Note: A preview from my upcoming autobiography, Life’s Too Short to Smoke Cheap Cigars (Or to Drink Cheap Whiskey.)
It’s all a matter of perspective.
Honesty
“Tell me the truth. Do these pants make my butt look big?”
Every man with any sense – any sense at all – will run screaming from the room at that question. It’s the only rational response to a certain-death, lose-lose situation. When my first real girlfriend, Rhonda Walters, asked me that very question, I was less than perfectly prepared.
Somehow, Rhonda had prevailed upon me to drive her to the Pamida in Decorah to shop for jeans. The day had gone well, in spite of my forgetting to remove a string of muskrat traps from the rear seat of my ancient Ford. The jangling traps were somewhat distracting, and they smelled some of the marsh mud they’d once been set in, but Rhonda didn’t seem to mind. After all, Rhonda and I had been dating for several weeks, and she was used to the old Galaxie 500’s interior by now – including the likely prospect of sitting on a raw coon pelt, finding an odiferous jar of catfish bait in the glove compartment, or having 12-gauge shotgun shells rolling around on the floorboards. No doubt she thought that added to my own peculiar backwoods charm.
Then we went into the Pamida, and Rhonda asked me the fateful question.
“Don’t worry about that.” I replied. “I don’t really like real skinny girls.”
Upon regaining consciousness, I went searching for a rather steamed Rhonda, and realized I did indeed have a thing or two to learn about women.
As it Happened
A boy’s first real girlfriend provides an education the lad won’t find anywhere else on Earth. The finest arts of diplomacy are in fact attainable to a rough-cut teenage woods bum faced with the prospect of obtaining a smooch from his girlfriend.
For instance: My father, a man of staggering intellect as well as an old-fashioned country gentleman, had stressed the vital importance of honesty for all my young life. If a man’s word wasn’t reliable, the man was not worth knowing. And yet, my telling the truth here resulted in some pretty severe negative feedback.
What was a young man to do? Honesty was important, but the dizzying prospect of a goodnight kiss in the car before walking Rhonda to her door that evening took precedence.
Rhonda forgave me that first faux pas, but slowly. I only got a peck on the cheek that evening when I dropped her off, and that balanced against her father’s inevitable angry glare at the door was not a good cost/benefit ratio. Well, even a longhaired, slightly bedraggled woods bum could learn, and in this case the stakes were high; higher than they’d ever been, in fact. After all, the very fact that Rhonda was going out with me had staggered the expectations of all my friends, not to mention Rhonda’s father. I had to hold this thing together long enough to make it respectable. Besides, Rhonda was a dazzling specimen, with a smile that could lay a strong man flat.
My friends weren’t much help. Most of them hadn’t kept a girlfriend for more than a few days before committing some horrendous gaffe that sent the unfortunate girl screaming for Mother. The only exception to that rule was my buddy Dave, and he’d be no help either; Dave and his year-long girlfriend Stacy had daily shouting matches that you could hear for a good mile downwind, and yet always seemed to turn up on Saturday night with their arms around each other. Stacy not only tolerated the inevitable arguments, but actually won most of them. Of course, Stacy had the vocal capacity of a 30-year Marine top sergeant, and the strength, ferocity, and tenacity of a wolverine. She also seemed strangely tolerant of Dave’s shiftlessness, sporadic personal hygiene, tobacco chewing, beer swilling, and frequent weeklong absences into the deepest recesses of some distant tract of forest. Granted Dave had some bad habits, too, but Stacy overlooked those as well. No, I’d have to wait for another day to plumb that mystery. I had bigger fish to fry.
Not my old Ford, but much the same.
My campaign began the following Saturday night.
The evening began as evenings with Rhonda generally did. I parked my old Ford and walked across a vast expanse of impeccably manicured lawn to the massive double doors that marked the entrance to the Walters house. On ringing the bell, I was immediately subjected to five minutes of grilling by Rhonda’s father, along the lines of:
“Where exactly are you going?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Who’s going to be there? Are you going to be hanging around with that Hooper delinquent?”
“When will you have my daughter home?”
“Are you driving that crummy old Ford of yours?”
“You aren’t taking her out catfishing again, are you?”
After I stood interrogation, Mr. Walters turned into the house and bellowed, “Rhonda! Worthless is here!”
Rhonda appeared, a vision in tight jeans and a bright blue T-shirt. Once out the door, Rhonda twirled around once in front of me, and asked, “How do I look?”
I froze, openmouthed. This was the test. Rhonda had on approximately a pound of electric blue eye shadow, and her dark hair was newly hair sprayed into a swept-back, Farrah Fawcett-esque, seemingly solid helmet-like structure.
Well, this was new. Rhonda had always let her long dark hair hang loose before. She wasn’t much of a one for makeup, either. What was going on? Was I still on trial for the ‘skinny girls’ remark? Could this be my crucial test of honesty vs. possible smooches?
“Oh, hey, you look great” I stammered, trying not to look at her hair. Given the tight fit of her jeans, that wasn’t any great hardship. A teenage boy faced with a girl in tight jeans can almost always find a suitable place to cast his optics. “Love the hair.” I added. Great touch. Rhonda beamed at me and took my hand. “Good!” she piped. “Let’s go!” Her fingers, wonderfully warm, smooth and soft, twirled around mine. Maybe honesty wasn’t an absolute after all.
As we climbed into the old Ford, Rhonda floated another test my way.
