I don't know if you're aware of this, but dark things happen to children. Sheltering children from the realties of the world can often do them more harm than good. Kids should be aware that there are times when the adults in their lives will fail them. They need to be aware that sometimes dark things happen. Sometimes grown men try to marry children. And that doesn't make it normal, or ok, but the answer to this cannot be to shelter them from these realities.

Also, like have you read a fairy tale? Those things are fucked up. The villains in fairy tales are often very dark. Children have always had a taste for dark stories. They want a way to contextualize their own experiences, they want to feel grown up, and they want someone to take their feelings seriously. At the end of the day, Fairy tales (and Lemony Snicket) serve as a vehicle to let children know that sometimes the world can be a dark and scary place. That they aren't alone in knowing that the world can be cruel and unkind sometimes. It isn't always of course. And some kids might struggle with these books. But I think these books are very useful for children who may be victims of abuse, or trauma, and it lets them know that it's ok that the world doesn't feel safe to them right now.

When you're a kid, everyone acts like everything is puppies and rainbows all the time, and that's just not true for every kid. And for the kids who do have a tough childhood, that constant cheeriness can make them feel like outsiders. It's tough to believe in a happy ending when that's not anything you're seeing in real life. Quite frankly, sometimes fucked up things happen, and then everyone just gets on with it, leaving the kid to wonder if anyone else has noticed how unfair it all is.

https://catalogue.rrc.ca/Programs/WPG/Fulltime/ENVEF-DP

Weirdly (for a society "controlled by women") women are also much more likely to die in a car crash than men are, so that's fun!

I think he mentions it here? He and Izzy both talk about their relationship. https://youtu.be/SKpM82eqctQ?si=ggBk3O0y_E7TIkoo

If I'm reading the article correctly, he wasn't living with the family. So either they kicked him out, or he left and then came back. Either way I'm sure they knew something wasn't right. Such a sad case.

Elderly people, or people in generally poor health with a predisposition for cardiac arrest. They strain too much and their heart can't take it.

You know what goes over heads? Bats.

Well now they should just put up even more flags.

https://h1bgrader.com/reports/jobs/lca/2023

Here's the top 100 list from 2023.

Actually, for the first time in my life I'd advocate the opposite. You want your milk pasteurized and your chicken sterilized. So if you want to buy from a local farmer, definitely ask questions first.

Also don't drink unpasteurized milk.

What about the AIDs epidemic??

That sounds like a world health issue. No one should die of preventable diseases. Both from like a moral standpoint and also, if you want to be selfish about it, because if we don't completely wipe out diseases they have a tendency to mutate. Anyway I found a charity that's working to fix that, and I made a donation. https://www.unicefusa.org/how-help/donate/inspired-gifts/measles-vaccine

Manslaughter is different from intentional murder though. I don't know it doesn't sit right with me.

Not really? There's medication for that. Most of them are pretty treatable. You're not going to die of Syphilis in America in 2024. You might die in childbirth though.

I'm not denying it's not a common phrase, but it is weird in the context of two men matching. If I matched with another woman and she said I'm straight I would not think she meant she was chilling, I would assume she swiped on me on accident.

I think it is good writing. I can't stand his work as an adult, but as a teenager it was the first time I had ever read a book where the author took my thoughts and concerns seriously. His books seem overwrought and melodramatic as an adult, but as a teenager I was overwrought and melodramatic, and I needed someone to take me seriously. He's uniquely good at capturing that very specific headspace a lot of teenagers possess, and that's a skill I think most of us lose when we grow up. Reading his books now throws me back into that teenage headspace, and I find it almost too embarrassing to bare, but the very fact that I can read his books and feel like I'm 16 again does mean that it's well written.

Culturally Black, as in raised as a Black American. Surrounded by Black American culture.

One could go even further and posit that taking Arizona (and parts of Texas and California) from Mexico in the Mexican-American war might result in a bunch of former Mexicans living in the United States. It's not their fault the US declared war. They just didn't move when the US won. And maybe racists can't instinctively tell a person's nationality by looking at them, and may mistake someone whose family has been in the United States longer than the racists family as being Nicaraguan.

Well Christianity isn't an ethnic group. It's a religion, but yes the AP style guide advocates that you capitalize the religion a person subscribes too. That man is a Christian. I'm a Muslim. Like that. You also usually capitalize the names of religions, so Wiccan, Hinduism, Judaism etc. You wouldn't capitalize aithiesm because atheists are not members of an organized group, or religion. That's the whole point of aithiesm I suppose.

You would capitalize the Midwest, because it's a location. You would also capitalize the South, and Appalachia, because again, they're locations.

