--lamentably, the principal component of the decoration was LOOSE glitter of all shapes and sizes.  Essentially a glitter bomb.  You opened the envelope and POOF! a cloud of glitter landed on everything in a three-foot radius around you.  Stupidly, I wound up having to consult the invitation another two or three times before the night in question and each time unleashed afresh another glitter attack.  I am STILL finding glitter on myself in my last-glance-in-the-mirror-before-leaving-the-house check, two months later.  The shit gets and STAYS everywhere. re glass bottles: don't forget, glass bottles are heavier and also need to be transported.  The shipping of filled plastic bottles requires exponentially less fuel than the shipping of filled glass bottles :/  re string cheese: nothing quite so satisfying for a small person.  Your kids will grow out of their fascination with it by their late teens, I'm sure, but until then, it's a cheap thrill for a kid who can't yet drink, smoke, club, watch porn, or decide when they get up in the morning.  Let them live.

I had wanted to ban him since, well, maybe day three, but made the mistake of seeking counsel and was advised that no one should be banned for "having a different opinion."   Just now, however, I hadn't even fully read his comment, any of those that followed it or any of the reports about it before he was banned.  Caught the tail end and banned him without even blinking.

BMurphy has been permanently banned for asking a black person if they wouldn't like to move back to Africa.   Next.

  again, as you have obviously not the slightest clue what affirmative action is about, you look absolutely foolish attempting to comment on it.   The point is that the "meritocracy" is not a perfect system, and that if everyone were REALLY offered positions based on their abilities, the workplace would be a lot more diverse than you think.  Awarding, in the case of two equally qualified candidates (note: NOT in which one of the people is not adequately qualified), the job to the "diverse" person, is a way of righting a wrong we know is being committed somewhere else, and because the white male will almost always have an easier time getting a job for which he is qualified.   You just said your damn self, that diversity in the workplace is "off-putting" to many people.  And that's why many workplaces stay white and/or male.  YOU JUST YOURSELF WROTE THE REASON WHY WE STILL NEED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.   God, you're stupid.

I miss the red button.

don't dignify this person with a response, lisa.  That's quicksand ain't nobody got time for.  "Arguing with a fool only proves that there are two."   "Feminists" don't care about children, oh boy.     Why do I smell a... hellfire99, is that you?  That would actually make perfect sense.

  of course.  My post was also not meant to slight single fathers or families who make a concerted effort to share all responsibilities equally and of course I know plenty of people my age where the parents split Elternzeit equally and both parents work comparable hours outside of the home and take turns doing housework, picking up the kids from kita, taking them to playdates and the doctor's and helping with homework, etc.  There are tons of engaged dads and to be sure, not ALL women are perfect models of nurturing and sacrifice.  My post was more a response to a somewhat antiquated viewpoint that men "work harder" and have more stress by default just because they work more outside of the home.  

posted while Anna and Keleth were posting.  My sentiments exactly about the unpaid caring jobs.

physical stress isn't the only way to work yourself into an early grave.  Women do more of the caring for the very young and the very old, both extremely stressful tasks.  Purely anecdotal, but--in families where there are sons and daughters, daughters seem to get the short end of the stick when it  comes to caring for elderly or ailing relatives.  Listening to a man gripe about his job and putting up with his shitty moods, emotional distance, and very often poor communication practices is also extremely stressful for a lot of women.  While it's not so very politically correct to say that a lot of men exhibit poor emotional intelligence, it's true in plenty of cases, and struggling to keep a family and household together with a man who refuses to address or talk about his feelings can be draining, devastating.  That's leaving out all the stereotypical male behaviors like shutting down, checking out, unfaithfulness, violence, dominance, incongruent prioritizing (for example, valuing his position as main earner more than the woman's sacrifices for himself, the family, the household, and the aging relatives).  Mothers are often, usually, the ones who go to parent-teacher conferences, are blamed when children act out or fail in school, a mother who works less than her husband is likely the one taking the children to doctor's appointments, coordinating their scholarly and extracurricular activities, monitoring their health, development, and their performance at school, etc etc ad nauseum.   For a lot of women, trying to keep their families intact and functioning halfway decently is a constant uphill battle and at the best of times, an utterly thankless job.  Taking care of literally everybody in the house but all too often being seen as nagging, harping, over-protective, no fun, worrying over nothing etc must seriously take its toll on a mother, and it's not as if old men get easier to "manage" the older and weaker they get.  On the contrary.    I'm not a mother and I don't plan to be, and aside from my general lack of a dream to be one, the stress of it sounds like a total fucking nightmare.  A bit of office stress or physical labor that ends when the workday ends sounds like a walk in the park in comparison.    Women, and mothers in particular, are made of tougher stuff.  They get no regard, recognition or respect and still, they keep on keeping on.  Doing what needs to be done because nobody else is going to do it.  And, of course, even when a woman does the EXACT SAME JOB as a man, she gets paid, on average, (considerably!) less.  What does that tell you?  So yeah, sorry, I'm not buying any sob story about how men get the short end of the stick in life.  Feed that garbage to somebody else.