“You know,” she began, scooting across the expanse of the Galaxie’s front seat to snuggle in close, “Jamie and Pete are going to see a movie, I thought we could meet them at the theatre and maybe go for burgers after?”
Oh, no. To say that Rhonda’s friend Jamie was abrasive was the most massive of understatements. It just wasn’t enough to say that Jamie was annoying; she could have given lessons to black flies. And her boyfriend Pete was worse still, the quintessential townie, the sort of boy who thought the world ended at the city limits, and looked down his nose at anyone who’d ever set foot in a cornfield. He certainly wasn’t one to pal around with guys who thought that leaving a dead carp in someone’s school locker was a rather good practical joke. To make matters worse, Jamie and Pete were as puzzled about Rhonda’s current choice in boyfriends as her father was and didn’t bother to hide their opinion any more than Mr. Walters did.
The Blackhawk Bridge, across the Mississippi at Lansing.
Rhonda scooted a bit closer and wrapped her left arm around my right. Her leg pressed against mine. She looked up at me and smiled, and reason and good sense abandoned me completely; at that moment I’d have driven off the old Mississippi river bridge at Lansing if she’d only asked.
“Sure. Sounds like fun!”
Dang. This situational honesty thing may have unforeseen consequences after all.
Things didn’t improve at the movie theater. In spite of my best efforts to hustle Rhonda inside before the dreaded pair could turn up, we bumped into Jamie and Pete in the bright lights right in front of the door.
“Oh, here they are!” Rhonda beamed. “Won’t this be fun! Hi Jamie, Hi Pete!”
I put on what must have been a sickly grin. “Hey Pete. Hey Jamie.”
Jamie Wehner smirked at me. Her voice was a nasal whine, her smile a sham, her demeanor one of annoyed tolerance. “Hi, gosh don’t you look civilized. Is that a clean shirt?” Pete Gilford simpered, “Hey man. Is that raccoon hair on your jeans, or are you shedding?” They both guffawed in glee. Rhonda was reading the movie show times, oblivious. My teeth ground together with enough force to sever a hardened steel carriage bolt.
I fought back a vivid mind’s-eye vision of strangling Pete. “Let’s see when the show starts, OK?” I growled.
The evening proceeded in like fashion. Rhonda and Jamie of course went off to the ladies’ room together in the mysterious manner that girls learn when very young, leaving me to suffer through a recitation of Pete’s latest achievements in model car construction. Through the movie and the stop for burgers and ice cream, I was faced with a series of snide comments, rolled eyes, and muffled giggles from the Couple from Hell. Every time my mouth opened to make a reply, I’d catch a glimpse of Rhonda’s flashing smile, and I’d bite back my retort.
The whole evening didn’t come to a head until after we left annoying Jamie and Pete. As I was driving Rhonda home, she turned to me with an arch look.
“You don’t really like Pete, do you?”
The moment of truth was at hand, and I was forced to abandon my earlier plan of situational honesty.
“No. I don’t.” I sighed.
“You don’t like Jamie either, do you?” she pressed.
“She doesn’t like me any.” I demurred.
Rhonda let go of my hand and edged away from me a fraction of an inch.
“You know,” she said, “Pete isn’t that bad a guy. He’s just got different sort of manners than you, he’s a little more sophisticated. He’s just not rough-cut like you.”
Ouch. My backwoods charm was, apparently, wearing a little thin.
The swamp mud smell of my string of muskrat traps rose silently from the back seat.
But there was a ray of hope. Rhonda and I had a date the next day, to drive to the Effigy Mounds National Monument for a long walk in the woods. As I dropped Rhonda off with another sisterly peck on the cheek to show for the evening, I figured I’d be able to patch things up then. “See you tomorrow” she said, with a slightly sad smile.
And Then This Happened
The actual by-gosh Effigy Mounds National Monument.
The next day, a bright Iowa July Sunday, dawned bright and clear. After putting on a clean black-t-shirt and freshly washed jeans, I left the house early and drove the Iron Coyote into town to a car wash. The traps were removed, and a good wash and a dose of air freshener had the prehistoric Ford looking and smelling as good as it ever did.
By the time I pulled up in front of the Walters estate, the sun was high in the sky, and the temperature and humidity were both in the nineties. A typical Iowa July day, but I knew that on the hillside under the tall trees at Effigy Mounds, the air would be cool and the walking pleasant.
Rhonda appeared, looking cool and enchanting. The previous evening’s hairspray and makeup were gone, and in its place the natural Rhonda I preferred. We set off for the forty-minute drive to Effigy Mounds.
The Effigy Mounds National Monument overlooks the Mississippi River, and consists of several miles of walking paths winding around ancient burial mounds built by early Indians who lived in the area thousands of years ago. The paths wind around the hillsides, under huge white oaks and shagbark hickories, with frequent stops at overlooks with views of the river.
We set out from the parking lot under the blazing July sun, making our way up the first trail from the visitor’s center. Rhonda was quiet and hadn’t taken my hand as she usually did. Things weren’t looking good.
As I was about to discover, there are advantages to being ‘on your own turf,’ as it were.
We stopped at an overlook with a magnificent view of the Mississippi. A barge was making its way upriver, throwing sparks of sunlight from its prow. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I pointed. “Eagle,” I informed Rhonda.
The mature bald eagle soared closer, riding the updrafts rising from the river bluffs. It turned its brilliant white head to look down at us as it passed overhead. Rhonda was wide-eyed. “It’s really an eagle! I’ve never seen one before.”
