OT - Fireworks?

On Jul 4, 12:30*am, "Joy" wrote:
"hopitus" wrote in message

...
On Jul 3, 11:46 pm, "Joy" wrote: wrote
On 2011-07-03, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) *wrote:

* ... "Roman Candles" are hand

held, and shoot out colored balls of flame.
Beware the dreaded roman candle backfire that burns a hole in your new
bluejeans and raises the rath of Mother.
Bud

The voice of experience? ;-)
Joy

I wrote about my happy memories of Pismo Beach 4th fireworks fun (not
only were there
semi-pro fireworks up on the boarddwalk, but we the audience were also
doing our own
detonating, pointing the missiles out toward the waterline/ocean
there. LOL we had on
old ratty clothes which we threw away later (you do NOT attempt
washing powder-scorched
clothes; not only is it ineffectual bigtime but will mess up your
washer *bad*).
We were adults, and had dug *foxholes* in the sand (I borrowed a
shovel from a nearby
family) for (snork) safe place to dive if "airborne" became "lower
trajectory".
I have a feeling when you wore those new jeans to launch roman candles
you were way
below adult age, and deserved Mother's justified reaction.

***

Interesting. *I gather you lived in or near Pismo Beach? *My parents lived
in Arroyo Grande for several years.

Joy

No. We had driven down near there to San Luis O. where my close friend
was taking
her ageing Mom to stay with a caregiving woman near her age who had
hospice training.
We stayed overnight at this house in SLO and my son (a kid then) and I
saw and picked
apricots riight off her tree at her invitation (we had no idea how
'cots grew or on what as
they were a mysterious fruit that I actually picked up to show son
when they annually
appeared in grocery store, in June, never to be seen again till next
June (ditto real
cherries) neither one grows in south FL: too hot.
Caregiver''s neighbors told us that "anything goes, no holds barred"
in Pismo Beach
holiday blast, so we made the drive in my friend's truck. Well worth
the drive; I have
never been to such a danger-charged, proactive blowout before nor
since. There were
even participants who had drive up from the Valley and LA (some of
whom were so
clueless we ended up sharing foxhole space with them during the
"rockets red glare".

"hopitus" wrote in message
...
On Jul 4, 12:30 am, "Joy" wrote:
"hopitus" wrote in message

...
On Jul 3, 11:46 pm, "Joy" wrote:
wrote
On 2011-07-03, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:

... "Roman Candles" are hand

held, and shoot out colored balls of flame.
Beware the dreaded roman candle backfire that burns a hole in your new
bluejeans and raises the rath of Mother.
Bud

The voice of experience? ;-)
Joy

I wrote about my happy memories of Pismo Beach 4th fireworks fun (not
only were there
semi-pro fireworks up on the boarddwalk, but we the audience were also
doing our own
detonating, pointing the missiles out toward the waterline/ocean
there. LOL we had on
old ratty clothes which we threw away later (you do NOT attempt
washing powder-scorched
clothes; not only is it ineffectual bigtime but will mess up your
washer *bad*).
We were adults, and had dug *foxholes* in the sand (I borrowed a
shovel from a nearby
family) for (snork) safe place to dive if "airborne" became "lower
trajectory".
I have a feeling when you wore those new jeans to launch roman candles
you were way
below adult age, and deserved Mother's justified reaction.

***

Interesting. I gather you lived in or near Pismo Beach? My parents lived
in Arroyo Grande for several years.

Joy

No. We had driven down near there to San Luis O. where my close friend
was taking
her ageing Mom to stay with a caregiving woman near her age who had
hospice training.
We stayed overnight at this house in SLO and my son (a kid then) and I
saw and picked
apricots riight off her tree at her invitation (we had no idea how
'cots grew or on what as
they were a mysterious fruit that I actually picked up to show son
when they annually
appeared in grocery store, in June, never to be seen again till next
June (ditto real
cherries) neither one grows in south FL: too hot.
Caregiver''s neighbors told us that "anything goes, no holds barred"
in Pismo Beach
holiday blast, so we made the drive in my friend's truck. Well worth
the drive; I have
never been to such a danger-charged, proactive blowout before nor
since. There were
even participants who had drive up from the Valley and LA (some of
whom were so
clueless we ended up sharing foxhole space with them during the
"rockets red glare".

***

That sounds like an interesting experience.

Joy

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

What about the "practical worth" of NOT voting? Care to share
you views about that?

Happy to -- especially since I often run into the attitude that a
decision to not vote must somehow always be unprincipled.

(The following is necessarily US-centric.)