Being Appalachian is a cultural identifier, so it's capitalized! You can be a Black Christian Appalachian! You'd be a member of three different cultural groups, but the fact that you're a member of three different cultural groups does not like negate the capitalization. You can be a Native American Hindu Southerner! Or an Indian Muslim Canadian! (Indian referring to your ethnicity, not your nationality in that sentence. It gets a little complicated. You could also say you're an Asian Muslim Canadian, and that would be correct as well). I'm an American, my ethnic background is mixed, but if I wanted to talk about my German heritage, capitalization! I'm also ethnically Irish. And British. Basically, to sum it up, you'd capitalize your ethnic group, but not your race. So I am German. I'm also white.

Now this leads us back to why do you capitalize Black when referencing a Black person? And it's because of slavery. An American Black person isn't very likely to know what their ethnic background was originally. I get to say that my ancestors were German and Irish and British. But that's not the case for those descended from slaves. They probably don't know what their cultural background is, because that was stolen from them, along with everything else they lost. So a Black American who descended from slaves can't say oh I'm Nigerian, or I'm Ethiopian, or West African. Instead they identify as Black, because that's the culture they were raised in. They were raised as Black Americans. I wouldn't say that I was raised as a white American, because that doesn't hold much meaning. I would say that I was raised as a Yooper, or that I was raised as a British American (pasties anyone?). Being Black is a cultural identifier, just like being British or Native American, or Ethiopian.

Now if you're living in Africa, identifying as Black may not hold much meaning to you. Because nearly everyone in your country is black your skin color may not hold much meaning to you. Just like my whiteness doesn't mean anything to me. Plus, your cultural background would be different from a Black Americans. You know your ancestors were Ethiopian. You weren't stripped of your cultural identity in the same way Black Americans were. So an Ethiopian may identify as a black man, because they're not culturally Black, they're Ethiopian. Their childhood experiences wouldn't have many commonalities with a Black Americans. But that man's skin color is black, so he may face the same discrimination a Black man faces if he were to move to America, and in that way he may start to identify himself as Black. But that's up to the individual to decide.

If that still feels weird to you, just mentally replace Black with a different ethnicity and you'll get the capitalization right. Octavia Butler was a famous Black science fiction author. Octavia Butler was a famous German science fiction author. Black, in that sentence, is merely identifying the cultural group to which Butler belonged. (sidenote, the Sower duology changed my life. Genuinely such great sci-fi). If it helps, you wouldn't say Butler had Black skin, you'd say she had black skin. Because black in that sentence isn't describing her cultural group, it's just describing her general appearance.

In conclusion, the English language is full of all sorts of shenanigans, no one really knows what we're doing, and the AP style guide is your best friend if you are curious if you should capitalize something. It'll tell you.

Your problem with romantic relationships stems from your inability to love and respect yourself. I know it's cliche, but if you can't love yourself how can you expect to love anyone else? Once you feel truly happy with yourself your love life will kinda just fall into place. Therapy may help you get there.

I think you just have to believe that all people are inherently worthy of love and respect. Why would you be any different?

Yeah and how does he know they have identical documents? Did they all show some random dude who isn't security their passports?

Honestly my first thought would be tour group or traveling athletes, but I digress.

Ok so a couple of things, unless your hobbies are like male wrestling or football I don't really believe that the things you're interested in have no women participants. But more importantly, until you really deep down believe you're worthy of respect, no one else is going to give it to you. You can't get your validation from external sources. The very act is what is driving them away. Everyone you perceive as confident has at one point or another struggled with self confidence and self esteem issues, but the first step towards overcoming that is to start believing you're worthy of respect right now, not at some nebulous future point. And maybe try therapy. It may feel like a lie now, but one day it won't.

And that's my point. I was never able to make more than 60k in the trades. I got a degree, got a desk job, and now I make 70k as a fresh graduate, and I expect to make more, and I didn't irrevocably screw up my back. The trades are good for those who want it, but they exert a heavy toll and I think we need to be honest with our young people, instead of blindly shoving them into the trades because we're so terrified of letting them take on debt. College debt fucking sucks. But it's not the end of the world if you can make something of it. And no one ever seems to have a honest conversation about what it's like to be a woman in these spaces. It's not just that it's physically taxing (because you can always work out) but it's also the inability to find PPE in your size, the risk you put yourself at when you work in private residences (doing plumbing or electrical work), and that's not even touching the fucking boys will be boys attitude every job I ever took seemed to hold. My ass was grabbed, and I just had to fucking take it with a smile or be unemployed. No one ever took my expertise seriously, or let me do my fucking job without intervening at least once. God, it was exhausting and demoralizing and I never got paid enough to put up with all of it. $22 an hour plus overtime sounds great when you're fresh out of highschool, but it doesn't get much higher. And that overtime is a killer for your social life. There's unions you can join, but you need to know someone to get in. It's not nearly as easy as people make it seem, and once you've done all of that you still might end up with a bad back, and switch to a career that'll probably give you cancer. (No offense). It just isn't worth it.