A light bulb went off. I smiled. There are many kinds of sophistication, and here we were in the middle of mine. “Come on,” I grinned, taking Rhonda’s hand. “Let me show you a few other things. There’s a lot to see out here.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon watching house wrens squabble in the bushes and red-tailed hawks riding the thermals over the hillside. I handed Rhonda my binoculars, showing her how to spot gray squirrels taking their afternoon siestas on high branches in the hickories; later we watched chipmunks scampering over the rocks at the edge of the bluffs. Rhonda was introduced to the year’s last few yellow lady’s slipper orchids in damp spots in the deep woods, as well as black-eyed Susans in the bright sunny meadows. She learned about the sweet tasting nectar in the flowers of the columbine, and where blackberry bushes grew thick on the forest edges. Together we watched a scarlet tanager in the treetops and searched for grouse in the raspberry thickets. Late in the afternoon we found a chipping sparrow nest in a bush, only a foot off the ground. Hand in hand we marveled at the tiny cup meticulously woven of grass.
The eagle soared overhead as we finally approached the parking lot. The sun was sinking behind the hill to the west as a cool breeze lifted off the river. Rhonda turned to me, frowning a little.
“I’m sorry about last night” she apologized. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with being a little… outdoorsy.” She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed me. Not a peck on the cheek like the previous night’s, but an honest-to-gosh kiss, enough to turn all my joints to jelly. My knees went weak, and my brain switched off. Unable to do anything else, I wrapped my arms around her and went with the moment.
In the End
We both learned an important lesson that afternoon.
In the magic of the Iowa summer afternoon under the ancient oaks, Rhonda learned of a world she’d only glimpsed before, a world of animals, birds, and wildflowers whose names she’d never known before that day. In the wonder in Rhonda’s eyes with each new discovery, I learned the value of my own knowledge of the natural world, and how little most people know of their own natural surroundings.
By the time we got back to town, it was dark. The evening was cool and damp, and the electric buzz of cicadas echoed from every tree. “Tell me the truth.” Rhonda asked as we sat in the Iron Coyote in front of her parent’s house. “You didn’t really like my hair like that last night, did you?” She shifted her head on my shoulder to look up at me.
I looked at her and smiled and lifted a lock of soft dark hair with two fingers. “I like it like this. Just like this.”
There are all kinds of diplomacy. That was the day I discovered mine.
You, my friend, are a gifted storyteller. Although the particulars are quite different, it really took me back to my own fumbling forays into the world of dating.
Fumbling is indeed a pretty good way of describing it.
Seconded.
What a nice story, Animal!
…she could have given lessons to black flies.
Great line!
I was there with you, Mr Animal, maybe with out the girl part though. My Galaxie was a ’67, yours a ’68? Mine was dark green. Most of the girls I looked at came off the farm, town girls were a different group that Jack pine Savages didn’t fit in with very well. On occasional, however, the gap was closed, at a dance maybe. We had little in common with the townies.
At this stage in our lives we find most of the differences were in our own minds…
Really enjoyed this article, took me back a long ways. Thanks for the reminders of youth, teen age was hell and still is, I’m guessing.
Mine was a ’66, with a 390GT engine. Painted Ford Red. Fun car.
Other than that, our youths sound very similar.
Deer season in 2 weeks, none the less, the townies will be out too but they go home after the first week end.
My ’67 was a 289.
That was my first car, ’67 Galaxie 500 4 door with the 289. Light green with a black top. AM radio in the dash, and an 8-track and an FM radio both attached with plumbers tape to the underside of the dash. Cheap speakers mounted to paneling and the paneling mounted to the header and to the back shelf.
Battered blue Chevy Nova here. Probably a ’72? Third generation, anyway. In-line 6 cylinder. I was not a gearhead at all, and it was a hand-me-down.
1970 Chevelle SS. I had worked and saved from age 13 to be able to afford it when I was able to get my license.
1965 LeMans.
Bench seat, ftw!
69 Camaro. Orange with white vinyl roof.
350 with 4 barrel; 3 speed on the floor.
The engine failed before it hit 100K miles. Life in the bad old days.
I make this comment to “younger” people often. Probably as recently as 20-25 years ago, you werent going to find a car with more than 100K that could be expected to run reliably. I have a GMC “beater” with the LH6 5.3L with 194K on the clock, and it runs flawlessly, even with the stupid “displacement on demand” system. Of course, I probably just f’d myself by typing that out.
No matter- the 4L60E tranny is a POS.
Once on an episode of ‘Car Talk’ (one of the very, very, few things NPR is good for (other than inducing aneurysms) one of the guys theorized that suburban-sprawl was a result of the japanese selling reliable cars to the US in the 70s. Up until then, nobody could buy an American car that was reliable enough to let them live much further than walking distance from where they worked.
My paternal grandfather was a Ford mechanic during the Depression, and made his living keeping people’s Model Ts and Model As running. He told me once that on those cars, you had to break down the motor to grind the valves and replace rings and bearings about every 20,000 miles.
The upside was that you could do that in about three hours without removing the engine from the car.
Yeah, the bearings are poured and scraped in place.
Reminds me of a funny incident a few years back.
I took the kids with me while christmas shopping. We were walking through the Macy’s when my son spied a beautiful red dress. “Let’s get this for M____!” he exclaimed. I demurred. Both kids immediately started to argue with me pressing me to buy her the dress. My comment that I wasn’t sure of her size didn’t faze them a bit; they insisted that if I got the wrong size we could simply make a post holiday exchange.
