Happy New Year

[Akash]

Not only nonsensical, but offesnive, especially this:

They also jerk off in coffins. I'm serious, this is what they do. They lie in coffins, talk about their past relationships and sexual histories and jerk off while doing it. Just think, George Bush had to do this. Thrown up your dinner yet?

Do your research Big Magilla. This is ACTUALLY something they do in the Skull and Bones secret society. It's been part of their tradition since the society began and even though women are now allowed in it, the men still continue this stupid practice. I wasn't trying to be offensive. It's been well documented, and having known people inducted into the society, I can assure you it is all true.

But you're a prude, so I get it.



Edited By Akash on 1199223988

[Big Magilla]

and made up testimonials from street people who can't find a decent paying job but have all the time in the world to tell their "woe is me" life stories on line - sure they do.

Wow...I don't even know what to say about that statement. How does one convey how heartless and snobby it sounds? Like something one would expect to hear on Fox News.

It would be tragic if it were true, but it reminds me of Anne Baxter's made up story of her background in All About Eve and Thelma Ritter's right-on response: "Everything but the bloodhounds yapping at her behind."

Jena from San Francisco says:

"One of the reasons I am homeless was that I chose kids over education. Now that they're grown and on their own, and their father long ago 'started over' with someone thirty years younger, and the city where I grew up and raised them (alone for nine years) is gentrifying (auctioning off the basics to the highest bidder), I can't afford to live here except as a street person with stays in friends' garages or dens.

Do the math. The ex-husband "started over" with someone thirty years younger (she had to have been at least about 50) after which she raised the kids on her own for nine years before they went off and had kids of their own. She's now well past 60. What kind of friends would allow her just temporary shelter in their dens or worse, cold garages?

""My kids can't afford to live here either. All have kids, two have college debt and one isn't working, so can't afford to help me in any way. I don't expect that. But I can't even afford healthcare working two jobs at $5 an hour. Never mind housing. Plus, it's up to me to take care of my mother, who is in her 90s.

College educated kids can't help their mother in any way? They can't even call welfare for her? How is she "taking care" of her mother who is her 90s? If she's physcially taking care of her she should be living with her. Is she dragging her through the streets as well? If she's in a home, trust me, she would long ago have stopped supporting her and let the state take over. I'm not sure what the minimum wage is in San Francisco, but it has to be over $5 per hour and the state just raised the minimum wage to $8 an hour, so not only is this bullshit, it's poorly researched bullshit.

I was a middle-class person thirty years ago, even twenty. I didn't know that kids were becoming a kind of luxury possession. In my mind, having kids would mean building a strong and helpful family unit. Everybody would work to help others. That hasn't been true. Some of it is character flaws I gave my kids, some is their own, some is social change. I think it's true that I love my kids. But if I had to do it over, I'd choose education, a good job and being child-free. I'd get the best education I could manage and spend the rest of my life paying it off if I had to, because I'd still be a person with more skills and wider perspectives. I'd choose being a productive member of society who could die saying, 'I didn't contribute to an increase in human numbers.' I'd take care of kids with no families or lonely misunderstood kids, like I talk to on the street.".

Ah, now we get to the crux of the matter and the real resason for the post from someone with an agenda. Sounds like an upperclass graduate student making a case for him or herself.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1199215721

[Big Magilla]

copies of nonsense about the banks being the bane of modern civilization that might have been something out of an 1880s western novel

As opposed to your "brilliant" observation that America's high school problem would be solved if teachers were just paid more? Please. If you're going to call something "nonsense", at least have a more insightful come-back than that. I'm sorry Big Magilla, I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest with you, but if you felt it was so silly, you could have said so in the thread and at least defended it with your own reasoning instead of dismissing it as easily as you did here.

Not only nonsensical, but offesnive, especially this:

They also jerk off in coffins. I'm serious, this is what they do. They lie in coffins, talk about their past relationships and sexual histories and jerk off while doing it. Just think, George Bush had to do this. Thrown up your dinner yet?

Edited By Big Magilla on 1199214584

[Big Magilla]

Gee, Big, you've morphed from Lewis Stone to Clarence Kolb.

And here I thought I was turning into Gladys Cooper in Separate Tables.

[ITALIANO]

a person from a foreign land consigning a single outlook and personality upon 300 million individuals

A single CULTURE and MENTALITY, Damien. And a culture and mentality I will never stop fighting. You should do it too, one day.

Next time please mention my name.

[Damien]

Gee, Big, you've morphed from Lewis Stone to Clarence Kolb.

I have to agree with the thoughts Pen and Akash have set forth. The reason I love this Board is that it goes way all over the place and doesn't just obsess on why Cate Blanchett should receive another nomination for playing Elixabeth I a second time or why La Jambon's performance in Le Vie En Rose is unlike anything that's ever been committed to celluloid. (We all know where one can go for that.)

