leh-nerd skin-erd

I'm not certain how we hash out this whole name issue and make everyone happy. On the one hand, for far too long, the tyranny of last name first, first name last has victimized so, so many of us. You're in class, they go through Abramson, Billings, Carter, etc, if you're surname-challenged--by the time they get to you, all the good jokes are taken, all the mispronunciations laughed at, and you're basically an afterthought...a perpetual outlier. Is that fair? Has no one stopped to think what damage that can do to the psyche of a child? On the other hand, the pressure to be first on the list--first in roll call, first to raise your hand, sitting there, knowing with every fiber of your *&^%ing being that once it starts, it's game on. Hell, just think of all the junk mail an A person gets. Not a damn thing you can do about it. It's inevitable. Certainly it must be overwhelming at times. That said--and I'm just working through how I feel about this Florida thing, it seems to me that the very fabric of our democracy should not be imperiled by the administrative decision to list candidates by first name first. Am I alone here? I mean, it's not foolproof---what if every candidate has the same name? That could be confusing. What if the preferred name is actually a nickname? Let's say a guy like our own @Gene Frenkle decides to run for office--he's a solid middle of the packer alphabetically any way you slice it--what if he goes by "Ace"? Is he the number #1 seed and quite frenkly, if he identifies as Ace shouldn't he be? Maybe it's just me, but I think voters should be able to hash this all out at the ballot box. Sure, they would need some time to get comfortable with the format but I have faith in our collective strength as a nation. I don't know anything about this Rodriguez fellow, and whether or not his parents had the foresight to give him an alphabetically entitled first name when he was born. I'd think not, but you never know and as you've not at all arbitrarily suggested, he's 'crooked'. This is a hot button issue for you, So, and while we frequently disagree, on this one I feel your pain. I've never shared this before, but while many here know me as leh-nerd skin-erd...my real name is Arturo Ziebgniewicz. #imattertoo

I got nothing. 🤓

You misunderstood, and now I have to correct the record. I was treated like family, accepted from the get go. I was actually quite lucky beyond any reasonable expectation. I have wonderful in-laws—in those early days my father in law dedicated 18 months of his life to helping my wife and I remodel our first home, and when I say ‘helped’ I actually mean “he remodeled our first home”. I can’t actually recall when the kisses started, probably after we moved away and didn’t see them as much, certainly by the time our children came. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say early on I was just a kid dating his daughter, hanging around his house and it was what it was. As the father of a daughter myself, I understand that. Anywho, if we meet at a future wedding, I’d be surprised if ya gave me the lean in, but I suppose it’s possible. Saluté! Brad Pitt probably plays me in the movie. That’s all I was saying. I’m German, in part, and I rarely contemplate world domination any more.

I was going to take issue with @Niagara Bill and the whole stereotype of Italian men at weddings grabbing everyone by the face and giving them the old double kiss but thought—why bother. This isn’t about a random wedding. I don’t speak for every Italian family, but in the one I married into, the kisses are for close family members (my father in law kisses my cheek every time I see him, though in the early days of our relationship nearly 40 years ago not so much🤣). It’s not some wild double cheek Thunderdome for every man, woman and child that might work with your youngest daughter’s friend from accounting, or the young lady from HR who you take a shine to. On top of that, he’s been a fixture in NYS govt for a couple decades. He’s had every sexual harrasment training under the sun, with deep dives into violating personal space, professional behavior, the power dynamic at play and microagressions by the score. That’s all before he #metoo’d it up.

Ain’t been blowing like that around a democrat since the Lewinsky days!

Good clean American fun.

Maybe the voice sounds different in your head this time, but you’ve typed the same thing twice. That’s still on you. You’re like a petri dish of crazy today. Gold, indeed. 🤣

It seems likely that if that was what I meant I could have grouped those word a together. What I meant is what I said...but how you chose to interpret words that said nothing of the sort speaks volumes about the way you really see things.

A mainstream publication offered an op Ed about whiteness being a pandemic. Men = toxic has been the rage for quite some time. This ugliness is mainstream and it’s a damn shame. Still, most of us go about our daily lives never slugging it out in the streets with our neighbors. Let’s work together, isolate the crazies, recognizing that when 8 people are murdered but only 6 are worth mentioning, it’s an ugly day in America. I never said my idiot didn’t lose, but certainly have said that your idiot is president even though he thinks Harris is president. Then again I’m not afraid of myself as you suggested yesterday, though sometime I do find myself unapproachable.

In fairness I said the same thing about teams after a what by most accounts was a pretty successful flag football career at a small to medium sized SUNY school in the early 80s. Time to man up—I was wrong, probably in part because I was a second string linebacker on a team that went 6-4. I never even got any looks.

The genius of Donald Trump was that he hid in plain sight for all those years, working deals with other business owners, government, local municipalities, unions and the like. He played the long game, under the radar, an enigma, all the while a spy—a Putin puppet positioned precariously close to the pinnacle of power. Or, so says Tibsy.