I decided it was time to impart fatherly wisdom.
“It’s generally a bad idea to buy a woman clothing as a gift.” I began.
“If you guess wrong and get something too small, they get upset and say ‘I’m fat!!!!'”. At this point a heavy-set black woman who was browsing a rack nearby started smiling.
“If you guess wrong and get something too big, they get upset and say ‘You think I’m fat!'”. The woman’s smile got bigger.
“And finally, if you get something that’s exactly the right size, they get upset, ‘You know exactly how fat I am!!!'” At that point the woman cracked up and put her hand to her face.
My then-elementary-school-aged daughter rolled her eyes. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” she exclaimed. My son then loudly asked me to explain if I were right why did stores specializing in women’s clothing offer gift wrapping services? As I struggled to come up with an answer, the woman and I locked eyes, and she smiled, shook her head, and then walked away.
OF course, now that my daughter is a teenager, she would be absolutely mortified if I even dared to buy her an article of clothing since I know nothing.
These stories are great. We are lucky to have you here. I’m hoping your storytelling skills will rub off on me a little.
Best way to hone storytelling skills is to tell more stories.
We all have a book inside of us, fortunately most never get written. We’ve all read some of those “My Interesting Life and How I Lead It” bios and wondered why was that ever written?
Better we stick to anecdotes for the grand children, which will bore them to death but won’t waste much of their Facebook time.
If I wrote an autobiography, it would bore the shit out of anyone who read it.
Good thing I write fiction.
Mine is a kid’s coloring book. And the kid wasn’t very good at staying inside the lines.
“Don’t worry about that.” I replied. “I don’t really like real skinny girls.”
I actually flinched when I read that line. Great storytelling, Animal.
By the way, you are really spoiling us by giving us all of these great excerpts, thank you much!
I once worked with a younger guy who drank way too much and had zero social skills. He was going out with some girl, and she asked him if she looked fat. He told her, “You could lose a few pounds.” And he was mystified by how angry she was.
Yeah, I learned early on that when a girl asks you your opinion, they don’t really want to hear your opinion, they want to hear their opinion in a deeper voice.
Then don’t ask the question.
Logic has no place in such a conversation.
Being married a long time doesn’t exempt a man either. I still mumble a lot.
My wife never hears me unless I mumble from the other room.
My stock answer is usually along the lines of, “no, those pants dont make your ass look big. Your huge ass makes your ass look big”
Or- “you cant hide a barn by painting it black”
The other side of the coin is that, since I like the “larger ladies”, the best answer is “still not big enough for my tastes”.
Years ago at a bar here (Japan) where outside the toilets was a couple unisex sinks to wash your hands. I was washing up when a young-ish foreign woman was looking at herself in a mirror.
She (to herself): I shouldn’t have worn this blouse. – (to me) “does this blouse make me look fat?”
Me: (gagging on the first words to come to me – “No. The blouse doesn’t make you look fat. It’s the 20 lbs of Hagen Daz wrapped around your waist that makes you look fat.”) Which I managed to stifle to a “Huh?”
No. I never figured out how to pick up women.
For most, a basic fireman’s carry should work.
/deliberately obtuse.
An older acquaintance who used to act as an advisor to our startup showed up in the office completely perplexed about his wife’s going high and to the right on him over a trivial matter.
His wife’s family has a horrible history of Alzheimer’s disease. Everyone from both sides gets it. So our advisor had suggested that since the wife was almost sure to get it too, that the best way to protect their assets would be to get a paper divorce. That way the state would pay for the wife’s institutionalization.
He was utterly baffled as to why she’d get so mad at his suggestion that they divorce.
Women logic. See, there’s a space in between
A really big space.
“Granted Dave had some bad habits, too, but Stacy overlooked those as well.”
I love this part!
Dawwwww!
The handful of times I have asked a guy how I looked was 100% not a test…I needed a 2nd opinion before it was too late to change my clothes. The one time I asked the most recent ex that question, he was honest, I changed my outfit, and I felt a lot more comfortable & confident (it was for a work party)
I appreciate the sensible approach.
But we know there are far too many who do deploy social traps under the guide of asking for an opinion. They ruin it for everyone.
I appreciate men’s past experience with passive-aggression. That’s why I almost never ask for their opinions on my looks and only do it when I truly need an outside opinion.
Most of the guys I’ve dated probably would have told me to sexy it up a
bitlot more.I never dated in high school, being a Guero (light skinned, blondie) – so, obviously not Roman Catholic and outside a chance of consideration.
I guess I was vindicated in this thinking when a couple years later, home on leave from the Marines, I stopped by Diana Jara’s house just to catch up. After talking a while I asked her if she wanted to go on a double date with me and Bert Portillo with his girlfriend on Saturday. I had known Diana since 6th grade but never had what I felt was the right opportunity to ask her out. She said “yes” right away – but after a while, when her mother asked who she was talking to (in Spanish), she went in to ask her mother if she could go out with me to which her mother told her she wasn’t going anywhere with that white boy (also all in Spanish). Diana came back out beaming, as if she was going to be able to fix it (probably not expecting I understood everything that was going down).
Later that week she called me, so sorry to say she had forgotten that she had something important to do that Saturday. I really appreciated that she had probably tried to change her mother’s mind a dozen times. But in the end I was never going to be the right guy to be dating anybody I knew from school.
White privilege strikes again.