In our two-party system, when I am offered as electable candidates only
Mr. Dog-**** and Ms. Cat-****, neither of which is morally fit for any
office or position of authority whatsoever, what do I accomplish by
voting for the one I consider the lesser evil? One, I compromise my
integrity by supporting for office someone I know to be unfit. Two, if
my candidate is elected, I take on a tiny portion of the responsibility
for the evil things that person will assuredly do while in office.
Three, I give aid and comfort to the enemy, who will certainly count my
vote as an expression of approval, however little I may intend it as
such. And four, I actively support the pernicious system which provides
these corrupt individuals their opportunity to acquire power.

Far better not to vote at all. What if they held an election and nobody
came?

--

Wayne M.

We're still allowed write-in votes, and there's the Libertarian party and
others. If enough people would get off their keisters and vote for these,
we might get this "2 party" system out of power and out on their asses where
they belong.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, created by "Yowie", maintained by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.net/rpcablog/

Email: L(dot)T(dot)Crews(at)comcast(dot)net


"Wayne Mitchell" wrote in message
...
"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

What about the "practical worth" of NOT voting? Care to share
you views about that?

Happy to -- especially since I often run into the attitude that a
decision to not vote must somehow always be unprincipled.

(The following is necessarily US-centric.)

In our two-party system, when I am offered as electable candidates only
Mr. Dog-**** and Ms. Cat-****, neither of which is morally fit for any
office or position of authority whatsoever, what do I accomplish by
voting for the one I consider the lesser evil? One, I compromise my
integrity by supporting for office someone I know to be unfit. Two, if
my candidate is elected, I take on a tiny portion of the responsibility
for the evil things that person will assuredly do while in office.
Three, I give aid and comfort to the enemy, who will certainly count my
vote as an expression of approval, however little I may intend it as
such. And four, I actively support the pernicious system which provides
these corrupt individuals their opportunity to acquire power.

Far better not to vote at all. What if they held an election and nobody
came?

--

Wayne M.

"CatNipped" wrote:

We're still allowed write-in votes, and there's the Libertarian
party and others. If enough people would get off their keisters
and vote for these, we might get this "2 party" system out of
power and out on their asses where they belong.

In most cases, any of the above are effectually equivalent to abstention
in terms of effect on the election. Their only real effect is to
rubber-stamp the system and support the status quo. If you are happy to
go to that much work just to abstain, chacun a son gout, I suppose.

I've done the write-in business quite a few times, but have never found
it the least bit satisfying. I find smaller parties almost as
off-putting as the majors. I vote for non-aligned candidates when I
can, though only in local and state elections.

But latterly, I'm more and more convinced that we shouldn't be voting at
all. After all, what I really want to say is, "None of this is anywhere
near acceptable." I think holding oneself aloof comes the closest to
saying it -- though in practical terms a non-vote doesn't count for a
lot more than a vote.
--

Wayne M.

In ,
Wayne Mitchell typed:
"CatNipped" wrote:

We're still allowed write-in votes, and there's the Libertarian
party and others. If enough people would get off their keisters
and vote for these, we might get this "2 party" system out of
power and out on their asses where they belong.

In most cases, any of the above are effectually equivalent to
abstention in terms of effect on the election. Their only real
effect is to rubber-stamp the system and support the status quo. If
you are happy to go to that much work just to abstain, chacun a son
gout, I suppose.

I've done the write-in business quite a few times, but have never
found it the least bit satisfying. I find smaller parties almost as
off-putting as the majors. I vote for non-aligned candidates when I
can, though only in local and state elections.

But latterly, I'm more and more convinced that we shouldn't be voting
at all. After all, what I really want to say is, "None of this is
anywhere near acceptable." I think holding oneself aloof comes the
closest to saying it -- though in practical terms a non-vote doesn't
count for a lot more than a vote.

We (Australia) have an entirely different voting system to yours. First of
all, all citizens here HAVE to vote, you will be fined if you don't. Second,
we have a preferential system where you can vote for all the minor parties
you like as a protest, and yet *still* express your preference for one of
the two major parties. And the added sweetner for voting for minor parties
is that a) they often end up holding the balance of power and are therefore
far more influential - as a seat - than one seat from either of the two
major parties and b) if they get over a small percentage of the vote (I
think its 1%, coudl be wrong on that), they get their
application-to-run-for-parliament fee (about $500) back. Our Prime Minister
is the head of the party that got the majority of seats in the lower house,
or, its a minority governement, the leader of the party with the most number
of seats in the minority government. The populace doesn't directly elect the
PM.

Yowie

"Wayne Mitchell" wrote in message
...
"CatNipped" wrote:

We're still allowed write-in votes, and there's the Libertarian
party and others. If enough people would get off their keisters
and vote for these, we might get this "2 party" system out of
power and out on their asses where they belong.

