How do we get on the show?

Not to mention, even if you do that, it's not like it will benefit your kids, because change takes years, at best.

When unawareness of privilege affects how people vote and how they treat others and reinforces inequality, I'm going to go ahead and keep talking about it. Until they change their minds or I die. Because it's not okay. There is not a single rich person in this country who is not benefiting from the labor of other people because nobody ever extracted natural resources, built industrial materials, or even ran a service company without labor. You didn't build this, you ordered it built, and you either paid for the work (I worked for Starbucks, there is a company that pays its workers, or Costco, or Boeing) or YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR THE WORK SO YOU DIDN'T BUILD IT. Every single penny of a fortune 500 company relies on the labor of the poor, the workers. Pointing out that they, too, are working, and that their lack of access to capital (management positions) is not due to lack of work, but lack of connections, is not shaming the rich. It is about asking them not to shame the poor. And people do shame the poor in so. many. ways. I don't believe in public benefits for workers, either. I think people working full time should be PAID A LIVING WAGE FOR THEIR LIFE'S WORK. But they're not. So Uncle Sam is going to ask the people who didn't pay the salaries of those workers to fork it over in other ways. Tell me again why someone should work 60 hours a week and fall behind? Nobody ever explains this. Because it's not explainable. All caps is not enough for this injustice. So yeah, I'm going to educate people. Oh, and "rich people didn't work as hard for their money" as the poor? Nope, the question is whether they worked proportionately harder to account for their salaries. Did they? I know people who make a lot of money. I guarantee you, many of them grew up poor and none of them will tell you that they worked 10 or 20 times harder than the people doing piece rate work on farms in this country. They won't say it because it's not true. People who grew up in privilege, however, might think they did work harder, because they don't realize what it really means to be poor. They insult the poor to justify inequality. That's what people object to.

Salamander math has some good ones.

Only if you can only find one way to think about a situation, would a challenge to check yourself shut you up. Check your assumptions is frequently said and it's not meant to imply someone should shut up. I was poor. My kids are growing up privileged, not as privileged as some but in terms of everyday life, as well off as almost anyone in the country. I tell them to check their privilege. It's not to shut them up. It's to make them aware so that they will not view themselves as better than others, or treat others worse, simply because they have advantages.

It's not that I wouldn't admit fault. There is a huge difference between opening up your trap in the middle of a stressful situation with someone who's very angry at you, and waiting until you have a lawyer or someone else with you, to give an objective statement of the facts. It is also possible that I even think I'm at fault when I'm not. For example, suppose I look left-right-left before making a right turn on red. This is legal. If someone else hits me, I might think I've missed them. However, they might have made an illegal left. Or they might have pulled around me and then turned into me because I was stopped and they thought it was clear (I have seen this happen). Starting to say "oh my gosh I totally didn't see you" is a TERRIBLE idea in those circumstances. Keep your mouth SHUT and look for witnesses. I'm not saying don't check to make sure people are okay, but you'd be shocked what people can do and lie about and buying into that is a bad idea.

I wonder why so many people have them then?! We haven't been to classes. We are just on a very long road to eventually adopting, possibly. Like... years from now. Because we don't have a SAHP here, and the kids have activities, it's not realistic. We have to wait for a good time for the whole family to bring a dog in. But I had always thought, "Wow, how convenient." The Internet is so useful at times!

