Probably on account of him being dead.

I'm not sure I've ever seen it on a form my kids fill out, only for parents. I don't know if they offer an NA option, I'd just not tick the box. THoughI guess with electronic forms that might not work.

I don't generally find the political or even personal foibles of actors are a turn off for me in terms of their acting, and I don't avoid anyone in films for reasons like that really. I was thinking in this thread more in terms of a gut feeling. About the only person that I avoid because he disgusts me in that way is Roman Polanski and I can't bear to give him money. If he dies though, I am happy to fund his estate and I will be rewatching Chinatown. But reading these responses, it kind of seems like Tom Cruise is not a guy to hire to make a film popular.

I think wintermom is in Canada. It wouldn't generally be relevant to collect school data on Jewish kids in most of Canada. What I do see here are forms asking about whether students are French, or Acadian since I am in the East, or African-Canadian, or indigenous/Metis. All of those groups have special programs or language rights or similar things attached to them, which is why they ask.

Hmm, for men I love Brian Cox. Rufus Sewell, who I had a terrible crush on as a teenager after I saw Middlemarch. Ralph Fines. Christopher Eccleston. Idris Elba. Christopher Plummer. Sean Bean. Harvey Keitel (I think I've spelled that wrong.) Miranda Richardson, Shirley Henderson, Kate Winslet, Kristen Scott Thomas, Imelda Staunten.

Oh, I thought of another one - Kristen Stewart. It's the way her mouth hangs open all the time, mostly, and I have the strong impression that she is a self-centred social climber and moron. Which may be false, but that is what I think about when she is on the screen. And now that I think about it, I also can't watch Emma Watson. Somehow I read this as "who owns a cooking dog" and I thought, that would really be kind of helpful.

I was thinking this too. Most of the ones I really dislike, will avoid a film for, are men. On the other hand the opposite is also true, as far as actors who will actually make me watch a film I might not have otherwise, mostly men. Actresses I tend to have less extreme reactions to, good or bad. Except Angelina Jolie.

Wintermom - I tend to agree with you. There are some exceptions, but in general I find American films and tv poor, and I mostly pin it on the dialogue. There is something oddly stereotyped about it, so even a good actor struggles to make it work. In the past five years I'm finding I'm watching largely British stuff mixed with Canadian, Australian, and some things with subtitles from non-English markets.

Interestingly a lot of the ones people have already mentioned. Tom Cruise is probably top of the list, and then Leonardo DiCaprio. Thoe are the two I really tend to avoid. I've seen a few things I thought were ok with them but I still found them a distraction. I think the only thing I really liked with Cruise was Born on the 4th of July, and it was because the character was supposed to be an annoying git. But Brad Pitt is up there, Angelina Joli, and most of the silly comedy actors like Jim Carey or Will Farrell Ben Stiller. In the latter arguably I just dislike the genre, I can't deal with Chevy Chase films either. Though, I like Bill Murray and Jim Candy so who knows.

I have sometimes tried to do this, but I can't get it to work well. It should be easy really as I am always in two stores, at least, each week, so I could shop sale items at each. But I just can't quite manage it. In fact, there is a meat shop with good prices near me which I rarely get to, and also a bakery outlet which I get to less than I'd like. Both could save me money. One thing I've discovered is despite my best intentions I will not shop much at a place I find stressful, to loud or uncomfortable to me visually, too crowded etc. I didn't shop at Costco for that reason when I had a membership.

I took Scarlett in the original comments to mean it was the other parts of the man's statements that seemed off. Not, thanks for the work, but glad I could fit you in, and glad I could give you such a good price. If someone always said stuff like that, and depending on the tone, it might give the impression the person was almost put out by your asking them to do the job, maybe they felt they had to give up more lucrative contracts for example. Like they were trying to create a sort of indebtedness.

I don't think it matters that people choose, or can choose, religion. It can be something that people are concerned about tracking just like anything else. It might be quite interesting to know what the school enrolments or achievements were like for Catholic kids, as opposed to Protestant ones, up through the early part of the 20th century. At least in certain parts of the world. It's no longer that important in the secular west, or at least that is people's perception, and I expect that's why we don't see many forms asking.

Sometimes there are questions like this because they are interested on collecting data about certain groups. If you want to know how kids with Hispanic backgrounds compare to these from some other background, say in terms of school achievement, you have to have that recorded. It can be pretty interesting to see what they include, and also what they don't include, because it says a lot about what people are concerned about or what they think is important.

That seems like a weird division. I understand that Hispanic is a language category, so it would be separate from those others. But some of the others sound like an ethnicity to me more than race - you are of Pacific Islander descent whether or not you consider that to be a "race" which I think most wouldn't.

It sounds like they felt inadequate and are being dicks about it.

I think the Samoan example is probably only somewhat helpful in a western country. It does show that when vaccination rates are low, the disease will spread and kill. However t is also a country where health outcomes aren't comparable to ours in other ways. Measles is a lot more deadly if you don't have good health already or if you don't get care once infected. Someone could plausibly point out that a measles outbreak here might well have fewer cases, fewer deaths, and fewer serious complications.

