I’m old enough to be past it yet even yesterday it happened. Some douchebag had 4 containers of strawberries open and was picking out the best ones. He was touching all the food and stealing from the store.
I could have asked politely to stop it. Instead, I gave him shit for about 5 minutes, not once but twice and threatened to call the store manager on him. While others were thanking me, including the employees stocking the shelves, I still wish I could have done it calmer.
Had we not been in public, I would have decked him and had to hold myself back from doing so. I should be more mature, but no. My social skills that I’ve practiced for decades deserted me and I lost it in public. I’m usually emotionless, preferring to avoid people as much as possible and yet I go off on someone in the middle of the grocery store.
I still feel I was in the right to stop it, but surely could have acted more like an adult than a schoolyard adolescent.
When I was young and dumb I was driving in the rain and saw a guy walking along the sidewalk with an umbrella. It looked like the one below.
There was a puddle that I could have driven around, but chose to speed up, going through the puddle and just waxed him. He put his umbrella away and was drenched.
To this day, I am expecting it to happen to me. I avoid puddles knowing that payback is coming. I don’t really believe in karma, but I know it’s coming.
By the way, I’m old and dumb now. I expect it to happen when I get even older and can’t get out of the way. It will be in the most inconvenient time and place possible.
“Free speech is not an absolute human right,” says Helle Thorning Schmidt, member of Facebook’s Oversight Board and former PM of Denmark. “It has to be balanced with other human rights.”
How does that translate to content moderation? It must strike a balance, find a middle. pic.twitter.com/E5reaQ2bnk— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) July 15, 2021
The Facebook Oversight Board, which consists of 20 members from around the world, was created last year to help corporate executives to distance themselves from decisions considered to be politically.
———————————–
Seriously?
We’re told we have to use certain words to describe certain people (pronouns). I can’t keep them straight.
Anything that some people say is wrong and others are always right, based on arbitrary rules that benefit only the elite.
Who told them that they are the arbiters of what we can say? (They can’t for me as I deleted them).
Most of all, why are they trying to stop free speech? Usually it is because they have something to hide.
Why are people standing for this? Those that do are dumbasses.
I can say that my life is much better without it. I have a lot more time and most of the content is BS anyway. Now, if only certain things are allowed, you have a one sided discussion. Count me out.
It is funny that the Whitehouse is fighting with fake book over Covid content in a game of finger pointing. They always eat their own.
What is humorous to me is that I have Danish relatives. Live by Jante’s Law, die by the sword.
Traffic 101, The Set Up On What The Battlefield Was
I learned the rules of the road in Miami during the Miami Vice days.
I had a 10 mile commute that took 1 hour because of traffic. There was basically one way from where I lived to where I worked. You could see any number of things on the ride. There were girls putting on make up, men shaving, people having sex (yes, not a typo) and a lot of people getting high on their way to work. Back then, the drugs came through South Florida, not Mexico. It was enjoyed with great gusto at the port of entry.
Getting in and out of traffic was difficult. Miami is just another Borough of New York driving wise. Florida drivers are close to the top of the list of worst in any state. Traffic, short tempers and the same freakin’ commute every damn day made them mean and short fused.
Road rage was way different. Instead of giving the finger and cussing someone out in your car all nice and protected, we saw guns come out a window on the road.
How I Learned To Merge
If you read all of the above, you got that there was a lot of drug money and expensive cars. Mine was not. My first lesson was to learn how to play chicken. Most people will finally back off if you are willing to sacrifice your car or make it look like you are.
Sure, like the picture you can go to the end of the line to get in, but what if the opportunity is not there?
—–> HERE IS YOUR BEST PIECE OF ADVICE.
Find the most expensive car in the line and merge on it. They will give way as they have more to lose. Don’t try it if you see them pull a pistol. I always liked Mercedes or Sports Cars. This excludes Ferrari’s because the druggies owned them. I aimed at the Merc’s or other big sedans. They were executives who didn’t want to let you in, but gave up easily.
——> NEXT PIECE OF ADVICE
Don’t make eye contact because you want them to think that you don’t see them, despite the fact that they are guiding a 3000 pound death machine capable of causing pain and damage potentially inches away from you. You might be nice or scared off by people like me if you see them. Conversely, if I didn’t want to let you in, I was willing to win the game of chicken from the other lane.
It’s like asking for forgiveness instead of permission. Just keep going. Pretend you don’t see them and barge in.
—–> A CHEAP MERGE, BUT DOESN’T GET YOU POINTS IN THE MERGE GAME
I’ll mention it because someone will call it out, but merge on the trucks nicely. Be decent about it and give them time to stop. They hate cars doing that and sometimes they can’t stop in time. Catch them on the acceleration because cars always win.
——> A DICK MOVE, BUT EFFECTIVE
You can always come in on a motorcycle, but what’s the sport of that. Coming in on a really expensive car with a person who looks like an asshole is a lot more satisfying.