I changed from Catholic elementary/middle school into a public high school in 9th grade. In 10th grade I struck up a close friendship with a black girl who lived in my neighborhood, but who I had never really met before changing schools. She and I would sit together on the school bus every day, and got really close. I asked her out a few times, but she demurred every time, finally telling me there was no way her father would let her date a white guy. I was devastated. We rather quickly drifted apart as friends shortly thereafter.
To Brooks: Sorry I just saw your message.
Yes, it’s snowing and snowed all last night. About 9-10 inches so far, first major snow of the year. Cold too; 3 degrees. Supposed to warm back up tomorrow though.
Q!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
?
“I don’t really like real skinny girls.”
As long as they’re not skinny in the appropriate places, I have no complaints.
So no Twiggy, young Mia Farrow, or Audrey Hepburn for you, eh?
They always seemed like the actresses chicks liked more than the men. Rachel Walsh, Sofia Loren, Lynda Carter, and Barbra Eden were the ones the guys were more interested in.
Wrong.
Some of us dig them all.
Long ones, tall ones, short ones, brown ones Black ones, round ones, big ones. Crazy ones.
Jeepers! How many marihuanas, goofballs, and botas full of wine were involved in the decision for that fellow to wear the yellow shirt, wee booty shorts, and open-toed sandal-boots? Great song though.
I can think of a couple of reasons why that is the case.
Is Rachel Walsh an actress I’m unfamiliar with or did your phone auto correct Raquel Welch?
Not saying I wouldn’t, but not optimal.
I just imagined Jamie sounding exactly like Kamala Harris.
Fun story.
Jeans from Pamida – that takes me back. Lovely stories, Animal!
…and now Pamida is gone… What’s next? K-mart? Say it isn’t true, Joe…
Goldman Sachs Admits to Record $1.6B Bribery Scheme
Please let this date back to Phil Murphy’s time there. Please, please…
Wait… It’s illegal in the US to bribe foreign government officials?
yes
Not if you use your drug-addled son as a cut-out.
Yeah, we have to have training on it every year, since we do global business.
It’s only a record if you don’t count bribes paid by the government.
Wait, it’s not just a bonus?
Oh come on, that’s business as usual and everybody does it. Fake news. (Unless Trump does it).
Take your meds.
All of which makes one of her nonanswers to a written follow-up question from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse extremely chilling. Specifically, the one in which she says, “As a sitting judge and as a judicial nominee, it would not be appropriate for me to offer an opinion on abstract legal issues or hypotheticals” in response to the question “Under an originalist theory of interpretation, would there be any constitutional problem with a state making abortion a capital crime, thus subjecting women who get abortions to the death penalty?”
She declined to give an answer, which of course means the answer is yes! Logic!
Wouldn’t it be the doctor performing the abortion who would be up for the death penalty? The woman being more an accessory-before-the-fact?
Conspiracy to commit murder
You pay someone to kill someone, you get the needle too.
Ah, but what if it’s taxpayer-funded?
You mean, what if the healthcare is nationalized and fetuses are declared domestic terrorists?
You’re good to go man.
Then we all go to jail. But because there isn’t space, we will all be confined to our homes, and only allowed out for essential things. Anyone breaking those rules will be publicly shamed. It will terrible, I can’t imagine living in such a world.
Thankfully, our freedom loving neighbors would never consider such an affront to liberty!
would there be any constitutional problem with a state making abortion a capital crime
No. Police powers are reserved to the states by the constitution.
As I was searching for supporting material, I ran across a new SCOTUS case to add to the book of infamy.
From Wikipedia:
squirrel!
I forgot to make the point that nobody in the pro-life movement (except for a few insane people) wants to kill abortion providers or moms who kill their babies. The venn diagram between Pro-life and anti-capital punishment isn’t a circle, but there is significant overlap.
I’m in that circle, Life
I’m in that circle, choose life
I don’t see why it would be a circle, as one can be pro-life and not opposed to the death penalty based upon a different rationale from any sort of pat anti-killing or sanctity of life argument that would align opposition to abortion with opposition to the death penalty.
Personally, I am of the opinion that one needs to commit some sort of eggregious offense in order to deserve death. The unborn have done nothing wrong and are blameless in their circumstance. Likewise, there are some monsters out there who have chosen to do horrible things and deserve to be put down.
Where I’m willing to have a discussion is one what offense qualifies, who decides, and what the standard of proof needs to be.
As this is my starting bias, I would never think opposition to the death penalty is even connected to the issue of abortion. My first assumption would be that those who oppose the death penalty have either not thought it out, or have concluded that the government is not competent to be the arbiter.
Pretty much where I am. I think that applying the “sanctity of life” position to say the death penalty is never justified almost(?) requires pacifism as well. There are plenty of reasons to oppose the death penalty that have nothing to do with abortion or the sanctity of life.
I think that applying the “sanctity of life” position to say the death penalty is never justified almost(?) requires pacifism as well.
Yep. That’s exactly why I don’t get to my anti-death penalty view through sanctity of life arguments. It leads to too many “watching your wife raped in front of you in impotent rage, unable to do anything about it” slippery slopes.
Without going too far down a rabbit trail, I’ve been wrestling with a difficulty in my faith lately. On one side is “turning the other cheek”. On the other side is in Luke, where Jesus’s followers, all armed with swords, are willing to fight a revolution for him, but he puts a stop to it. He doesn’t chastise their being armed or their willingness to use their swords, but the attempt at revolution.
To what extent we can push back against evil with violence is an open question to me.
I agree that there’s nothing inherently inconsistent about being pro-life and pro-death penalty. I became anti-death penalty much later than I became Pro-life.
