<p>
This happened to us right when S got his Duke (and other) acceptance(s). <em>SUPER</em> stressful. They sold the plant out from under this entire community, though dh got picked up by the new buyers. But changing the access codes, etc.?? Unfathomable. That, and disgusting. :(</p>
<p>Fingers still crossed for your dh.</p>
<p>jym, sorry to hear about your husband’s situation. It must be extremely nerve-wracking and tough. Grumpiness is natural under the circumstances and you guys just hang in there. I’m kind of flat, too, today.</p>
<p>This bug makes you ache and gives you congestion. No fever yet, but bed seems the place to be. I’m sure I’m contagious, having caught it from the missus. Came home from work to try and get rid of it and drown it with fluids. Huge project to do tomorrow - typical luck. Good thing there’s Tylenol.</p>
<p>For such “pizza” nonsense, post-hopping seems workable. Besides, the ^^ and the )) got me all worked up. We males are so easily swayed by nice )) and (( anyway!</p>
<p>Coronax, lots of warmth for you. Hope you had a bit of fun. 
Life has enough seriousness as is…it’s too short to pass up a chance to laugh or enjoy each other.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Now, you’re talkin,’ Mr. DiGiorno! :)</p>
<p>Refering to the beginning of this thread, where it was inappropriate to talk about sex…or even joke about it…</p>
<p>Sex and Torture in America
By David Swanson
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor</p>
<pre><code>Wednesday 14 February 2007
How does sex differ from torture? The one is good and the other bad might be your immediate reply. But were I to describe an act of torture, this would be taken as a serious article. Were I to describe an act of sex, then political publications wouldn’t publish it, spam filters wouldn’t allow you to receive it, and if you did receive it, you might turn away. In fact, we have set up numerous mechanisms, external and internal, to protect you from sex that just don’t exist for torture and should possibly be considered.
Such as:
The Federal Communications Commission
Numerous things sex-related are banned from the airwaves for our protection, while discussions of torture and an expanding range of depiction of torture are acceptable. Police shows and exciting crime dramas depict torture and techniques bordering on torture as noble and good, while either avoiding sex or treating it so grotesquely as to unintentionally turn you off it.
Presidential Impeachment
Sex, or at least some types of sex, or at least lying about it, or at least lying about it under oath, is considered to fall under the category of Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Torture of all sorts, from the mildest up to murder, in plain violation of a variety of laws, treaties, and the US Constitution itself, and lying about it, and using a tyrannical “signing statement” to overturn a new redundant law banning it, and using it to generate faulty “intelligence” with a wide range of disastrous results beginning with an illegal war that has slaughtered approximately 658,000 people, and lying about the reasons for that war in formal signed reports to Congress and speeches made before Congress and the American people, is all considered to fall into the category of faithfully executing the Office of the President of the United States and to the best of one’s ability, preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.
Sex-ed Classes and Transmitted Diseases.
Sex-ed classes serve to discourage sex. Many, known as “Abstinence Only” classes, simply demand complete renunciation of sex. I’m not commenting one way or another. But where are the torture-ed classes teaching total abstinence from torture? Isn’t there any way to amend “Thou shalt not kill” to include “or torture”? Sexually transmitted diseases have starring roles on public-service announcements and are widely reported as reasons to be careful when engaging in sex. Well and good. But torture-transmitted diseases are unheard of, although they include the full gamut of known injuries and diseases, including sexually transmitted diseases and every other kind, with a particularly high frequency of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, including proclivity to suicide. As with sex, in torture, all partners- including tortured and torturer - are at risk of picking up the diseases.
But, you may object, people are not routinely torturing each other. We’re leaving it to the CIA to torture evil-doers and the occasional 400 innocent prisoners picked up by mistake. Of course, but this is part of the problem. When people fantasize about sex, they put themselves in their fantasies. Most people who fantasize about torture fantasize about someone else torturing another someone else to protect good people from enemies. But this should be thought of as someone else smoking crack with another person to protect you. It’s actually less effective than that at protecting you, but it has some similar results. Neither person will stop smoking crack and return to their previous state. Neither person will cease to exist. Either might end up in your neighborhood or household. So you should give some thought to what torture will have done to them.
Sex, as you know on some level and resist on another, is one of the most beautiful things in life, involving the most extreme pleasure and the most extreme expressions of love and connection. Sex is sustaining and beneficial. How does this differ from torture? Torture is the very worst thing in the world, involving the most extreme suffering, pain, agony, humiliation, despair and misery. Its devouring effects are long-lasting, very long-lasting, often longer than a lifetime. What does it say about America that we increasingly tell each other that wisdom involves more openness to torture than to sex?
</code></pre>
<hr>
<pre><code>David Swanson is creator of MeetWithCindy.org, co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997. His website is www.davidswanson.org.
</code></pre>
<hr>
<p>Jump to today’s Truthout Features:</p>
<p>P2N- hope you feel better</p>
<p>o
))
((</p>
<p>P2n-
So exactly which fluids are you drowning your illness in?? Hope its some good stuff.</p>
<p>Phone still hasn’t rung… so I am hopeful hubby’s job is secure… for now. Either that or he’s in an exit interview 
He felt pretty comfortable today–was pretty sure his job would be ok, but… ya nevah know…</p>
<p><strong>UPDATE</strong>
Just got a phonecall. Meeting just ended. Could hear lots of voices in the background so I suspect he coudn’t really talk. DH said no one in their organization was hit with the current layoff… today (which is good because 1/3 of his division got canned last go-round). I guess I’ll hear more later tho he claims there isn’t any more to tell.</p>
<p>WHEW!!!