—–> LADY DRIVER WARNING
Don’t come in if they are putting on makeup in the mirror. They won’t see you and you will sacrifice both cars. This is the one time you need to check first. I am more likely to go in on a female however as they are less aggressive. They can get way funnier when they get mad at you though, so the show sometimes is worth it. They give up too fast though
Living in the South
I don’t live in Miami anymore. I moved to the South. That sounds counter-intuitive but the South begins above Orlando and goes to about Virginia-ish. It mixes with the north from there. The reason I bring that up is that people are nice in the South. They let you in when you want to merge into traffic.
You just look at the other driver, ask with your hand if it’s ok and almost always you get let in. You wave when done and everyone feels good. Sure, it’s not the satisfaction of gaining seconds during a last dash merge, but I’m not in that big of a hurry anymore.
I got so used to letting people in, on a business trip in New York I tried to let someone in. They didn’t trust me so I realized I was supposed to cut them off. Once I did, they almost thanked me. See why people are happier in the south?
My traffic study skills show that staying in a lane can be just as fast as jumping all around. Merging skills are for when you are caught in a lane close and you have to get in. Don’t be a dick and tie up traffic for those few seconds.
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
It’s always been difficult to be unpopular. We learn this lesson in school. No one wants to be an outcast.
With the dreaded social media and their censors against only certain people and certain words that they don’t agree with, the visibility of this subject has leapfrogged past logic, reason and congeniality. You say the wrong thing to the wrong person and your head gets bitten off.
First, you have to care if what people say about you bothers you. I don’t give a flying fig anymore because if they like me they do. If they don’t, what they say probably isn’t going to phase me.
The real hero’s and leaders are those who will stand up against the sheep and go the other way, or lead the sheep. Oh, you are going to piss some people off, but they were probably just there to try and get in your way.
The moral is don’t be a sheep. Fight (say to others, don’t hit them unless you are in Portland) for what you believe in and the hill you want to make your stand on.
Most of all, when you have made your decision, don’t let public opinion or popularity contests sway you. When you are right you are. If you are not sure, you probably aren’t.
Most people who get in your way are jealous or get their kicks by bringing others down instead of worrying about what they should be doing.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some good things, but sooner or later it goes down the crapper when someone “offends” another. It is where you can find more bias and discrimination (against anyone and everyone) since segregation.
Twitter is probably the biggest cesspool. Since Facebook Fake Book started censoring, you can’t trust what is real or not. I also don’t care about my high school or college enough to see what they are doing. If either of us cared, we’d have stayed in contact. The hate generated against the last President just told me the people in charge of these platforms are untrustworthy. They say one thing and do another.
Do what you want. Most are addicted to social media. The truly smart people don’t waste time trying to impress others as to how good their life is or worry about what others have.
My life is better without as much as I do with. I still get what I need to know without it being filtered by a loser in a cubicle with an axe to grind over who voted for whom. The elitist oligarch’s have told them what is allowed, then they prattle on condemning exactly what they are doing.
As usual, I’ll just do my own thing and let other suffer who wish to read this tripe.
Speaker Pelosi gets her hair done inside while forcing businesses to stay closed (at least until the election and then we’ll see how the winds blow). I guess there are two sets of rules, one for them and then the ones they make for the rest of the country.
The ruling class used to be called the bourgeois. The others are now called the flyover states. I wonder who will get tired of this stuff?
The sarcasm is that she claimed it was a set up from a business she also claimed she supported for years. Why would they do that to her? Would there be an apology if she wasn’t caught?
“Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.”
-George Santayana
Over the years, we’ve found ways to skip ads. We record shows and fast forward through them to watch what we want.
Lately, I’ve been skipping the news because I’m sick of the biased reporting, from either side of the story.
Advertising somehow makes having hemorrhoids, toe fungus, yellow teeth and bad breath seem better. All of it at the cost of the fast speaker at the end telling you all of the things that will harm you when you use the cure they are selling.
The news tells you all the harm that is happening to you to make you feel worse. So advertisements during the news hour is a recipe for depression or anger.
I hope all of this crap is just the result of it being an election year and will go away after November. Unfortunately, since they’ve already gotten rid of Brian Williams, Bill O’Reilly, Matt Lauer, Katy Couric and the rest of the losers and the news still sucks it probably won’t.
I just don’t watch now and I feel better. Tell me when it changes.
I first got this answer in a text from one of my kids and thought it was only a millennial thing. They make up text stuff as do the Gen-X, Y, Z and the rest of the alphabet kids. I didn’t pay attention as they text me all kinds of stuff. I excuse kids because, well… kids (and also millennials).
I have been getting this recently from people old enough to act like grown-ups but don’t, and I realized it was being used in a dismissive context.
