green

Haha. Pukage is permitted. :bounce:

Oh, ugh! This is one of the dirty areas, isn't it? We have heard so many stories of men who were tricked into fatherhood by women who claimed that they were on the pill or had the I.U.D. installed or whatever. We must admit that there can be a serious split between male and female interests when the pair of them settle down to engage in a sexual relationship. The guy figures that they are indulging in some sort of light-hearted exploratory fun and the chick is ready to settle down and be a family already. This can become much messier when there is a status split; this is to say that if the girl sees that her male comes with superior qualities - social status, education, finances, etc - she will be more inclined to capture him by presenting him with an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy. Now, I am one of those who doesn't view this kind of activity as being altogether heinous: I view it as being as an altogether logical outcome when viewed within the framework of our mammalian hardwiring. It is normal that when a female seeks to pass on her DNA she will seek out the best of her species and, moreover, that she will be anxious that she and her offspring be sheltered while the kiddiwinks are young and she is still raising them. Of course you must understand all of the above signifies that Green has bought into the argument that humans are part of the continuum of nature and as such we are equally subject to the laws of nature. If you believe, as I do, that we - the big head mammals of this planet - share a great deal of our hardwiring with our primitive ancestors and with our less intellectual friends then you will understand that all creatures are driven by 2 directives: 1) to stay alive as long as possible, and 2) to ensure that their genetic inheritance is passed on. You will, as big heads, obviously quickly figure out that this task, that of ensuring that your genetic material is successfully passed on to future generations, will be substantially different depending on whether you are male or female. Males can easily spray their genetic material out over just about everything. They figure that sooner or later someone is going to get knock up with their DNA. Females, on the other hand, will always find themselves handicapped for the duration of their pregnancies and it is for this reason, particularly in the case of mammals, that we will see that females will tend to be both fussier and trickier when it comes to this business of choosing the male genetic contribution. Sadly, the story becomes a little slimier than this. Females will often choose to mate with the cat whom they perceive to be the most powerful, the most macho guy; and if this same guy is not perceived to be a warm, loving and nurturing mate, females will involve themselves with much nicer males and will pass off their babies as being the result of these kind and loving unions. Research in DNA technology is interesting, even for a vacant, artsy, ageing blonde such as myself. This research indicates that this split in breeding/parental activities take place with any number of us mammals, including us big-head mammals. Once again I have found myself drifting far afield. I suspect that this is because I truly do believe in choice and the corrollary of this is that both men and women must be fully engaged in this issue of an unwanted pregnancy. It is certainly true that some women will use an unexpected pregnancy as a tool in order to snare a mate. It is equally true that a woman can find herself trapped by an unwanted pregnancy for no good reason and if her ethics do not permit her to abort there should be no reason why she must find herself hung up all alone. The ideal is that everyone who engages in sexual bizness takes care of him or herself but this doesn't always work, alas. To tell you the truth, Gadget, we have 2 stories which you might find of interest in my own family. One of my 2 nieces suffers from depression issues. This is a genetic issue and gallops in the Green family. Unfortunately, this kid was sufficiently disorganised and self-loathing that she did not take care of birth control issues. She did have an abortion and then when she found herself pregnant from a one time and inconclusive - ejaculation took place at the mouth of the vagina she claims - sexual experience she opted to keep the child. The father, a guy who according to my niece didn't have any fun from his one off sexual experience, found himself lumbered with a daughter. He was a guy who came from a traditional Italian family. He couldn't bring himself to tell any of them about the child. Financially speaking he has been paying for his premature ejaculation for more than 7 years now. And then there was my cousin. He went down on one of those Club Med vacations, and briefly hooked up with a Latina who is living in Canada with her family. He figured that this was all a holiday fling until she contacted him in order to say that she was pregnant. His initial offer was to pay for her abortion. This was rejected. He then clumsily made a mess of his relationship with her and her family when he went to visit her family. But finally the guy figured that he was a fool. And this is when he went to see her and her family. He told them that he wanted to be part of it all. And so for a decade and a half now my cousin has been engaged in his son's life both in a financial and a hands-on way. The weird thing is that although the rest of our small family loves this kid we really do suspect that our cousin may have been sold a bill of genetic goods. We ain't talking, however. Love is love. And of course while I am adamant, as I have always been, about this business of pregnancy and birth and child rearing being a burden which is inevitably hung around the woman's neck, I do admit that I believe that men do find themselves trapped by women. I guess that is why I find this question pig-awful.

