Twitter video dog.

• Twitter video ad illusion, see second version in reply.

• Every now and the we see that the NY Post doesn't always hire English majors.

How to pick a fight.

All right, let's get vulgar—

Fesshole @fesshole Nov 20, 2020
I work at a takeaway and whenever I serve a fat customer I say "I'm sorry about your weight" as I hand them their order. They usually cheerfully reply that they haven't been there long.

Fesshole @fesshole Apr 22
I send the phone numbers of my exes to the random dudes on the internet who send me dick pics.

Fesshole @fesshole Nov 20, 2020
I work at a takeaway and whenever I serve a fat customer I say "I'm sorry about your weight" as I hand them their order. They usually cheerfully reply that they haven't been there long.

Fesshole @fesshole Jan 24
Went to a man's house that I had just met. I didn't have my phone. Pretending to be vain, I sent a picture of myself from his phone to mine with the location on. If he had murdered me the police would have known it was him.

Fesshole @fesshole Mar 8
I set 3am reminders saying "remind me to have anal" recurring annually on every Alexa I see. I do wonder if these subliminal nocturnal messages have an effect but will never know

As I've mentioned, it doesn't make sense to complain about people's bad behavior, in practically any arena or generation, without taking a good look, over and over, at how they were raised.

Miss Manners points this out here (from the Harvard Business Review, 2003), even though most of the Q&A is about the workplace. (To my knowledge, only one of her many books is about childrearing, which is probably why she doesn't get attacked for those particular views the way John Rosemond does, even though their teachings overlap at least 90% of the time.)

https://hbr.org/2003/12/in-praise-of-boundaries-a-conversation-with-miss-manners

Excerpt:

Q: "How do you learn the rules?"

A: "The particular conventions of each society have to be memorized. But the basic principle behind etiquette is thinking from the other person’s point of view, and you have to train for that in childhood. For a child, empathy is a counterintuitive lesson that must be taught and retaught from an early age. This doesn’t mean that a well-mannered child will naturally grow up to be empathetic. Maybe she will; maybe she won’t. But she will at least learn to behave as if she is, which will make her socially acceptable.

"I can’t stress strongly enough the importance of child rearing. When I look at my mail, it’s clear that the number one problem facing American society today is greed. My mailbox is full of questions from the perpetrators and the victims of greed—from a bride who is angry about receiving a present that wasn’t on her registry to outright begging from friends for contributions to a vacation or college fund. I don’t blame the business world for this problem. Since the mid-twentieth century, this country has been ruled by the idea that manners are bad for children because they inhibit them. Well of course they do—if we’re lucky. That’s the idea. Etiquette is supposed to inhibit the instinct to act on our offensive impulses. That’s what civilization is all about.

"That said, it’s important not to confuse learning etiquette with learning morals. Good manners may have a moral base, but they are not a moral system. The rationale is pragmatic. I take your feelings into consideration because I want you to take mine into consideration. If I am in business, I want you to trust me, because if you don’t, then you’re not going to do business with me. If you are a businessperson trying to outmaneuver somebody, then you benefit greatly from understanding the other person’s point of view, even if you’re not going to accommodate that person. Indeed, there are many well-mannered villains who can sweet-talk people into anything..."

> without taking a good look,
> over and over, at how they
> were raised.

Over and over. It's never clear what you want to DO.

Also, see the latest, broadest research on human dev.

Excluding the most abject disruptions in early childhood, about half of one's eventual identity (success in life, etc.) is set in motion at the moment of conception, long before we take our first breath, by genetics. About 48% of the balance is what they call "unshared experience," the things that have happened to you and which you have often chosen for yourself which didn't happen to the twin sister with whom you were raised. In pivotally important ways, we build our own minds.

Your comments always have these broad-if-shallow citations to suggest that you are going to tell the rest of us ℌ𝔬𝔴 𝔗𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 𝔖𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔟𝔢 𝔇𝔬𝔫𝔢.

No. Keep your hands to yourself. I got kids to raise* over here.

*I have no real children, just the
imaginary kind for blog comments.

As MM pointed out in the interview, we wouldn't need The Law in the workplace so much if only more people had taken professional etiquette more seriously, starting WAY back. In other words, we need to stop stubbornly refusing to agree on what mandatory courtesies are, such as knocking before trying to get into a bathroom. Even children can be expected to obey that rule. Adults who refuse to obey it will naturally come under suspicion.