However, in the context of the question posed to ACB, the circles would have to have nearly zero overlap for the idea of killing people who have abortions to make it within a stones throw of the Overton window. If anything, mothers who abort their babies are treated a bit too much as victims (IMO) by the Pro-life side.
I have issues with the State having the authority to take someone’s life, no matter how disgusting their crimes are. There’s also the practical issue of, what if we fuck this up? It’s as permanent a penalty as you can dole out and there’s no compensation for making a mistake.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t think some people’s crimes are worthy of death, it’s just I don’t trust the State to handle it.
There’s also the practical issue of, what if we fuck this up?
This is the main reason I’m anti death penalty. The other point you made resonates, too. I can’t find any satisfactory theory of justice that supports the state putting people to death.
This^^.
Being pro-choice and anti-death penalty is the argument that requires the most moving of goal posts.
Oh c’mon, what’s so hard about believing in the innate goodness of murderers and the excision of an unwanted growth?
Here is how I square that circle. I don’t trust the government to get the death penalty correct. I don’t trust the government to investigate every miscarriage as a murder and get that correct. Philosophically I have no problem with the death penalty and I think abortion as a form of birth control is wrong, I just don’t trust leviathan to get it right.
Which I don’t really understand.
I personally have no strong opinions on abortion, but if someone really thinks that abortion is the deliberate and unlawful killing of a human being, then shouldn’t the same legal penalties be applied?
the Supreme Court asserted that the amendment “added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified”.
IOW, it is a nullity that has no force and effect.
In theory that’s true of all of the first ten amendments. Not a one
of them added anything to the constitution as originally ratified,
at least in theory. I recall reading that there was some opposition
to them on those grounds.
I’m not sure that is a good read on U.S. v. Sprague (by whomever wrote that wiki entry), and Sprague is a rather weird case. Seems it was highly selective quotation.
Yeah, I read Sprague after I posted and came out quite conflicted. It’s a complicated case and I don’t like their treatment of Amendment X, but some of the other parts of the opinion are very originalist in tone.
I don’t like their implication that the 10th is merely affirmational. The 10th should be able to be asserted against federal overreach.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/856/1372/1680892/
Subsequently rolled up with Printz at SCotUS.
Alright, we’re going somewhere good!
*facepalm*
This here is the crux of the problem. All laws should
have a presumption of *unconstitutionality*, and
congress or whoever should have to demonstrate
otherwise.
Hmm, as I recall the whole logic of birth control (and therefore abortion) was to keep the undesirables from growing their share of the population. Did that change somewhere along the line, or are these people just being dishonest?
Did that change somewhere along the line – yes. just like min wage
I thought it caught on when the Woodstock generation started having promiscuous casual sex and didn’t want to pay the consequences.
I’m pretty sure she was quoting, or at least paraphrasing, Saint Ginsburg when she said that. And made a point of letting the Senators know it.
DOUBLE-PLUS-UNGOOD!
Nicely told tale! Fourth graf from the end reminds me of this song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=23nrq5RBMnk In French but lyrics are in comments for anyone who wants to translate.
Huh, had never heard of Pamida before.
A (straight, platonic) male housemate once volunteered that I would look slimmer if I tucked in my shirt. I was grateful for the advice (I wasn’t touchy about it because I was already fairly slim).
When the oldest Altar Boy was about 16 or 17 he was like all normal teen aged boys and knew everything. That caused a lot of friction between himself and his mother (who has a ton of trophies for being stubborn – both in her weight class and open division).
After one prolonged argument, I finally took custody of my son and took him for a walk to let things cool down and to give him some sage advice. I told him that I was tired of the noise and commotion in my house. When we returned he would apologize to his mother and thank her for giving him such wonderful advice. The Altar Boy sputtered and started going on about how unfair that was and how he was completely right. I shut him down and told him that this was a non-negotiable order. Explain to him that his mother – like most women – just wants to hear him pay lip service to whatever it is that she is saying at the minute. Just agree with her and then go do whatever it is that you wanted to do in the first place.
Cut to later that night when I tried to have a conversation with my wife about the wisdom of fighting with teen age know-it-alls. I was suggesting that maybe not every single thing she said had to be obeyed and she could let some minor stuff slide.
Wife: “You don’t know what you are talking about! Just this afternoon Altar Boy thanked me for my advice. He likes it when I help him”
Me: *tries desperately not to pound head on counter while laughing*
Nice.
LOL. Know the story.
Nice to see I’m not the only one stuck in the middle like that. It’s a very fine line to tread sometimes.
ROFL
Its as if there were some hormonal change that occurs in the males of our species that make them nearly all this way…nah, probably the water.
For some reason, you start caring what women think?
I seem to recall suddenly becoming interested in something other than their thoughts when I hit puberty.
But you started to realize that their thoughts could be significant barrier to reaching your goal.
Another story about the same Altar Boy.
When he was small (around 5 or so) our neighbors had daughter who was cute as a button. She was an only kid and loved coming over and playing with our kids because she liked the company. She was six months younger than the Altar Boy and absolutely adored him. Anything he did, she wanted to do.
The problem was that the Altar Boy didn’t really want her hanging around because “she just wants to do girl stuff” and we had to order him to play with her every so often.
The whole time this was going on, I was laughing because of how the tables would turn on him when they got to be around 15 or so. Unfortunately those neighbors moved away before I could watch the son get wrapped around her finger.