I get much more satisfaction out of feeding their egos and completely ignoring anything I disapprove of in the behavior, than in trying to show them in any way whatsoever that they are being irrational, rude, or wrong. "Isn't that AMAZING!" "You must be so proud." "Wow, I'm really happy for you!" "That's great--I'd love to see a picture / read it." Even: "My child was talking much better at that age." "That's great to hear." Or: "My kids were walking earlier than that." "You must be so proud." I mean what would you say if someone said, "Well, I'm definitely more fit than you are." or "But we make much more money than you do." You'd just say, "That's wonderful for you," or "How nice of you to say so" and then continue on. I mean when you get to that level of weirdness it really becomes more an issue of putting up with someone's weak character and lack of self-control, than it is of dealing with comparisons between kids. What would you do if someone had a really grating voice but didn't know it? Or was a terrible cook but you had to see them once a week and eat at their place? Just be polite. It's really their issue, not yours. If your kids are getting a bad message, you can point out generically that Aunt So-and-So really needs to hear those words said aloud, and as family, you just need to put up with it, but of course it's not all true. It's just what she needs to hear, and as family we put up with one another. I would not ask her to change her behavior. That gives her power and puts her in a vulnerable position where she's going to go on the defensive. I think it's better to feel secure in your own family and just roll your eyes at her put-downs. Don't give someone who acts like that power over what you feel. It's a recipe for disaster. Just let it go. Some people need their kids to be better than other people's kids because that's how they get self-worth. They don't need their behavior corrected, they need therapy, or a better job, or both. Requests to stop bragging are just going to feed that ego issue.

This is not kooky at all. Why, I don't think I've ever bought reusable things for this and I re-wash reusable plates and cups in the dishwasher if there are too many people for my set. I say buy a huge set at Goodwill, all classy/antiquey, and arrange in a pattern. Water glasses, as a PP said, can be mason jars. They are very durable. Style the whole thing "antique chic" and remember that alternating complementary colors/patterns lets you use multiple incomplete sets. Use labels to encourage people to keep their glasses. I have 40 cloth napkins. I would encourage place setting names so that people can keep their napkins and cups. Plan to run the dishwasher once halfway through the party. While I do think there are people who are all about disposable, I know lots of people who would not dream of holding a party at home with disposable things. Maybe in public, but even then, for example, we used all recyclable things and wiped them out to recycle. (I didn't want to bring my dishes to the park.) OTOH, we did use to bring real plates and cups. Re: tables and chairs: I agree if you rent these, definitely ask about place settings. Then they do the dishes!

0 - 1 is the first percentile, and 99-100 is the 100th percentile. If there are only 100 people in the sample, then being in the 100th percentile means you're at the top. However if there are more than 100 people, say 200+ people, then you can be in the 100th percentile and still not be at the very tippy-top. Because there would be more than one person in that percentile.

There is a game like that, about how to survive as a poor person. http://playspent.org

Okay, but quarrelsomeness is generally not appreciated no matter what the religion. You don't have to not quarrel, ever, to be unquarellsome. What a jackfruit this guy is.

Wow. We were thinking of getting a dog sometime in the next few years. I always thought those looked really nice. This has been informative.

But looking attractive is appearance. In the Bible and in the religion itself there is nothing I've ever seen suggesting a woman should focus on outward appearance, to represent her love for god, her family, or her community. There are repeated, vehement, clear commands to the contrary. Can anyone show me a single bible verse that suggests that a woman should smile and be happy when facing hardship? ETA: I realize you are not a Gothardite.

I think that ignorance is no excuse for adults. I think that we can expect children to have a certain level of ignorance. I also think that abuse is necessarily intentional. It's using power wrongly. If you're an adult and you don't realize you're taking advantage, then it's your fault you don't know, and refusing to see that is just as bad as doing it on purpose. However for a child, we cannot say that not knowing is just as bad as knowing and doing it. They can't know. Even a 14-year-old boy may know it's wrong, but in a sheltered or abusive environment, he may not know how wrong, or how to stop. He may have an irrational idea of what will happen if he reports himself (and given our society's treatment of young males, he might be right that the consequences could be life-threatening, including prison). I think that lots of things children do, have different consequences precisely because they are ignorant of the consequences of their actions and the significance of their actions. Two year olds don't get hitting. Repeated biting in an 8 year old is serious. In a two year old, it's not medically actionable. In a 20-year-old, you're under the supervision of a mental health professional or the criminal justice system or both. Even if all those people know that biting is wrong, or don't, there are different expectations of knowledge and self-control for each of them.

