When Americans got upset that John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, at least Lennon owned his words. He never called it a joke or belittled his critics. He calmly stated his reasons and eventually apologized for upsetting people.

I’m not saying this to hold up John Lennon as some epitome of goodness (he’s had his share of skeletons in the closet.) Rather, that even a snarky lad who built his public persona on taking the piss at any given opportunity didn’t fall back on the “it’s just a joke, bro” defense.

Random, but this pulled up an old memory. When I was a kid bordering on teenagerhood, one of my friends was excited that her parents were finally permitting her to swear. “No shit, Sherlock,” was her favorite, and it ended up practically becoming her catch phrase.

Not all of them do. I work with autistic kids, and sometimes we have to modify how we teach echoics (repeating what someone else said) because of it.

We may have a kid that we’re trying to teach to ask for help when they need it. So say, for example, we see them unable to open their lunch box. For some kids, we’d go, “Say, ‘help’.” The kid replies, “Help,” and we help them open the box.

But some kids will repeat exactly what we say, which means they end up going, “Say help.” So we have to change the way we make the suggestion. In this case we’d omit the “say” part, and just say “Help.” That way the kid will repeat just the important part, enabling them to communicate more functionally to get their needs met.

Came here wondering the same thing.

What is this image from? Is there context to explain his pants being open?

Your brain made it up.

Well, yeah, but our brains make up every color. Our experiences of color are nothing more than a facet of our brains’ interpretations of light information. It’s all in our heads.

I have no answers, but I sympathize. I’ve always wanted to ride a train across the country, but damn the prices are ridiculous. When I did make a cross-country trip a few years back (specifically so I could see the country and go through states I’d never been to before), I compared prices and decided to drive instead. The price of a train vs the price of fuel made the decision for me. Such a shame. But at least the road trip was worth it!

Got my harmonica and my bindle. Time to live the dream.

“If you must know, mother, he is my doodie buddy.”

No wonder toddlers are always doing the most dangerous shit

You realize money is required for more than material goods, right? Experiences take money. Museums, live events, transportation, lodging (even if just a tent), all need money. In some places, accessing parks and beaches require money. None of these things are desires for material goods, but desires for experiences - experiences that make life more fulfilling. Experiences that can enrich the spirit, or provide opportunities for bonding with others.

I can get behind anti-consumerism, but to be unable to partake in enjoying nature or exploring our culture, just because we’re poor, is to deny us access to a crucial part of our humanity.

People can be oddly respectful of wood piles. Back in autumn, I bought some cheap firewood and planned a burn at a local park (which has fire pits) with my girlfriend, but the weather didn’t work out in the end. We piled the logs next to the bathroom building, expecting them to disappear over time.

Months later, in very late winter, my girlfriend and I went back. To our absolute shock, the pile of firewood was still lying against the building, seemingly untouched.

The park is very popular, with events almost every weekend, even in the winter. I guess people saw the wood pile, assumed it was put there for some official purpose, and thought they shouldn’t touch it?

We ended up burning about half the logs that day. I wonder if the rest are still there.

With kanji, as well as not knowing what it means, you have no information of how it’s pronounced.

An impossible joke in kanji:

Granted, I never lived in any other era of human history, but I imagine our fractured society plays a huge role in why so many of us feel this way (because you are absolutely not alone in this experience.) We used to stay in close-knit communities, which forced us to hold our ties to each other, but we now have the entire globe to connect with. Consider how dating sites proliferate the idea that we can pick people the way we pick items in a grocery store - check one out, put it back on the shelf, put another in your cart, return another at a later date. It’s a pretty messed up way to think about other humans, but unfortunately a lot of people have internalized that this is a normal way to treat others.

When this happens enough, it’s easy to end up feeling disposable. It’s important to remind yourself that it’s not about you per se, but about how others treat each other. Being loyal is an underrated trait nowadays, made all the harder when you’ve gone through experiences where people take advantage of it.

I would love to offer solid advice on the matter, but unfortunately I often feel the same way. The best I can offer is the knowledge that you likely aren’t doing anything in particular to bring this on yourself - it’s a massive societal issue. Not the greatest hope, I know, but you are far from alone. I think it’s important that we recognize that loyal people are out there. It’s just hard to know how loyal someone is until the chips are down.

If they went to local protests, they’d meet those other leftists. Networking absolutely occurs at these events.

It’s not as simple as “they’re stupid” (which they are.) It’s a symptom of their in-group vs out-group thinking pattern. They don’t think the differences between other countries matter, because they’re all “others” as far as they’re concerned. So they paint foreigners with the same brush and leave it at that.

As to why “Mexican” in used in particular, I think other commenters make a good point about Mexico being the most prominent Spanish-speaking country to people in the US. They don’t see as many people from Spain, so that’s off their radar. If my upbringing in a racist area is anything to go by, “Mexican” became the default long ago.

True, but they can tell when their card is put back in the wrong pocket, or upside down, or other tiny clues that hint of someone messing with their stuff. Kids sometimes think parents know more than they do, or “have eyes in the back of their head,” simply because kids don’t pay attention to the same details their parents might. Their parents can deduce what happened from clues, clues that the kids don’t realize they left.

A very careful child might get away with it, but if their parents are equally careful they’ll probably notice something is amiss. I guess it all comes down to “your mileage may vary.”

At my first real job, I used to hang my coat on one particular coat hanger because it was the only one of its color. I chose it because it was easy for me to spot my coat when the hangers were crowded.

Now, I had a coworker who… I’m not quite sure what was going on with his brain. He jumped to weird conclusions all the time and flat-out made up things that he seemed to truly believe were real.

One day he randomly started arguing with me that the coat hanger I used was green. Uh, okay? Then he claimed that I had claimed it was yellow, and that I was wrong. I never made any such claim (and if I were pressed to it, I would’ve called it chartreuse.) Yet he was insistent that we had fought about it before, for some strange reason, and went on gloating about being right. It was utterly bizarre.

I let it go. He’s the same person who decided that “magic erasers” (for cleaning surfaces) must work by having paint in them. No amount of logic about that budged his opinion, and I knew no amount of reality would budge him on the coat hanger color.

So, sure dude, you win the imaginary argument. Congrats. Would you like an imaginary cookie?

Another reason not to use TikTok. I don’t use it, but I’ve seen clips from it. I’m not sure what the point is of the subtitles when they zip by, a few words at a time, before you can read them (and I’m a pretty fast reader, so that’s saying something.)

Didn’t King of the Hill do an episode about the change in cheerleading?

some people don’t get high their first times.

Thank you for mentioning this. I didn’t try weed until my mid-20s and it took years of intermittent trying before I actually felt high. I’d never heard that this could happen, so I just got upset thinking I’d never be able to understand what the big appeal of weed was. Only in my late 20s, at a friend’s party where I’d already gotten pretty buzzed on alcohol, did a hit of a pipe make me finally feel something.

I don’t know if it finally clicked because of lowered inhibitions due to the alcohol, or if my brain had to build up to feeling an effect, or what, but weed’s worked as intended ever since. I will add that I’m the type of person that has been asked throughout my teenage years, “What are you smoking? And can I have a hit?” despite being 100% sober until my 20s. Maybe having an already-weird brain had something to do with it?

So yeah, OP, be prepared to discover that you might not feel anything from weed at all. It doesn’t seem to be terribly common, but it is definitely possible that nothing happens the first few tries. That doesn’t mean it will never happen, though.