Oh, I’m SO glad for you all, jym! Now, you can celebrate properly tonight! NO pizza! ;)</p>
<p>That is a relief jym. Glad to hear it. Calls for a five-course meal. ;)</p>
<p>Thanks, berurah and chocoholic. I got my VD gift this a.m.- It came in a box from Victoria’s Secret (I think I would consider it a “boomerang gift”, if you know what I mean. Kinda like a guy giving his wife an electric saw…). So, I don’t think we are having pizza tonight :)</p>
<p>BTW, I struggled wth my analogy-- first I typed “… kinda like a guy giving his wife a set of tools”-- but I changed it because I thought it’d draw too many double entendres. Then I tried an electric drill and electric screwdriver analogy. Ditto on the double entendre concern. So I settled on the electric saw. Feel free to use and joke about any of the above.</p>
<p>jum - we label those gifts, “To you, for me.”</p>
<p>binx-
Great label. Should I go out and get my H. a Chippendale dancer for VD? :D</p>
<p>Um…I don’t know what you mean jymmie. Can you please spell it out in spicy detail? I’ve got marite’s roast capon registered on my brain–and berurah’s garage bedroom with three fans whirring…I can add a few more images from your house. Also, more details on the racy gift item. I have a number of VS items–the one with feathers is very popular…</p>
<p>To Dorothy X: Don’t you believe for one second that heterosexual men find naked women a nightmare. In my experience, men love naked women of all sizes, shapes and ages. Most heterosexual men really aren’t that particular when it comes to warm female bodies who agree to take their clothes off. They happily waste oodles of hours imagining naked women of all sorts. So says me.</p>
<p>I’m on construction sites every week and I still have to be very careful not to accidently inflame any passions–even with my 49 year old ‘mommy’ body (thanks kids) in the fluorescent flak jacket and hardhat topping. </p>
<p>Personally, I could kick myself in the shin for buying into the Perfect Body nonsense when I actually HAD a perfect body at 20. Enjoy your youthful bodies girls. They are magnificent. If you prefer pizza at 20, get your head examined as soon as possible.</p>
<p>(An architecture professor actually told the class I was “Fat and Shapeless” --when I weighed 115 pounds and had a small legion of fellas trailing me around. He was gay–and jealous??)</p>
<p>“An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing that’s more interesting than sex.”
–Aldous Huxley</p>
<p>“A middle age cc woman is a person who finds Italian cuisine more interesting than sex.”
–Dorothy_ParkerX</p>
<p>And to those receiving little pieces of lingerie on this fine day it was the original Dorothy Parker that once remarked:</p>
<p>“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”
–Dorothy Parker</p>
<p>And per Cheers and her lamentation over gay men it should be known that such feelings are mutual, as I have found in the words of one of the great wits, and gay men, of our time:</p>
<p>“She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.”
—Oscar Wilde</p>
<p>Keep the faith, girls [ladies]!</p>
<p>Ahhh Dorothy…many activities are more interesting than sex but few are as fun.</p>
<p>Pizza and a new wardrobe aren’t even close–even in the dreaded LATE middle age.</p>
<p>dottie-
You obviously don’t “get” the “middle aged cc woman.”
I much prefer this quote of yours… words for you to live by… Try being nice… you might actually like it.
</p>
<p>cheers,</p>
<p>You can take this comment to the bank; as it is exactly how most of us males think about women. I find beauty, grace and art in virtually all women of a certain age: </p>
<p>Don’t you believe for one second that heterosexual men find naked women a nightmare. In my experience, men love naked women of all sizes, shapes and ages. Most heterosexual men really aren’t that particular when it comes to warm female bodies who agree to take their clothes off. They happily waste oodles of hours imagining naked women of all sorts. So says me. I’m on construction sites every week and I still have to be very careful not to accidently inflame any passions–even with my 49 year old ‘mommy’ body (thanks kids) in the fluorescent flak jacket and hardhat topping.</p>
<p>I make it a point to caution my daughters of the male perspective. They sometimes don’t see the effect they have. As a father, of course it evokes different, more protective emotions. But they’re adults, even though they’ll always be my girls. </p>
<p>Jym, I’m drinking Red Zinger tea and <em>forgive me, Seminole Nation</em> diluted Gatorade. Thank goodness for the decent bit of news.</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>believe me, I have long thought that referring to the “middle-ages” as the “dark-ages” was mean spirited and dumb; both, in their own way, are fertile and lead to modern times and a preponderance of fond memories. </p>
<p>As to Mencken, I believe perhaps you mistake his character for that of an optimist: A charming if erroneous suggestion that the old sourpuss would have found naive and intolerable.</p>
<p>He was not inclined–in the words of the Rebel-Hens–to make nice.
Quite the opposite.</p>
<p>By comparrison…I am but a naif and innocent.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>I just realized I’m ruining my bad-boy image with these remarks…sorry!</p>
<p>I’ll think of something that’ll trash that image soon enough ;)</p>
<p>p2n-
Gatorade-- Whoa. I will tell ALL of my U of F buds that you have seen the light. However, that said, might I encourage you to perhaps consider Powerade so that h’s co. will continue to sell lots of “product” (as we call it) and stop laying off its employees.</p>
<p>As for dottie. in the words or Sigmund Freud, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.</p>