Cancelled/Jarflax said last thread:
This may actually be reversing cause and effect- the renaissance is typical started in the 15th century (some say as early as the late 13th) while the reformation didn’t start until 1521.
Luther didn’t nail his theses in a vacuum. I agree that it’s not easy to assign cause and effect, but the morningstars of the reformation were getting burned at the stake (or having their bones dug up and burned) in the 14th and 15th centuries.
I would go even further than that. There were religious reform movements practically from the beginning of the organised Church, some more radical than others – the Reformation wasn’t fundamentally different from the others, it just succeeded.
dunno attempts at reformation have existed as long as christian. there was always a heresy a schism a disagreement etc.
wikipedia says
The Crisis of the Late Middle Ages was a series of events in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that brought centuries of European stability to a halt.[1] Three major crises led to radical changes in all areas of society: demographic collapse, political instabilities and religious upheavals.[2]
A series of disasters, beginning with the Great Famine of 1315–17 and especially the Black Death of 1347-1351, reduced the population perhaps by half or more as the Medieval Warm Period came to a close and the first century of the Little Ice Age began. It took until 1500 for the European population to regain the levels of 1300.
this is not necessarily related but it amuses me how history articles casually from the MWP and little ice age, but in climate “science” they are trying real hard to erase them
the lollards in the late 14th century were clearly going along the same lines that Martin Luther would a hundred years later
Hits a little close to home Animal. I have two 15 year old boys and one of them has landed his first lady. Without giving up too much, I try to drop hints but there are things a man has to just go through and learn on their own and one of those is diplomacy and tact when talking to a significant other.
but there are things a man has to just go through and learn on their own and one of those is diplomacy and tact when talking to a significant other.
And the lessons never stop, in fact, you might learn a lesson, and that lesson be wrong shortly after it was correct. Especially during pregnancies.
*nods emphatically*
mmhmm *sips coffee*
I don’t think Colorado is happening this year…I have ~1 month to make a decision. On the good side, that means the dog is still here. And maybe I can plan a different vacation. Like, overseas. One can only hope.
in the d Colorado is just an idea
in the end
Sorry KK
My fiancee can wear most of my clothes, even my shoes. It’s like, “sweetie, you have way more clothing than I do – must you keep raiding my closet? Also, those shorts make you look like a dyke.”
Jorts never go out of fashion tho’.
Maybe she likes the depth of the pockets.
Random thought while I eat lunch:
If Biden wins, what Cabinet office will he appoint HIllary to?
Chief of Staff. Biden will never come out of the basement.
Actually that would be shrewd – keep Joe in office and Kamala fuming in frustration.
Might be the best we can hope for. Clinton is merely corrupt. Harris is a sociopath.
He won’t make it out alive.
No One Here Gets Out Alive
Not sure about Cabinet positions, but since she is clearly so well versed in computer security, I’d imagine head of NSA or something.
Irrelevant, The Harbinger has moved from the angry first lady vessel to the angry caramel colored senator vessel.
Secretary of State? It might be time for another “Russia Reset”.
Ambassador to Cthulhu.
Wow, okay – Trump is setting it up to fire a lot of people in the deep state after the election.
Trump issues sweeping order stripping job protections from tens of thousands of federal employees
Seriously.
I can’t help but like this guy.
I’m not optimistic. I believe the order requires the agencies to create lists of positions that could be fired regardless of civil service protections. Those lists will be slow-walked and, if ever published, will be quite short indeed, is my prediction.
He can fire the heads of those agencies now and will probably do so November 5th.
It would really be entertaining if he wins and goes into DGAF mode.
The deep state is the wrong way to think about it. Yes, the bureaucracy is most concerned with maintaining the status quo, but that isn’t a partisan issue. It’s simply the nature of human behavior in organizations.
As with most things Trump, this is half-assed. His fucking tweeting of policy, instead of issuing it as directives has allowed everyone to slow roll shit without ignoring an order to do so. I wouldn’t stick my neck out of the basis of one his brain farts via his thumbs – given the way he walks shit back if he catches flak about it.
This. If he is reelected and continues this path, his base probably won’t be happy and the in-kind reception to the mid-terms will reflect that. If he actually makes policy and wins the eventual court cases that will whine he has no right to do so, then I think he will be forgiven. Tweeting as you said, doesn’t make policy.
? It’s an EO, not a tweet.
Can’t it be both a dessert topping *and* a floor wax?
His fucking tweeting of policy, instead of issuing it as directives has allowed everyone to slow roll shit without ignoring an order to do so.
He has an army of lawyers behind him drafting the orders. For examples, I remember the bevy of panicked conference calls about his 2 for 1 swap on regulations. They had identified a handful of easy regulations to toss, but they couldn’t find enough to implement their whole agenda, so they freaked out.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
nonpartisan government full of people who have been caught texting “vive la resistance” and have staged multiple attempts to remove the president because they didn’t like his stance on policy.
This is what they actually believe! /Southpark emphasis
That is Lt. Col. Subject Matter Expert to you, thank you very much!
If you just listened to us, we wouldn’t have to impeach your ass.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/10/thousands-line-up-outside-lancaster-airport-ahead-of-trumps-campaign-stop.html
In crummy weather even.
Thousands lined up before the gates opened.
That article mentions he’s going to Altoona after Lancaster, but their are presidential TFRs over AOO and JST today; no mention of him visiting Johnstown.
He was scheduled for Allentown this morning. 4 sites in PA today.. then over to Michigan and Wisconsin the next couple of days.