That's not what a gap year is. A gap year is a year off to enjoy or live life before continued study. It does not depend on a student's preparedness for college. What you are talking about are high attrition rates.

But all that just speaks to the fact that the humanities aren't as easy to do as some people would have us believe. It's easy to fake it because the grading rubric is often weak and subjective. But a lot of work done in the humanities just plain sucks and you've hit on one reason that many people aren't prepared for it. The only difference is, we pass the students in the humanities, because so much of them have been taken over by relativism. It's really sad, IMO, because I think there is crappy literature and crappy writing and weak analysis but the average GPA in many universities in these classes is ridiculously high. People have over-inflated ideas of their own critical thinking and writing abilities.

What does charm have to do with Christianity? Wow.

I personally do not believe that children can be held to the same moral standards for abuse as adults. I think that children under 3, kids 3 -7, and then again kids 7-11, approximately, are still children. I think teenagers should be given more lenience and far more help when committing even serious crimes. They are developing self-control, learning about power, and learning about consequences at those ages. And yes, this does imply that I think 14-year-old male abusers should be treated differently than 28-year-old male abusers. I would have no problem locking up a 28-year-old pedophile for life in most cases I would imagine. I think a 14-year-old should have other treatment options. I would not necessarily categorize behavior of a child under 7, repeated once or twice, as abusive. I also strongly object to using the criminal justice system for children under 18. I know that's not a magic age. I think there should be a special system that does not feed directly into the criminal justice system, a more mental-health oriented system, for children. I do think the teacher made a mistake in the situation above and I think our society has gotten better understanding how to deal with situations like this. I don't believe she was necessarily culpable, particularly if there was no training or protocol and this was a long time ago. I don't think that the amount of trauma suffered is necessarily proportional to the moral culpability of the other people involved, either. You can experience a lot of trauma if your parent is chronically ill or dies. You can experience a lot of trauma being bullied by a child who is abused themselves, even if you are both very young. I think we have become too punitive towards children. I think sexual abuse is horrible and there need to be strong consequences, but for children those consequences should be healing and not retribution. I also think that when we are talking about kids under seven, there is a certain level of cluelessness among many and if behavior stops when the child is explained why it's not a good idea, there should not follow an assumption that the child is a "pervert".

I am sorry you've faced so much hardship recently. :( That can definitely bring you to the brink. That said, PPs have made good points. It's not his fault that his mower tosses debris. It happens. More importantly, the cop can't decide that, though he can file a report that you complained. And the old man sounds rude but hjffkj was right. You should not admit fault. You don't know what happened. When you're in an accident, keep your mouth shut. Write it down for yourself (not on the computer) if you need to. Of course if you need to speak to help someone who's been injured, that's different. But I can't see myself engaging in conversation like that particularly with someone who seems confrontational. I don't know them--they could be thinking of suing me. I am glad to hear your son is doing better!

I think something to recognize that he's really moving on to a new stage is important. True, he won't be going to college or moving out but getting a job is a heck of a lot more than some people I know have managed after high school... I'd even think like, a briefcase-type work-style backpack, or a bus pass if his family is up for that. Or the YMCA membership. Or even a nice tie, or a really nice pen. Lots of grads get those.

I am so sorry! I strongly recommend getting her to a specialist from urgent care if possible. Does your insurance cover that? Can you call a nurse line? I think in the state she's in, she should be only taking things under supervision of or in consultation with a specialist. You are in my thoughts!

That's why I got off Facebook and just do the Daily Squee from I Can Has Cheezburger.

I sincerely appreciate all of your help, Jean, Rebel, and Twigs, in fulfilling my insatiable curiosity regarding the etymology of arcane Internet acronyms. Off to read.

I'm not a fan. Too greasy. Like duck but less flavorful, and too sweet. I could see it working in a curry, though. That's a good idea.