On childrearing. It makes sense to use positive distractions instead of the word "no" - IF you're dealing with a toddler. Why? Because otherwise you'd be saying "no" every thirty seconds or so - and the toddler would stop listening!

BUT...if the kid is older and too smart for that, he/she HAS to start learning to accept disappointment calmly and graciously on a daily basis - or risk becoming seriously unpopular. So parents who say to teachers and babysitters "we don't say no in our family" are fools who can expect big trouble later on.

So, if the professional media and social media would work harder to convince parents that "no" is, in fact, a GOOD word to use with kids of a certain age, teachers everywhere would likely get down on their knees to thank them. Win-win. (Also, I'd say Lenore Skenazy is having a strong influence right now as to the importance of free-range childhoods, even if her mission is still an uphill battle.)

I realize, of course, that in a nation of immigrants - many of whom have BETTER manners than average born-Americans - there are bound to be clashes. But again, that's why we have legal laws. It's also why G.B. Shaw said: "do NOT do unto others as they would have them do unto you; they may not have similar tastes." (I would hope, for example, that most Americans by now would think twice before serving meat to a guest they don't know well. Btw, Shaw was a vegetarian - but he wasn't referring to food, I think.)

As I've mentioned, it doesn't make sense to complain about people's bad behavior, in practically any arena or generation, without taking a good look, over and over, at how they were raised. ~ Lenona at May 10, 2021 6:40 AM

Does that really matter?

If someone was raised to be a dishonest jerk, they're still a dishonest jerk. We don't cut them any slack because their parents did a poor job raising them. We avoid them.

In addition, people retain the ability to change their behavior well into adulthood. If someone realizes that his behavior is causing problems in his life, he has the ability to change that behavior. To get farther in life he changes his bad behavior, he does not go out and buy a t-shirt explaining to all who see it that his behavior is due to his parents' failures.

"We don't get to choose what happens to us — but we always get to choose how we react to it." ~ G.S. Jennsen

A failure to choose wisely is not society's fault.

We don't cut them any slack because their parents did a poor job raising them. We avoid them.
___________________________________

Yikes, you didn't think I was suggesting you SHOULD cut them any slack, did you? I was referring to what we can do for future generations. People who aren't here yet. Too many young parents (both with and without college educations) never had any truly good examples on how to raise good citizens. That isn't their fault. (Also, it's for the kids' own good. In a slightly different vein, many young people STILL don't know that one should never leave a baby alone - or smoke in a house where there's a baby - but it's obviously essential for EVERYONE to learn those rules, not just parents.)

The trouble with shunning is that it's too little, too late. "Prevention is better than cure." (Plus, many shunned people hardly care that they're unemployable and unmarriagable - but large numbers of such people are typically dangerous.)

IMO, the only people outside the family who SHOULD have to put up with people who behave badly are those who are paid to do so. Teachers, however, should not have to be the primary ones to reform violent preschoolers. Also, as Ann Landers said, "marriage was never meant to be a reform school." So whether we're talking about spoiled, illiterate princesses or men who think unpaid work should be women's work, chances are their parents never really tried to push them in another direction. Good social skills are not trivial, even if parents don't get paid to teach them.

Then again, I suppose I should have said:

"without taking a good look, over and over, at how they were raised - and how we can politely DISCOURAGE future parents from making the same brain-dead mistakes, so we'll have a little less to complain about, eventually."

Btw, Rosemond has said that Dr. Spock got a bad rap. For one thing, when Spock said "trust your instincts," he didn't say "trust your STUPID instincts, like letting three-year-olds watch screens when you could be patiently teaching them how to do chores instead - and teaching them to take pride in being USEFUL."

(Or, even when the chores are done, kids need to learn to use their imaginations without parental help - Every Day. Plus, again, how to develop social skills.)

Every now and the we see that the NY Post doesn't always hire English majors. ~ Crid at May 10, 2021 2:46 AM

Is there a media outlet that hires English majors anymore? And, if so, do these English majors actually capable of writing and editing?

I just read an article that included a bit about someone using "elicit sources" to spread lies.