Thanks, Wheets, for telling me this. I found your story fascinating, again because it describes a situation which is so stunningly different from mine and yet so similar to the stories which I have heard from those other atheists who live in the BB. In truth I am tempted to think that the difference of persecution for being different when you live in certain areas of the new world as contrasted to when you live in those infamous Islamic countries may well be one of degree. I will tell you that when my parents, a mixed marriage of a British mum and a Polish Jew father, immigrated to Toronto, Canada in 1947, life up here was much as it still is down there. People were Christians, did attend church, and did make your beliefs their business. In fact, employment forms asked what your faith was and this was legal at the time. Now, my mother was a baptised Christian although she did not trouble herself to become confirmed in the Anglican (Episcopalian) faith until after she arrived in Canada which was when she was in her late 20s. The Canadian upper crusties were Anglican, a bland, conservative, and safe faith - no speaking in tongues, testifying, or harrassing folks in their homes - and thus my parents had us done up as Anglicans. My father was an atheist. My mother was a spiritual person but her spirituality was not specifically anchored in Christian belief though this was incorporated, I guess one could say. When I was in grade four, my last grade spent in public school, I used to dread going to school each Monday because our teacher would ask all of us who had gone to church on Sunday to put up our hands. I almost never did put up mine but for some reason it never occurred to me to lie. And thus the humiliation. And a free-floating childish fear. My mum would get dressed up to go to church on Sunday mornings leaving the rest of us Greens lolling around the breakfast table in our pajamas. We would beg her not to go and occasionally she would drag me, the only girl, along with her. The truth is that she didn't want to go either but there was that awful 1950s standard to uphold and she was the one who was stuck with the job. When I was 10 my parents shipped me off to a boarding school run by Anglo-Catholic nuns. I briefly got religion, just long enough to spend 6 months or so harrassing them with hellfire whenever I was allowed home. But life up here has changed since those days. The city is a multi-cultural one and both the legislation and the local attitudes have changed. We have become accustomed to diversity and diversity is protected under our legislation. And our state has become rigorously secular, a good thing, I think, but one with a downside. Let me explain: the forces of Canadian political correctness work hard these days to banish all mention, let alone celebrate such traditional holidays as Christmas in the public school system. The Christmas break is now referred to as the Winter Break or Winter Holidays. This practice is the norm throughout all public institutions. This is really most offensive, I think, for our Christian history forms a significant part of our folkways regardless of our own beliefs and thus should not be edited out. I am awfully relieved that my neighbourhood and my city have moved such a long way from the conditions under which we lived when I was in the under 10 group. At the foot of my street there is a Catholic church which serves the local Portuguese community. From time to time throughout the year this church will conduct religious parades which pass up our street. The church hires cops who will temporarily block traffic from entering the street and these parades do not last for more than an hour max. I really love watching these and the only complaints I have heard have come from a Marxist friend. And nobody pays him much attention for he is still stuck in the 1960s. Around the corner is a store front mosque. On my street there is a car which has a bumper sticker which reads I (heart) Islam. I find it very cool that this car has never been vandalised. My tenant and close friend is a dyke. Although she works in the world o banking she has never taken any trouble to grrlify herself. We, my mate and I, have a number of friends who are gay, some of which stay with us when they are in town, and none of us have ever received any grief from the street. I guess that I will conclude this memoire by noting that my mum, a woman who was born in 1918, had always been accustomed to the company of gay men and women. And as for my macho pop (a guy who was born in 1914), he, too, was cool about homosexuality. The truth is that he did believe that sexual orientation was like race - something which he, as a Jew and a Holocaust survivor, figured he knew something about; he knew that no sane person would voluntarily choose to marginalise themselves by opting to thrust themselves into these dreadful perilous zones. Ahh, once again I have drifted off topic.

This is very, very bad! I am curious to know which province you are in. I live in downtown Toronto, Ontario, and my experience of the medical establishment has been great. But it seems that I made a serious error in judging the Canadian system by the experiences of myself and my friends who live either here or in Montreal, Quebec. I have one friend who lives in Montreal who is HIV positive and he is receiving superb supervisory care for his condition. I hope that you are making a stink about your lousy treatment. Universal health care isn't universal when you are not getting proper health care.

Before I retired I used to work with men, lots of men, building aircraft. They did pay a lot of attention to girls with great bodies even when the faces were not so hot. But they were not the ones that they married.

I still don't understand enough about Blackwater to comment cogently on it.

Yes, the American and Canadian psyche are very different: this is a largely secular country and we have legalised same sex marriage. Of course the weight of our population now resides in cities and urbanites do tend to be more "modern." Our rural folk are also very, very socially conservative. This is not to say that Canada is a better country. We produce truly dreadful entertainment for the most part and it is for this reason that we spend most of our time watching American TV and movies. Or the Brit stuff. I spend exactly one hour per week watching our national television network, the CBC. I believe that America has traditionally been viewed as the land of opportunity and as a generous hearted country, one which fosters creativity in all fields including the intellectual and financial arenas. Since the rise of the religious right, the invasion of Iraq, the numerous political gaffes of mini-Bush and his gang - and these are all documented in the foreign press - and the mishandling of the Katrina tragedy, America has lost much of its former lustre globally speaking. This is to be regretted. The rest of us in the West really do need a strong, wise and modern America.