Wasted effort.
Hillary taught us to spend our time in money in safe states running up the score.
He is jet setting like crazy – he is scheduled to be down in the Vegas (Bullhead City to circumvent Sickolaks 250-person limit) tomorrow night.
Does he know that he is destroying the environment! Not only is Joe Biden following the science with Corona, his “Stay in the basement” routine, is one that will save our planet!
Another thing the Media didn’t call Joe out on. Back in June (I think, I didn’t look it up) he made claim he wouldn’t be using an airplane for his campaigning for Mother Gaia – and then turns around and uses one.
Why does the Biden campaign like the number 220,000,000?
“We’re looking at over 220 million Americans who just in the last several months, died.” – Harris. Same number Joe uses and she uttered it twice in a week, so I can’t really chalk it up to a misspoke. Are they riding on the fact that when polled, people genuinely believe a larger percentage of people have died (I think last I heard it was 9% of their fellow citizens have bit the dust) and that 20% have COVID?
Whats the diference between a million and a thousand except 3 0’s? And we all know zero means nothing. And 0 X 3 = 0. so really 220 Million is the same as 220 thousand.
Just like the difference between millions and billions is just one little letter.
was filling out my mail in ballot and this happened
This is clearly republican Voter suppression.
That’s a pretty bad paper cut.
He’s lying about it being from a ballot.
If he’d just get with the program and drop the old school porno mags and jerk it to online pr0n he wouldn’t have things like that happen anymore.
Then when i went to mail the ballot this happened.
Will this oppression of voter suppression ever end?
I went to fill out my mail-in ballot and this happened.
The Globe published an article pushing for a nationwide mask mandate. My comment that contained a link to the charts of COVID-19 infections numbers and mask mandates survived less than 1.5 hours.
See my comment above – public perception is that the vast majority of people are infected (which we know isn’t true) and that over 200 times the amount have died. The media really worked their magic on a truly dumb population.
a truly dumb population.
Hey!
Truth, as Animal so eloquently just informed us above, hurts sometimes.
I always push people to find me evidence that masks work. Usually they don’t give me anything. I’ve gotten a couple links to non peer-reviewed studies that don’t prove anything. I’ve also gotten the shift to “masks don’t protect you, they protect me from you.”
Ok, did they show you studies proving that?
Nothing that proves anything.
When I have done that, I have gotten studies showing masks reduce droplet spread. I respond “OK, fine. But I was asking for studies showing masks reducing infections, not reducing droplets.”
I’ve even seen studies that show that some masks increase droplets.
In an honest culture, we’d admit that nobody has any clue about these masks.
I wear cloth pants so no one can smell my farts. It’s science.
I’m about to begin changing user role permissions. If you are a Contributor or Editor, you will have to log back in afterward. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it can’t be helped if we are to maintain Special Programming secrecy.
?
I thought we weren’t supposed to discuss that in the clear?
Carry on.
I fukin new it. it’s the PURGE!!!
CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION!
Godspeed!
How long till the first porno is made using these?
https://www.vyzrtech.com/
Look fat, we have a 3rd amendment right to never get sick. Personal FFUs are obviously a human right, and it’s only fair that you pay your fair share to make sure every American has one.
Only $380. Less than I was expecting. Be better than the damn
masks, and probably cheaper in the long run. Kind of hard
to go to the bar, but great for a costco run.
if they came out with a p100 filter that’d be great for oil-based painting
I’m picturing a War of the Worlds scenario, in which some goober who has been wearing one of those for an entire year accidentally breaks it, catches a cold, and dies.
How long till CA requires that they be worn when making pornos?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/10/26/no_really_–_dont_pay_attention_to_early_voting_data_144527.html
Really interesting article about early voting data.
this. this this this.
https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1320149216761683969
Thats a filthy lie, Nobody ever said that. Shut your dang lying pony dog fat jack face up soldier!
What is a travesty is it really could be all smoke and a lie, but we will never know thanks to those bastions of
free thinkingthought control police in the Media.Lots of good “good for joe, We shouldn’t give any credence to those republican talking points!” going on in the comments. Get them while they are fresh.
I’m really looking forward to the Democrats pivoting if Biden wins from “you can’t even tweet about this” to “Boy, sure looks like Biden was corrupt as hell” and letting the GOP impeach Biden. That way their fingerprints won’t even need to be on the knife they stick into his back on their way to installing Kamala as the new President.
And the GOP will be dumb enough to do it too.
No way to keep their fingerprints off the knife unless they lose the House, which practically nobody thinks will happen. No way they will ever admit Joe is corrupt, either.
Nah, Joe gets the 25th Amendment. The only question is when. Not in 2021, I don’t think – too close to the election. I’m betting on late 2022.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think they’ll keep him for all 4 years, and use him as a figurehead. He’ll shake hands and sign bills, but the real work will be happening behind the scenes by people you will never hear about.
Sounds right to me.
yup
That looks so awkward. Standing uncomfortably in an empty room yelling through a mask at a reporter.
I thought he called a lid on his campaign?
Looks like the tweet is 2 days old.
But yeah, i had heard that too. Is that true?
When was that comment made? The twit itself is from two days ago.
Ah, I must have looked at a responding comments date…
Yeah that’s the ticket.
I thought the twit’s been around at least since the ’70s
He was coaxed out of the basement according to news by Trump’s ‘waving the white-flag’ comment, but that is unrelated to the above tweet.
O, Carolyn. Bless your heart.
I like this story. Thanks Animal!