Post a controversial opinion

but don't, as its surface temperature is zero kelvin and yr fingers wd shatter into an icy dust

*cough*

"What would you ask us?"

Miss Lavis laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy's arm, as if to suggest that she, at all events, would get full marks."

OK, then, something I DO believe; Derek Bailey will have a number one single before this decade's out.

*does this controversial opinion necessarily have to be mine?

that's something I WANT to believe.

AND WHAT ANDREW SAID!!

The people who sometimes annoy me on ILE are on the whole the ones whose talents I most envy.

AND WHAT ANDREW SAID!!

I believe the Harry Potter industry is even more guilty of this.

But he DID!

I don't have a firm opinion on whether abortion should be legal. I've yet to see a totally convincing pro-choice argument (not that I've been reading in depth). My main reason for being sort of pro-choice is that it's a controversial topic and since I don't have a firm decided opinion I want to leave it up to personal choice.

I remember being at a gig in East Londom like 20 years ago and finding out, too late, there were no free ATMs for miles around. It's always been like that in poor areas.

I feel poor and naked when there's no cash in my wallet, even though I have a debit card and a credit card (that I almost never use)

Most of my cash comes from selling aluminium cans and change from buying a $10 roll of quarters (for laundry) with a $20 bill from the ATM.

Incidentally, my mentally disabled clients seem to value and accumulate coins more than they value cards or bills, even though all of them have problems counting change. I suspect that it's because there's more of it and it jingles.

CGLDI, that's interesting. I have an intellectually disabled middle schooler and I will tell you that schools REALLY press coin math on kids.

Same with my elder kid. I used to be mildly irritated about coin math and piggy banks because in our current world, most things that are worth buying cost more than a dollar. when I was a kid - 1977 or so - coins were useful for candy or soda or whatever. Now pretty much everything sub-$1 is crap that I don't want my kids to have.

Most adults mainly use coins only to avoid getting more coins.

That said, if your clients find coins more satisfying or comprehensible, I understand. My son's face lights up when he finds a penny.

But the connection between coins and actual economic literacy or financial independence is pretty tenuous at this point.

It's a decent way to visualize counting multiples of five.

I have a box of coins in my closet that's overflowing

Every few years I'll take some down to one of the CoinStar machines at the grocery store, and it feels like I've hit the big jackpot even though it's my own money lol (minus whatever fee they deduct)

Someone should create a specialty airline where no persons under 10 are admitted on the plane. And seats on flights that do include children under 10 should be heavily discounted.

No offense to all the ilx parents. I actually really like kids, generally speaking. I'm just a bit grumpy because I just returned from a work trip and a little Tuvan throat-singing toddler shrieked and caterwauled throughout the entire six hour flight home. Flying is stressful enough as it is and some of us just want to sleep

Two airlines already offer child-free zones:
https://www.airlineratings.com/news/child-free-zones-which-airlines-guarantee-a-child-free-flight/

Gotta admit, one of the best gifts I ever received was a set of noise-cancelling headphones.

I would like adult free zones tbh

Statistically speaking, most crimes against humanity gave been committed by adults. Just sayin.

id accept the point and counter by saying they couldve been prevented by drowning them as six year olds

well at least they got to experience kindergarten

you could say

🕶️

they didnt make the grade YEAOWWWW

😎

LOL, D.

Ponzi, firstly I don't think this can in any way be classed as a controversial opinion.

Secondly, perhaps a little compassion is in order as well as a short self-check on why you take a child's cry so personally.

Most importantly, are you suggesting an airline that has flights with passengers exclusively under 10 years old? I would happily steward these flights.

Further, are you also suggesting anyone 10 and older won't make a ruckus? I've seen more evidence of middle-aged adults causing mayhem than small children whose cries both can't be helped and can easily be made a non-issue by fellow passengers with earplugs and the aforementioned noise-canceling headphones.

I fairly recently had (what I presume was) an autistic boy in front of me who constantly, violently rocked his seat, so much that coffee spilled

I have the patience of Job, however, and I could see that his family tried to calm him on occasion, but I'm 6'1" and airplane seats already suck for tall people

But generally I don't care about caterwauling waifs, it takes a village

Andy, weirdly, my disabled kid (not autistic but autism-adjacent) has always been a delight on planes as long as he was fed constant digital crack.

The only time we had a tough kid/plane experience was with my (neurotypical) eldest, who was 18 months old (and getting over an ear infection). She made periodic mewling cries of agony from approximately Kansas City to Las Vegas. We apologized as much as possible and did all we could, but ultimately there was nothing to be done. Most folks were decently understanding. But when we got to our destination we overheard a dude on his phone saying "yeah there was a baby crying the whole flight."

Sorry you couldn't travel from DC to Oregon in a hermetically sealed luxury chamber, my dude. Airline travel in this century is a hive of germs and misery and inconvenience for almost everyone. If you want perfect peace and quiet, rent your own jet.

sunny successor your “firstly” humorously contradicts your “secondly” and furthermores.