I'll tell you want ticked me off one year. Our extended family dinner had become so large that we could could only eat at my mother's or my aunt's, and they kept complaining about the work of hosting. So my sister and I rented my church hall and cooked dinner there in the big kitchen, and set up tables for the dinner. We did all the cooking other than my mom made a few pies, and we paid for it all other than my mom bought the turkey. The only thing the others were asked to bring was wine or beer. We really had a lot of fun cooking it and were prepared to go on doing it into the foreseeable future. We also invited a few extra people who were away from home since there was a lot of room. It seemed like everyone enjoyed the dinner, and the food was great, although not many people were very helpful about cleaning up even though it was pretty easy with the industrial washer. But afterwards, they all decided that it wasn't what they liked, a church hall wasn't nice enough they wanted a real dinner with cloth napkins and such. I've come to the conclusion they really prefer to complain about the work

We have some doozy relatives, but none like that, I am glad to say. Anyone brings something unless they are financially strapped or elderly, that mainly means my aunt who is living on a disability pension and those in their late 70s and up.

I also wouldn't go gluten free without some sort of testing. It doesn't instil a good relationship to food in young people for whom that is important. And it's a huge food group to cut out just on spec, in terms of nutrition, the mental load of doing it, and also restricting what a person can eat outside the home. Especially if you've already eliminated dairy you are really getting into significant restrictions. If you know the dairy is a problem from before, I would keep looking into that. If you haven't had some medical exploration into that it might be worthwhile. But it sounds like she hasn't cut that out for long, and if that's the case, effects from food intolerances can last for some time after the food is cut out. You might need to wait longer for resolution. And aside from all that, sometimes people show improvement after a diet change that goes away after a few weeks, because it is really caused by indirect factors or the placebo effect. If you are subtracting other foods at the same time you will not really be able to tell what makes a difference. And some type of problems like this have nothing to do with food intolerances.My dd12 gets gut problems related to anxiety, though she doesn't realise that is what is going on. ETA: If a teen won't comply, ultimately I don't think you can do much. Which is all the more reason not to make it too complicated.

I can see that if he was always phrasing it that way, as if you were getting a favour and almost like he's putting himself out for you, it could get to be annoying. I suppose I would then be asking myself, am I somehow really putting this person out, he's putting off better work for me without my realising it? If so I guess the thing would be to tell him you don't want that. If not though, I'd say either just ask someone else next time, or decide to not notice it and assume it's not intentional.

Farm City - The Education of an Urban Farmer: this was enjoyable and not too difficult Small Is Beautiful - older but I keep returning to it On Immunity: An Inoculation - interesting insight into why people feel so strongly about vaccinations (among other things) Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump - a bit intense but short Ideas on the Nature of Science - a series of interviews from radio series Ideas

I do think some people are just more inflexible by nature, and it really comes out at the holidays. They are people who tend to like things done a certain way every time. And with traditional types of celebrations, for many people the sameness of them is a big part of the attraction, it makes them feel rooted. It's also much more difficult as people get older if they don't have some sort of community to turn to in the holidays, or something that seems worthwhile.

I think I agree with you, and with the post you are disagreeing with! 1000 miles is really, really far. Sometimes I think with modern travel we've forgotten how far, so we expect people to drive or hop on a plane for holidays, Christmas, weddings, funerals. But when people live so far away, I think it's reasonable, maybe to be expected, that visits are not going to happen often. It makes me think of Christmas film I always watch, it's a documentary that just shows different scenes in the days leading up to Christmas in 1950s Montreal. There is one scene where a man makes his Christmas call to his mother, in Scotland. From the conversation you can tell that he has never visited home since he left years ago, that his mother still sets a place for him, that phone calls are rare and the connection poor, that his mother is crying. It's very moving but it's what it used to mean to live so far away. Even when I grew up in the 70s and early 80s, I remember making a long distance call being a huge deal, expensive and fuzzy sounding. Now, things are so changed with communications and travel, which is nice in many ways but it also creates expectations that can be hard on people. At the same time, when you live in a situation like I do, I am not 1000 miles from my family. I have a lot of family in the same city and more in my province, and sometimes I do feel like I have a lot of potential obligations. My family is thankfully gracious, but I also feel like I need to make an effort to see people at the holidays if that is something they value.

Yes, there was something both compelling and disturbing about him. Much more interesting than a bad guy who is just bad and unappealing.

I wouldn't ask, unless I was quite close, for example my sisters. My dh's brother divorced a few years ago and dh didn't ask, though his brother eventually did talk to him about it. Their family is very private in general. My extended family would tend to talk about it among themselves to some extent if someone separated. "Uncle Fred and Aunt Joan are getting divorced, he was having an affair. He never could be faithful, too bad because she was a keeper" sort of thing. In your case I'd tend to wait for them to tell you, unless it seemed like you needed to bring it up because it was becoming awkward. If you think they might need help with the kids or something, I'd offer through the parent who told you.