Gaashk
18d ago
Was he flirting with her? Were you? Was she someone you wanted to go out with?
Gaashk
18d ago
We had a baby in a 500 sq ft apartment, didn't want to continue that way, threw out and gave away a bunch of our possessions, and moved across the country in a single vehicle to a place where we could afford a 2400 sq ft house on one income for five years (though we're going to have to make some changes soon). This is fine, because we aren't working white collar finance jobs that require a city. Also, we like that kind of thing. There are real industries as well, several of the fathers in my homeschool group growing up worked for the missile company, for instance.
Inconveniently, trading kids is just not a thing in American culture, even church culture, even with cousins (or when I was a kid, actually. My introverted parents were responsible for all childcare despite living in the same area as grandparents and siblings). If the kids are invited to something, I have to stay there and supervise them the entire time, and do nothing else. Everything is Childcare, including church, and hanging out with mother friends, and going out to restaurants. C'est la vie.
Gaashk
18d ago
Now to broaden this outside of just Christianity, I'm curious what the Motte thinks of symbolism as a whole?
I remember really liking "Being as Communion" by Fr Alexander Schmemann, though it's been a while, so I don't remember it in any detail. Also "The Universe as Sign and Symbol" by Fr. Nikolai Velimirovich, though in general his poetry compilation "Prayers by the Lake" is better. In general things like holy water and blessing more things, not only Communion, is good -- we should bless things more. There's a grape blessing, blessed oil, blessed basil, and so on. This is good! I don't have a strong opinion on whether anointing people with oil from a shrine does something in particular or not, but still think that kind of thing is a good tradition.
Last night I was listening to Jonathan Pageau talk about art and stories and Orthodox art and so on, and it was mostly what everyone has known and talked about most of my whole life, but still good. (My example, not his) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was an excellent book because it relied heavily on Christian symbolism, to the point of being basically about that, with also some sailing involved. The movie of the same was not very good because it stripped out most of the symbolism and replaced it with a video game style quest plot. If the entertainment industry were replaced by deists comfortable with Christian symbolism, that would be an improvement. His example was Snow White, both on account of the new movie, and because his small publishing company has made their own storybook version of the tale, and the illustrations do look very nice. I'm still not going to buy it, I don't like Snow White much, but would recommend it to anyone interested.
Gaashk
18d ago
Because if half the country wants them here, and can leverage the courts to ensure free education and healthcare, then they will. The US system allows cultural trench warfare, the current term of art appears to be "No Kings."
Gaashk
18d ago
I'm not sure what the rules are for truck drivers in America, but it was pretty visibly the more established white truck drivers who were hanging out in the right lane, and the new immigrant truck drivers who were passing. If there are laws punishing new drivers who are acting the same as old responsible drivers, then, sure, those are bad laws.
Also, a lot of this could be resolved by increasing stupid 70mph speed limit (113km/h) on highways to 80 or 85 as in Europe, so you can catch up if you are inconvenienced for 30 seconds behind a truck or other vehicle.
This suggests lack of familiarity with American interstates in multiple ways.
- Yes, of course the other drivers can go 80 - 85 most of the time, the cops do not enforce 70 - 75 at all. That is largely why they are upset when they are cut off by a vehicle going 75.
- Cath up? To whom? It isn't exactly about getting home 10 minutes sooner. It's mostly about not being sandwiched between large trucks.
- It's probably 5 minutes inconvenience per vehicle, spread out over a two to eight hour drive, so maybe an hour or two of being in irritating and unsafe conditions over the course of a day of driving.
The alternative is to fly, but in the American West not only is it expensive for a full car's worth of people, you still have to rent a car at the destination, and even rent car seats.
my mental model of a trucker is still a fat white guy with a hat.
There are still a lot of those, and a smaller number of black and hispanic guys, but they mostly stay in their lane, probably on cruise control, and if they get over it's because someone is stuck on the side of the freeway or something. My guess about the leapfrog guys is that they think of themselves as therefore working harder than the cruise control guys. The aggressive Indian drivers seemed to be an I-40 specific phenomenon (there are new truck stops springing up there, serving Indian food as well), it isn't noticeable on N/S highways, and was less of an issue on I-10, it looked like there were more highway patrol enforcing the laws there.
"Elefantenrennen" (elephant racing)
Haha, that's a good term, I hadn't heard it before.
I just got off of a road trip on I-40, and mostly want to register my dismay at the state of the semi truckers there, related to 3 and especially #4. It is Culture War, because most of the truckers in question are Indian.
Truckers should all go the same speed in the right lane of a two lane highway! They should not be leapfrogging each other, trapping small vehicles between them, as they pass excruciatingly slowly, often on hills and curves! If they cannot manage this, their trucks should be on autopilot the entire time they're on the interstate! It is both unsafe and extremely annoying, drivers often can't even use adaptive cruise control if available, because the truckers will cut them off in the left lane, then go 10mph slower.
Also a bit related to #5, commercial trucks should not be cutting smaller vehicles off, with or without signaling, ever, and I do have a lot of sympathy for people who speed up into their spaces to avoid having stuff flung into their windshield from a poorly secured truck, even hay is pretty annoying, but the gravel trucks have big signs saying "not responsible for cracked windshields," and indeed it's pretty hard to prove to the police. I once had a crowbar fly off a truck and impale my windshield, nearly killing the front passenger.
Gaashk
19d ago
Parts of Chicago do it as well, despite the acceptable public transport infrastructure and decent city planning.
Gaashk
29d ago
Ultimately, even pro-choice women mostly want humanity to continue another generation. So we have a volunteer military, and volunteer motherhood. If people stop volunteering, then that society deserves their slide into irrelevance and possible subjugation that will follow.
Gaashk
29d ago
The first fear is having a child who is not, ah, as fortunate as the preceding three.
I was worried about that with my third as well, since I was around some of the kids who had lost the genetic lottery, and it really sucks. I think the odds of having an unbearably bad condition that isn't detected in early scans, and isn't caused by bad behavior on the mother's part is pretty low, though. (I did not personally get the tests done other than ultrasounds). I'm going on a road trip this week on a busy freeway, which is also not risk free, there are plenty of somewhat small risks that are worth taking.
I don't think I'll have a fourth child, especially since I'm closer to 40. My pregnancies were pretty easy, I was eight months pregnant, starting long road trips in the middle of the night and carrying around my toddler in the summer heat. The births were basically alright. It's both age and finances that would prevent me from having another. We need to be able to both work sooner rather than later, and get our finances in order, our current situation isn't long term sustainable even without an additional car payment for an expanded vehicle.
One such man I know IRL, who I was friends with at the time, said something like "I would ask Gaashk out, but she would probably stab me," in front of me. He did not in fact ask me out), and is still single and complaining about it on Facebook.
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