Do major news outlets even bother hiring someone competent these days? All I'm seeing are rich kids failing upwards and/or a senior executive's mistress.

The first thought that popped in my mind was What if Walt Disney was just a figurehead and his company was part of a much older, sinister organization?

Joss Whedon's Wolfram & Hart from the Buffy series comes to mind.

https://twitter.com/Rattapoom_K/status/1391499151083380737

Of course, unsolicited advice or criticism is usually rude to give. This is why outsiders have come up with all sorts of indirect ways to let parents know they need to do a better job - but maybe it's time to band together and be more direct, since so many still don't listen.

Old examples: kindergartens that won't admit students who aren't toilet-trained, signs in restaurants asking for indoor voices, teachers telling parents their kids are very lazy without using that exact word, doctors telling the media about the rise in juvenile diabetes, future employers telling the media they're desperate for employees willing and able to deal with clients on the phone and in person, etc. (Not to mention the police.)

In 2005, I think, there was a Newsweek cover story about over-indulged kids, and later, a school counselor wrote a LTTE to say that she's always meeting with parents whose mantra to their kids is "I just want you to be happy with the life you choose." She tells them their mantra should really be: "Life is going to throw you curveballs, and it's important that I teach you to deal with that." I.e, kids need to suffer disappointments again and again in order to learn. Or, as she could have added, if parents must give kids the things they never had as kids, why not make those things discipline, self -denial, frugality, manual labor, exercise, etc.?

After all, would parents REALLY want their kids to be "happy" if that meant their staying home and never getting a job - or leaving home to become a loan shark? Obviously not. So maybe they should stop saying that - and stop acting as though it isn't THEIR job to make sure their kids obey the law when they're unsupervised.

@Lenona,

Indirect remarks don't work. Parents simply pretend to never heard such thing and move on as their hellspawns break shit.

What does work like a charm is a loud shushing noise when the little kids are misbehaving. Like dogs, the kids react almost immediately at the sound and stop altogether.

The best part is the murderous looks you get from parents, but they can't do a thing about your shushing because they also do know that their kids are misbehaving.

From the same law school as Popehat?

https://twitter.com/Julius_Kim/status/1391587059182276615

> an article that included a
> bit about someone using
> "elicit sources"

It's a Doggy Dog world.

So, Lenona, you think parents need to do a better job?

If I've "peaked your interest" (PC Magazine, 1989, I'll never forget it), wet your appetite with some slow gin… For all intensive purposes, it's just slight of hand.

So, Lenona, you think parents need to do a better job?

Crid at May 10, 2021 12:42 PM

From the totality of the comments, I would guess that Lenona is a librarian at some large metropolitan hell hole, or branch library, and has gotten a rather jaded view of children in general, who for the most part probably don’t want to be there, anymore than she wants them there.

I’m reminded of Jen, who for years used to nag endlessly about the imperfections of her husband until she finally realized it was really low class, and we don’t care.......
One or the other. I’m not sure which.

You clearly ignored the thread where I talked at length about how frightening teens can be, OUTDOORS, when they roam about unsupervised. That behavior doesn't come out of nowhere. Neither do all the complaints and rules made by other people that I just listed. (Another one, years ago, was made by motel managers - some no longer admit anyone under 25 without a guardian, due to vandalism.)

As I was saying, what sense does it make to complain about badly behaved young adults if we don't crack down on bad parents and push everyone to enforce the rules and laws that already exist, while they're still kids?

Sixclaws, I know for a fact that many librarians no longer approve of adult patrons who shush loud, unaccompanied kids and teens, even in the quiet sections. (Presumably, they're afraid the teens, who CHOOSE to be there, will change their minds and stop borrowing materials.) They only throw them out when they get REALLY loud or rude. No, I'm not a librarian.

"Crack down."

Got it. We'll be in touch, but don't hold your breath.

On his deathbed, drawing his last breath, Ghebreyesus will remember 2020 as the best year of his life.

"Every now and the[n] we see that the NY Post doesn't always hire English majors."

It's more likely that many universities no longer require English majors to learn grammar and spelling.

Also, we need a name for this law: "Every post on the internet criticizing someone's grammar or spelling will contain a grammatical or spelling error." Don't name it after me, I certainly wasn't the first to state it.