I have various theories about the specific issue of men's mental health and longevity, but it seems misplaced to go into detail in this thread.   I will say that I don't believe it's because men "work harder", and the suggestion makes me want to spit.   I do think men take care of themselves less, my theory, because they are more likely to think of themselves as invincible, and are less likely to reach out for help when they need it.  Lest I be accused of being anti-man (though I cannot claim I'm absolutely not... any woman of a certain age who doesn't have her reservations about men is either a fool, or has been extremely lucky in life, or both), let me make it clear that society is at least as much to blame for creating an atmosphere where anything less than total control over one's self and sensibilities is viewed as failure.  I think men have fewer outlets and resources that allow them to retain some sense of autonomy and "manliness"... A woman reaching out for help is "normal", a man who has failed to solve his all his problems on his own is often viewed as "lesser than."  It is a shame, and my personal theory is that it leads to a a lot of male frustration and aggression.   Married women live around two years fewer than single women, and single men live around two years shorter than married men.  From that alone, it seems that a female influence in a man's life is beneficial to his health, while the opposite isn't true.  Make of that what you will.  

free pick, sub him for whoever you think suits best  

GUYS, GUYS, GUYS, GUYS, puhhhhlease--leave it.   FTD is more than decent for a newbie.    And I mostly like you, alderhill, but from the outside looking in (leaving out the more critical eye of a moderator), it looks like you've got an axe to grind with the OP.   Don't get me wrong--I have been there.  But now, nine pages in, you appear obsessed.  Whatever your arguments are with this guy--leave it out.  You are not coming out on top, I'm afraid--you look like you have nothing better to do than to hassle unrelentingly a person who reached out to our community and got a few useful answers and then eight pages of stress (almost entirely from yourself).   We used to have this bit in the wiki (RIP the old forum) that gave examples about posting rhythms, so people could get a more realistic gauge of whether they were posting too much in relation to others.  In this case, you're doing, John, Ringo, John, Paul, John, John, Ringo, John, Ringo, Eminem, John, Dalai Lama, John, Ringo, John (you're John, btw)   It's enough.  Leave Ringo alone and do something else.  Again--I've been there, when someone's gotten under my skin and I just can't leave it, but--from one user to another--it's time to leave well enough alone, mang.     Thanks for reminding me of my one true sorrow this time of year  especially as during the rugby world cup this year I was able to find a source unrelated to ITV to stream games and they do NBA as well.  Technically, my job allows me to stay up late to watch the games, but my life preferences do not. I think I was happier before I had access to free live streamed games. Boo.

  I think it was directly after Hurricane Katrina that rapper Kanye West loudly and famously claimed that George W. Bush "doesn't care about black people."  Now, while I'd accuse Dubya of a lot of things, being a proper racist isn't one of them.  At the time, and ever since, I've always wanted to fix that for him: "George Bush doesn't care about POOR people."   I think that holds true in a lot of well-meaning conversations that erroneously diagnose a problem as a race issue when it is, in actual fact, more of a class issue than anything else.  Now, getting into the overlap is a whole different conversation altogether, but I think it's clear that for a lot of the ruling elite, skin color/ethnicity could hardly matter less when everything else (education, upbringing, community background, money, political leaning/engagements, commercial enterprise/investment etc) is "correct."

Gassing them?  Iz this seeriuz post or are you trolling (Probably A Mod)?   I've seen eight-man crews go out in little ice-breaking boats on the canal during winter to save stuck swans, fire-brigade coming out with cherry-pickers, ropes, and other assorted longish pole-shaped things with stuff on the ends in order to free and save ailing animals.  Where they're taken after that--when necessary--I don't know.  What I do know is that Tierheim Berlin is full of every sort of animal you can think of and the staff there apparently able to care for them (although I don't know that they specifically keep wild animals for any period of time after their convalescent period is over).   Gassing?!!?  In 20-some-odd years fupping about on the internet, 13 years in Germany, 11 years writing on this forum and seven years moderating this forum, I have never ever once said what I am about to say:   Are you sure you wouldn't be happier just fucking back off to wherever it is you came from?     I mean, I am LITERALLY the last person to hold a wee bit of griping about our sometimes scratchy host nation against someone, what with all of their things and ways that can vex and annoy us foreigners almost no matter how long we live here.  But if you really, truly believe that first responders show up to free an animal from a fence or help it out of a sewer drain cover just to take it somewhere and cackle evilly while sending it to the gas chambers, like, Germany probably isn't the place for you, pal.  I don't know if anywhere is, but Germany fo damn sho ain't it.  Just saying.     "Wow" doesn't begin to cover it.