My searches found it to be short for HAHAHA (or HAHA depending on the source), Hello Again, hectares and other various dribble, but my intuition was confirmed when I found this;
This is how the (inarguable! non-negotiable!) list of the Worst Single Word-And/Or-Letter-Expressions To Type Online starts out: 1) K, 2) Nah, 3) :p, 4) Uh, 5) lol, and 6) Ha/Heh.
Ha is interchangeable between the sexes, but both sexes know exactly what these words really mean without the explanation. K (while meaning OK)was kind of an F-you and the others are sort of meh.
Why is HA! an insult?
The dreaded Reddit gave up this gem: When I have experienced a ‘ha’ it’s usually a lack of interest in having a conversation with me.
So, it’s a round about way of saying piss off, I am done with you and/or this conversation.
MEN VS. WOMEN
It is pretty evident that females are more verbal than men.
When boys hit puberty, their responses to most things generally get boiled down to um, ugh, hrrmmph or other monosyllabic answers. Some get more verbal as they finish suffering through those years and move out from their parents. Most however can revert back to this form of communication as adults if distracted by sports, TV, video games or a laundry list of available options. I could take a ha easier from a boy than a girl. They just don’t talk that much. The millennial boys don’t use it as much.
Females tend to be more verbal. They talk their way to the answers instead of men, who think about the subject, tossing out the bad options and then giving an actual/meaningful answer. So, if you get a one word answer like Ha from any girl of any age, it’s not good for you nor was it meant to be polite.
I pushed my eldest to see if she’d ever used it to blow somebody off and she said maybe, followed by probably. In her dictionary, that means yes. I had used the word dismissive in the question so there was no misunderstanding. She is hip to culture (millennial) so knew it was true.
When I get ha from adults over 50, I pretty much get their drift. I just close the text and move on until they want to grow up or actually have an adult conversation.
As I suspected, ha is a single word equating to “I’ll let you go now” the on phone or best wishes. I also means I don’t want to text anymore and this lets you think something witty was said while giving you the finger.
What is Internet Road Rage? My definition is that you are willing to engage in hateful, spiteful language aimed at someone whom you either don’t agree with ideologically/religiously/politically/any excuse to vent, or a counter attack to someone who got on you or your ideas.
Here is the caveat. You most likely wouldn’t act or speak that way in person or to someone’s face with that tone or language. Most of you have either more self-decency in person or a survival instinct that would prevent you from getting your ass kicked.
Worse, you could or are likely a Porch Dog, one who barks severely, but is no real threat. In other words, you yap by tapping the keyboard but pose no intellectual threat.
Polite drivers may think that dialogue like that is the territory of deranged, out-of-control, or terrible drivers, and maybe they’re right. But according to a new survey from AAA, most drivers in the United States display signs of road rage. So too bad, you supposedly polite drivers.
The survey, published today, polled 2,705 drivers 16 years old and older about their road rage habits. Seventy-eight percent of drivers—more than three-quarters—reported engaging in some kind of aggressive driving maneuver, including tailgating, yelling, honking, gesturing angrily, purposely blocking another vehicle, cutting someone off, confronting someone, and intentionally ramming another car.
The breakdown of each category was fairly unsurprising. Fifty-one percent of drivers reported tailgating at least once; 47 percent reported yelling at least once; 45 percent reported honking at least once. The more bats**t responses—confronting another driver and ramming another vehicle—polled much lower on the list.
INTERNET ROAD RAGE
There is every flavor in the book, more than I can write about. It started with email flaming. As soon as forums or ideological websites like Quora, Instagram, Facebook, The Huffpo, Fox News, etc., etc. The net of it was that people were able to transfer their hate to others online. The comments are mendacious, eviscerating and frequently ad hominem attacks that most wouldn’t do face to face.
I call B.S. as most of those people are cowards and wouldn’t stand up to others in real life. There are of course some that do speak their minds, but they generally have more of a life than pissing on each other online.
What would the other person do? Back in the schoolyard days, you say something like what is written almost everywhere now and you’d have to fight. Most people don’t like to fight and there are a few who know very well how to protect themselves. I’d even bet that a lot of folks who are right wingers fully explore their second amendment rights. Who wants to walk into that? There are some who would be very able to kick your ass and would.
WHY DO YOU DO IT?
I use the word you in its’ plural and direct form. I’m pointing at everyone who reads this because most of you have crossed the line when someone pissed you off.
The reason is that you envision some curtain of invisibility or invincibility because you are typing to a screen. You wouldn’t say it in person, or wouldn’t say it that way. Therefore, you are either a coward or a bully. Most people lose considerable IQ points when you think this way.
So stop it. Grow up and act like an adult. Be big enough to pass over some typed letters of venting. More than likely, there isn’t enough reason for responses that are so harsh. Before you type it, imagine saying it face to face and see if you would do it, or risk either your reputation or an ass whooping.