You sound like a conspiracy theory guy. People afraid of themselves. Trump made business deals. Boring and a tad kooky. You can lock the whole thing down right now: Tell me how he conspired to pull it all off so deliciously and exquisitely that they just...couldn’t...get..him (after 4 years, tens of millions of dollars, selective media leaks, anonymous sourcing that went nowhere and KGB-esque powers. Put it to bed right now. Surely there are charges pending for Trump conspiring with Russia filed somewhere, yes? This is pure dimwittery my friend.

What a fascinating take. The old “Trump worked with PUTIN, subverted the totally fair, open and honest (in 2020) election process and did so in such a deft and clandestine way as to hide it from a group of 14 highly skilled investigators with unlimited resources and unfettered investigator power...” yet the toxic fantasy exists within the Trump crowd? Your new name is Tibsy Newman.

Classic Transpy. The nation’s independently interdependent weathermen just inadvertently heard, reported and confirmed something that never actually occurred and suggested it came to then anonymously. “I CHECKED GUYS—THEY SAID THEY JUST MISUNDERHEARD WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN. THEY SEEM NICE THOUGH!”

Sounds potentially like trouble in the boudoir. Though with the young kids and sexting these days who knows. It’s no-ones business.

I was going to with Ray Donovan but not everyone has Showtime. Everyone has seen a Matt Damon movie, or at least his appearance on Will and Grace. Disclaimer: I have have not seen the movie where he bought a zoo. That seemed far-fetched to me. That’s all I was saying. I just used more words.

WEO...I think if you are naive enough to think that a professional sports team has never employed fixers to establish relationships with shady lawyers to concoct stories about high profile football players in a very public contract dispute suggesting sexual misconduct with a comely masseuse in an effort to destroy the player, his reputation, trade value and availability at game time, well I’m guessing you’ve never seen a Matt Damon movie. Know this: Life imitates art. Not always, but sometimes. Consider. Oh, and masseuse...it’s hard to spell.

Unfortunately, they don’t suck at it, they’re extremely adept at it. They know with reasonable certainty that a falsely reported story has very little fallout, and that the best way to shape the narrative is the “anonymous source”. Another poster on the board would often scoff at the mere suggestion that anonymous sourcing could be problematic, citing cases just like this: “Multiple sources reported the same thing (thus it’s gotta be true....right??)”. It happened with Russia, Ukraine, the election and the fact is people don’t care of they’re manipulated by the press so long as they get what they need. It was always funny to hear them complain about Trump lies, while getting fed bull#### from iron clad sources like the WaPo, and celebrating the election of honest Joe Biden.

It’s difficult for me to determine intent as I am not you. Here I thought you were intending to be prickish for no reason after being civil previously. So, your question is “Do you think anyone can give you an exact date on when this can end and we would return to normal?”?

Your first question was aggressive and condescending, and asked me a closed ended question about my intellect. I addressed that as I saw fit, and that you perceived it as a dodge reveals you might not understand what a dodge actually entails. Your second attempt was a closed ended question about the timing of presidential proclamations of a return to normalcy. So, while some of the words are similar, the questions are different. I simply wondered why the question changed.

I addressed the question you posed previously, and am comfortable with my response. The question you posed here is different. Why is that?

Interesting data, I’m not sure I buy it but I’ll consider it. It’s possible that my point of view is skewed by things I’ve read previously and conversations I’ve had with people I know. I also get the flu vaccine every year, and have for the last ten. I was concerned early on as you apparently were, that this particular vaccine was rushed into production. I plan to get it, my wife signed up as she’s slightly older than me. My plan was simply to wait until higher risk people get vaccinated first. As for Fauci, everyone has an opinion. I think he’s been weak, misleading and I don’t trust him. He’ll be ok in spite of my feelings. Best of luck to you. I’m smart enough to know that when someone inserts themself into a conversation, and loads up with a statement designed to be confrontational and insulting, it typically means that individual is dealing with some internal/external conflict secondary to the interaction. It could be the offending individual fashions himself a crusader of sorts, could be he’s having trouble at work or home, could be he strained his neck reading online polls, could be he’s tired of being cooped up during the time of COVID. Heck, it could be—and I’m just flipping biscuits here—could be that gosh darn Daylight Savings Time has him all turned about and grumpy as heck. They say that’s a thing. Hard to say, but in the end it’s irrelevant to me. On the subject referenced, I think the economy is opening regardless of what Biden says when he can string the words together to make sense. I think I complied with governmental mandates and suggestions and as time progressed, have seen enough hypocrisy and stupidity to last a decade or more, so I’ll weigh it out and strike a course that makes sense for me. If hiding in the basement with the lights off until a mid-September presidential update works for others, I can respect that.

Your concerns about my moral compass notwithstanding, why did you feel the need to misrepresent Trump “admitting and acknowledging” inappropriate touching? Why lie just to have to adjust your argument in the very next post? It would not have had the sizzle your fabricated claim that Trump himself acknowledged wrongdoing, but it would have been simple to suggest you believe the 26. Was it for the point on my Scoreboard? I was just joking about that, there’s not really an actual scoreboard. Though, if there was, it’d still be Biden 1, Trump 0.

When women “let him”, by definition, it’s neither unwanted nor inappropriate. Boorish to brag about, distasteful to discuss, sure, but it happens every day. But maybe you know best what women should allow or not.

Did you question that? Rhetorical question.