Elena, it was me who asked about Blackwater. I hadn't heard of it before.

I agree with Wasa on this issue. Because Christians form the majority in North America there is simply no way that they can legitimately claim that they are a persecuted group. I will also mention that I am a member of an atheist website and that there are a number of members who post who live in the Bible Belt. These individuals have commented that they are unable to come out about their lack of belief to their communities or even to their extended families because this would cause them to be shunned and they would, of course, lose their ability to earn a living as well. I found these tales extraordinarily interesting. You see, I live in a large Canadian city and the issue of my faith rarely enters the conversation unless it is within the context of childhood experiences or within the framework of anti-Semitism.

I agree. Sticky genitalia are not good. :phanvan They might attract ants. :help:

Hah! All of us were 23 .... once. *sob*

Wasa, I think that you are going to have some trouble with many of the visual arts if your ability to discern colour is impaired. Why not buy yourself a kit where you build yourself a model boat or aircraft or something? I know it sounds kinda butch but you won't have to rely on making colour/aesthetic choices. Maybe you can find a kit to build yourself a lamp??? You might also try drawing, working in black and white. Working in pen and ink is pleasant as is working in pencil or charcoal. And remember, too, for the first while you will be spending much of your time doing little more than enjoying your meds. :Banane34:

Sounds like a good analysis, Ghost.

I've been recently spending some of my time reading about Islam. It might interest some of you to learn that this religion was very tolerant of those who held different beliefs. These folks were referred to as dhimmi and when they lived inside the borders of the Islamic countries they were merely requested to pay a special tax. The religious intolerance which we see displayed by so many Islamic fundamentalists today is a relatively recent development. And Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, like all religions for that matter, does demand of its believers a lifestyle which, if carefully followed, will ensure that we behave kindly, respectfully and peacefully towards each other and that we will look after the disadvantaged members of our tribe. Of course this message, which is one of social civility and personal kindness, is inevitably deformed by us but it remains our ideal. I myself am an atheist. I believe that mankind fashions their gods after their own needs but I do think that the messages which we give ourselves are interesting and extraordinarily valuable. Certainly, should a God/Creator exist, something I seriously doubt, it is unlikely that He/She/It would be anything like the Jewish, the Christian, or the Islamic construct. To think anything else strikes me as being arrogant and wrong-headed.

ROFLMAO Now that you have mentioned this I am starting to remember that I heard chat about this a longggggggggg time ago. Of course a grrl wouldn't want to spring this on a member of the Viagra set without prior warning unless you were sure that you were definitely written into the will.

Wasa is a valued member of this site. Not only has she gone through the lap band experience and subsequent weight loss journey herself but she is a member of the medical establishment, one who has chosen to engage herself in educating herself on a professional level on the technical aspects of the surgery itself in addition to learning about those issues concerning its aftermath and, moreover, those issues which relate to weight loss in general. It is for this reason that she brings something special to LBT, the marriage of academic/technical knowledge of lapband/weight loss surgical techniques, and general medical issues and of her own personal struggles with weight loss. She is one of the few qualified resource people who we are lucky to have on this site. Some of you may feel that she is arrogant; the truth is that she is not. She simply knows an awful lot, and has chosen to share this knowledge with us: she cares about us and that really is very bluddy cool.

You have a good point. I think that there are big bunches of us who would miss Wasa. So I guess it is gonna be laptop computer time for you, Wasa, while you are recovering. :ranger:

:heh::heh::heh::heh::heh::clap2:

And a fiscal Republican who is going to hold the Comptroller's Office does make sense/cents. :rolleyes

Ahhh, now that makes more sense.

Hey, cool! Thanks, Wheets. I am going to try this. My mate is a very good mate and he certainly does deserve a pleasant surprise.

There is an old thread on this site concerning the effects of Xenical which is pretty funny. Many of the people who posted then told stories of weird and unexpected oily orange poopage. I did once work for a supervisor who lost a considerable amount of beef and who then told me his secret. It was thanks to Xenical. I begged my doc for some but she said nope. She explained that I might end up having accidents. I told her that I was prepared to eat my triple cheese pizza while sitting on the toilet but the answer was still nope. I was kinda disappointed at the time. And I never did discover whether my supervisor was wearing panty liners. I guess I shoulda asked him.

I have very thick hair but it did start falling out, great big chunks of it whenever I washed it. My hairdresser commented on it. I think that this loss is now slowing down. *hurray!*

You look great!

I am always too hot. My family suffers from the heat and we don't enjoy summer all that much. Since I have lost a big chunk of weight I don't suffer from the heat as badly as I used to but I still prefer cool weather.