Best posts made by BetterJudgment

@Silver, It depends on where in Texas. I like El Paso and really like Fort Worth, but I can understand wanting Dallas and Waco to fall into a deep hole in the earth, never to be seen again. (Well, except for Kalachandji's in East Dallas, but I'm sure Krshna would fish them out in exchange for some of their papadums.)

As far as state-wide politics, though, Texas has given us two Bushes, Rick Perry, Tom Delay, Dick ArseholeArmey--sorry, I have a problem with assonance--and now Ted Cruz. Being the birthplace of the Church of the SubGenius can't make up for that.

@Cirno said:

2.) I have some familiarity with Medieval Poland, but @BetterJudgment is the Tenured Medieval History Professor, and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to usurp his position.

I know you're just yanking my chain, but I'm not tenured, and you probably know more than I do about medieval Poland.

Maybe you could pay for me to go to Uni and get a Ph.D. in medieval European history, though. Perhaps you could all pitch in; this appears to be a forum chock-full of Rich White People.

Hell, do what I did; work, take out loans, and accumulate far too much debt. It helps if you're not really suited for doing anything else.

I think Poland had serfs. I think that; it may not be true.

It is true; in fact, from what little I know, Eastern Europe retained serfdom far longer than Western Europe.

Damn it, if you're going to whine that my cornbread is so much better than yours, then don't ask for help making it and then argue with me instead of doing what I say to do (such as, "Please don't dip the measuring cup that's wet from the milk you just measured into the flour canister"). There are reasons that my cornbread is good and yours is oily and gritty, and those reasons are all the things you just refused to do. If I could still eat the stuff, I'd make it myself, but since I can't and you didn't ask me to, you're on your own, champ.

@Rook said:

From the Random Bitching thread, conversation about manliness brought this to mind. Highly recommend.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/

Their giving space to some self-promoting survivalist makes me roll my eyes, but they did teach me how to talk to my barber, how to tie a full-windsor knot, and a lot of other dressing and grooming tips that I think my father would have told me once I was grown up if he had still be alive. (Too bad that he probably would have had to wait until I was in my 40s before I would have listened to him.)

@Sammi said:

Unfortunately, there's nothing anybody can do to stop people from having kids aside from attempting to educate potential parents.

Well, aside from assuring living wages, housing, and health care, having decent public transportation, funding public schools rather than lowering standards for teachers and funneling money away to private (and frequently religious) schools, stop treating birth control as a sign of moral depravity, and a whole bunch of other things that in the long run would do more to "grow the economy" than the latest round of corporate welfare provisions.

@VulgarKitten I use Durkheim all the time for his insights on the sociology of religion. However, for population growth and capitalism, I'd use someone far more current and with some quantitative chops. Also, my brief look at the grab bag of sources your listed indicates that while many of them say that population growth was necessary for the foundation of capitalism, none of them say that it is necessary for the continuance of capitalism or even talk much about it at all in terms of current growth. Perhaps you could post some specific links? (I know you quoted Faris, but that's 1975 and, really, someone who makes so basic and Marxist an error as to call feudalism a "mode of production" when production was an epiphenomenon of the social institution of feudalism is pretty suspect.)

@Luna Have you thought about New Mexico? From what you're saying, Las Cruces sounds like a possibility.

@Thenomain said:

Can we please, as the Human Race, drop the 'skin tone' part of it and focus on the only part that matters: The culture that provides fuel to that bullshit? Like Chris Rock says, "The niggers have got to go.."

(n.b., I just love this bit, and this thread suddenly gave me an excuse to share it..)

I've never heard this bit before, and I didn't like it. (In fact, I skipped through the rest after three minutes, mostly because his delivery grates on me.) To me, his conflation of a racial slur with a set of behaviors that are markers of institutionalized poverty and racism is neither smart nor funny. Or, as someone smarter than me once said, "[Nigger] is a word used to describe our own wretchedness.".

I had never had Swad amba haldi pickle (fresh turmeric pickle) before buying a jar as an experiment a few days ago. It is great.

@Sunny Damn. I don't have anything profound to say other than while these situation are awful, people do get through them. You're absolutely right that you don't need anyone else's permission to feel whatever you feel, and you should also give yourself credit for recognizing that the rest of the family are reacting to grief in different ways (with the possible exception of your sister-in-law, who sounds like she should have enough decency to shut up right now).

@Thenomain Having a preferred pronunciation of "lol" is like having a preferred stance for explosively defecating on a public sidewalk.