In most cases, any of the above are effectually equivalent to abstention
in terms of effect on the election. Their only real effect is to
rubber-stamp the system and support the status quo. If you are happy to
go to that much work just to abstain, chacun a son gout, I suppose.

I've done the write-in business quite a few times, but have never found
it the least bit satisfying. I find smaller parties almost as
off-putting as the majors. I vote for non-aligned candidates when I
can, though only in local and state elections.

But latterly, I'm more and more convinced that we shouldn't be voting at
all. After all, what I really want to say is, "None of this is anywhere
near acceptable." I think holding oneself aloof comes the closest to
saying it -- though in practical terms a non-vote doesn't count for a
lot more than a vote.
--

Wayne M.

A non-vote counts far less than a vote. It simply gives what power there is
to those who do vote. If nobody voted, a dictator would move in and take
over, or we'd have another civil war. Do you really think either of those
would be preferable?

Joy

Yowie wrote:

On 3/07/2011 8:40 AM, wrote:

I'm wondering what "Charlie" is, if it's not what American soldiers
called the North Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam war.

Surely it is 'Charlie Horse' aka Heroin?

Oh - I've heard heroin referred to as "horse", but not "charlie horse".

Joyce

--
What I look forward to, is continued immaturity, followed by death.
-- Dave Barry

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:



wrote:
hopitus wrote:

On Jul 2, 4:18 pm, wrote:

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

Lesley wrote:

In the end they almost wanted to come back and hire me as a tour
guide.... but after all the things I told them when I mentioned the
Minnie Lansbury clock they asked "Is she related to Angela
Lansbury" (Sort of Minnie was her grandfathers first wife when the
clock needed work done she put 5K or so into the fund) and shot off
to take photos

....And then we wonder why American tourists have a bad reputation in
Europe! At least, in the UK they are justified in expecting the natives
to speak English. (One of the prime complaints against us in other
countries.)

I don't understand. What did she say that was objectionable? I mean,
she was on the right track, wasn't she? Minnie *did* have a connection
with Angela, if not by blood, then by marriage, so how was this an
example of being an obnoxious tourist?

You are right; she did NOT say anything objectionable. What I believe
Lesley
was LOL pointing out was not a big deal of Merkin tourists being
"obnoxious"
but simply pointing out that as tourists out of USA , they have the
attention
span of a gnat when someone *they ask* on the street (a stranger, if
you will)
tries to inform them of the answer to their historical
question......they run off
to shoot photos of the local sights . Kinda airhead behavior but not
obnoxious,
just thoughtless.
Feel free to disagree with my interpretation.

OK, no problem. I don't disagree. I was just thrown off because first,
the story didn't sound very bad to me, and then Evelyn was talking about
people expecting people to speak English? What did that have to do with
anything?

Americans abroad! Unfortunately a great many American tourists address
French and German and Italian natives in English and expect them to
reply. Without taking the trouble to at least learn "Do you speak
English?" in their language (Along with "please", "thank you", "pardon
me" and a few other polite phrases - plus a few like "where is the
lavatory"?)

Yes, I know that. I just didn't see the connection between that and
Lesley's story.

Joyce

--
What I look forward to, is continued immaturity, followed by death.
-- Dave Barry

Cheryl wrote:

question of "neglect", it just isn't SAFE! (When I was a kid, little
boys were never seen in the ladies' lav in department stores, either,
but nowadays it's not really safe to let them use the mens' with no
attendant parent or companion.)

Is it more common, or do we just hear more about the cases that do happen?

Or do we have a mistaken notion of 'safe'? Nothing in life is 100% safe.
There has probably been sexual activity in public toilets back before
any of us were born; there was certainly abuse of children whispered
about in the idyllic small town I grew up in. I knew women who were
sexually assaulted as very young girls - a good 40 years ago now. But it
was never mentioned on the radio or in the newspapers (later on TV) for
fear of stigmatizing and further harming the child victim. We were
taught not to talk to strangers (ironic when most abuse is by a family
member or close family friend), to talk to someone we trusted if
'anything' happened etc - but we were still permitted to play and walk
outside. It wasn't 100% safe, but we didn't expect it to be. And I'm not
sure that today it's any less safe - assuming you don't live in a street
with street-level drug dealers living down the road.

I'm not at all sure that the modern approach - encouraging children to
be afraid instead of teaching them to manage their fears and avoid
common dangers - is an improvement.

Exactly! That's what I was getting at, but... "what she said". Better
than I did. We hear about these crimes all the time now, but does that
really mean they happen significantly more than they used to, when we
believed it was safe - or safe enough to allow your kids a reasonable
amount of freedom?

Joyce