I wish that when I was 12 or 14 I had a place to go to to read simultaneously about sex and politics and the Oscars, as well as lively debate about individual films and the people who make or are in them, a place that whose spirited discussion would have encouraged me to think for myself and hold fast to my opinions (and to see that anything I thought would not be as absurd as someone actually disliking St. Hilary or a person from a foreign land consigning a single outlook and personality upon 300 million individuals). For a young person, this Board is kind of like what the Village Voice was for me in the late 60s -- and the many tangents that individual threads may take only show that it's a true discussion board with a real community involved in it.

Sex, Politics, Philosophy. All this and Best Costume Design predictions, too.



Edited By Damien on 1199180785

[Akash]

copies of nonsense about the banks being the bane of modern civilization that might have been something out of an 1880s western novel

As opposed to your "brilliant" observation that America's high school problem would be solved if teachers were just paid more? Please. If you're going to call something "nonsense", at least have a more insightful come-back than that. I'm sorry Big Magilla, I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest with you, but if you felt it was so silly, you could have said so in the thread and at least defended it with your own reasoning instead of dismissing it as easily as you did here.

and made up testimonials from street people who can't find a decent paying job but have all the time in the world to tell their "woe is me" life stories on line - sure they do.

Wow...I don't even know what to say about that statement. How does one convey how heartless and snobby it sounds? Like something one would expect to hear on Fox News.

The problem is there is just too much of it.

And who's going to decide that without veering dangerously close to censorship Magilla? Your idea of "too much" may not be everyone else's.

The slightly risque sex talk is funny, again to a point, but not when it stops serious posts cold.

I will never understand complaints about thread "hijacking" or "stopping arguments cold." What does that even mean? This isn't Scrabble where using a letter from a word to start your own word effectively takes that letter out of contention for everybody else. Message Board posting is not a zero sum game. The fact that someone else has a turn doesn't mean an older post is off limits for someone else who wishes to comment on it. It's very simple. In the very thread you mentioned, I went back two pages and commented on something Eric said yesterday. See how easy that works? I hit this dandy little option on my screen that allows me to reply to an old post and hey! Look at that! My comment and the quote of the old comment appears at the very top of the thread.

But oh sorry, I'm "hijacking" yet another thread with "nonsense" again. Please let's go back wishing each other Happy New Year for the 200th time. That's far more stimulating.



Edited By Akash on 1199171195

[Big Magilla]

I sincerely and fervently hope that teens and pre-teens are reading this board: with the political discussions, they're discovering dissent and radical ideas, discovering that it's okay to think outside the ideological box that our mainstream society demands they fit into; and the naughty bits hopefully lead them to recognize that their sexuality is nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of.

So, to a radically sexy 2008!

The problem is there is just too much of it. I open a thread to see what someone has to say about - oh, I don't know, say the Films of 2007 - and what do I find - copies of nonsense about the banks being the bane of modern civilization that might have been something out of an 1880s western novel and made up testimonials from street people who can't find a decent paying job but have all the time in the world to tell their "woe is me" life stories on line - sure they do.

The slightly risque sex talk is funny, again to a point, but not when it stops serious posts cold. What 14 or 16 year-old kid is going to be able to contribute to that? There are enough off-topic threads. It's not necessary to hijack the on-topic ones.

[Akash]

Word to everything Penelope said.

I would hope for a Democratic President in 2008 but why bother? I'll hope instead that the Dems do what they promise they're going to do in 2008. I won't even bother aiming too high for the ever elusive what they should be doing. Just meet the low bar you've already promised, folks. Can you pussies just do that, please?

Oh sorry, this was political. My bad.



Edited By Akash on 1199162811

[anonymous1980]

Happy New Year, everyone!

[kaytodd]

Happy New Year! I hope 2008 brings joy to all of you and your loved ones.

[Steph2]

I love you Penelope.

[Penelope]

I sincerely and fervently hope that teens and pre-teens are reading this board: with the political discussions, they're discovering dissent and radical ideas, discovering that it's okay to think outside the ideological box that our mainstream society demands they fit into; and the naughty bits hopefully lead them to recognize that their sexuality is nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of.

So, to a radically sexy 2008!

[Steph2]

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

And Big Magilla, sorry if I've contributed to your misery as well.

[Big Magilla]

Good riddance to 2007.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I don't enjoy coming here many times a day as much as I used to. I'm sick and tired of seeing every other thread hijacked by political rhetoric and/or sex talk. This used to be a place where impressionable teenagers and even pre-teens could come and have their first serious discussions about film. A lot of you know this, many of you were those teens.

We once even had a ten year kid who was quite articulate about his likes and dislikes. Nowadays if I were the parent of an impressionable teen or pre-teen, I woluldn't let him or her anywhere near this board. It does no good to point this out to the particular culprits, they just go on and repeat themselves for spite. I'd say "bah humbug!" but it's the wrong holiday, so remaining ever hopeful, but increasingly more doubltful, here's to an improved '08 indeed.