Im a serial (and cereal!) contradictor. It's true.

Cereal contradictor = Cheerios / Gloomios

so in choir class, Freshmen were usually hazed when we rehearsed in the Color Guard room. the seniors would usually grab one of them and put them in the closet and lock it

weird! at my school the chess team did this

I was picked up and thrown into a garbage can once, and I had a sign on my back that said "My pussy smells like dried apples."

well, fuck

Yet, they do not get wedgied or shoved into lockers or trashcans.

i meant when i was in school (20+ years ago), but a lot of the jr/high school tropes you'd see on tv didn't apply so idk?

i do get the sense that kids these days are more sheltered and spend less time away from their parents, it would follow that they're less assertive and aggressive. you're right that the Biff archetype from Back to the Future didn't grow up to be the pathetic loser who doesn't know how to conduct himself, he's an elder stateaman now. This is the fucked up alternate universe that Michael J Fox would have averted. does that mean it's less discouraged, or is bullying more covert now? it used to be hidden in plain sight from adults.

But when we got to our destination we overheard a dude on his phone saying "yeah there was a baby crying the whole flight."

wrong thread lol

xp

In approximately 1981 I was picked up and shoved headfirst into a garbage can. Repeatedly. I have gotten over it but not forgotten it.

My children have never experienced anything like this. And, I can say with reasonable confidence they never will.

These days, kids have significantly more subtle ways to undermine and/or victimize one another. I don't fear a call from the school saying that someone beat up my kid on the playground.

My fears are more like doxxing, deepfakes, online brigading, and backchannel Discord ostracizing.

You get shoved in a 1981 trash can and it's over, it's done.. it may leave a scar but it's done

Some of this online shit will be around to haunt you for years to come

There is definitely thread drift afoot here but yeah, Andy speaks truth here.

it's my fault, i wrote a reply in keep notes and pasted it into the wrong thread.

i'll quote the above posts in the appropriate thread

Podcasts should come pre-eq’d to sound like AM radio broadcasts

Summer doesn't end at Labor Day weekend, it ends on September 21st

Not controversial here. For example, Christina Rossetti's poem In the Bleak Midwinter is set near the winter solstice. By the same token, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream takes place on the night of summer solstice. Thus we are reminded that for most of the past centuries, summertime ended on the autumnal equinox at September 21st, which was also when winter began.

Summer doesn’t end until October here

in a few years...it will never end.

ack! i just scared myself...

I guess it's more of an American mindset that I'm talking about.. mostly with the traditional 'back to school' blitz. But public schools here in Oakland started on Monday Aug 7th
Unthinkably early when I was a kid

Kids should go to school 24/7/365.

I'm not sure when summer ends in Montana but I'm pretty sure it'll be snowing by Halloween.

School should def be year round with more breaks instead of huge summer chunk.

Charter schools do this. If you're willing to sell your soul, of course.

I think I've only posted on this thread once or twice. "Controversial" makes it sound like you're impressed with yourself...I'd rather just stick with the idea that it's an opinion you suspect is shared by very few other people. With that in mind, I think House of Cards (American version, with the discredited actor) is a much more compelling show about devious people than Succession. I don't know if either takes itself very seriously, but of the two, House of Cards is even trashier, which is reassuring on that front.

Now post your baseball opinions!

I couldn't get through House of Cards. we watched the first season and it just got increasingly stupid and we gave up on it at the beginning of S2, around the time Kevin Spacey pushes that journalist in front of a train and somehow nobody notices. we were just like come on this is absolute bollocks.

kevin spacey might be able to act but he has never demonstrated it

House of Cards (US) was ok, some parts were excellent, some were embarrassing (the train-pushing, agreed), the music was maybe the best part.

House of Cards Trilogy (UK) on last rewatch piled it on a bit thick TBH, still very much better than the US remake IMO though.

found that also unwatchable

from irish character on tbh, read into that what you will

Tru Blood’s “I’m a fairy?” moment, House Of Cards pushing Kate Mara in front of a subway, Homeland’s second season, the early 2010s were the heyday of trashTV not knowing the difference between “this is fun” and “this is stupid”

scandal knew how to do it but it never tried to have it both ways which is crucial imo

I remember enjoying House of Cards (US) for a while, it was trashy in a good way. Kind of seemed like a fun caricature of US politics a bit like Veep was. But by the time he became president there didn't seem to be much of a point to this show anymore so I think I quit sometime in the 3rd season.

I think the main reason I like it so much is all the memorable peripheral characters, beyond the Underwoods. I could name at least a dozen, some of whom are only there for a short time.

kevin spacey might be able to act but he has never demonstrated it

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Tuesday, December 12, 2023 5:41 AM bookmarkflaglink

I once wasted about $100 to see him in Eugene O'Neill's Moon for the Misbegotten, where he played Jim Tyrone like Keyzer Soze

My cousin and his wife, major theatergoers, still rave about his performance in The Iceman Cometh when they saw it in London about 25 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPafNZkpX9M