Villainous Company

Cassandra, well said. I prefer directness. In my life, it is hardest with the closest to you. In politics, it is suicide because the media prays on it.

During the debate, Bush was asked if the deaths of the soldiers in Iraq was worth it. I thought immediately, what a stupid question, then thought my answer would have been, "Well, yes. Our casualties are light considering the mission and the mission is important. We try to minimize casualties but you can't win this war without some, and we have done quite well. Well, I see still I still have 80 seconds left. Let me tell you what slimeball my oppenent is."

But Bush, being a politician, had to talk for 50 seconds about how "every soldier's life is precious and one death is too many BUT...." He had to do that, but darn it seems silly.

You have to do this with juries too. At the no doubt upcoming lava lamp trial, I would WANT to answer the plaintiff's attorney's question this way: "Yes, we knew when made our lava lamps that some j*ck*ss in a trailer would try to cook it and kill himself, but c'mon -- are we worse off? Who buys lava lamps anymore anyhow?" But of course, it will have to be downplayed -- "This is a tragedy. I'm hearbroken. We just didn't see it coming. Our warnings were sufficient, and while any death is a tragedy, this is the only one like this since the sixties, and our customers then were high too."

BTW, Planned Parenthood is inclusive. They will kill all babies, regardless of race, religion or gender. Just bring cash.

I just find it interesting that I used to have more patience for social pretense.

I still see just as much value in it as I always did - like alcohol, it's a social lubricant that keeps us from killing each other off. But ironically though my appreciation of it is unchanged, I find myself less willing to engage in it.

Part of this may well be that I have a career now, too. I find it a lot easier to understand why my husband gets irritable and impatient at times. When I was home with the kids, I got cranky but as I'm more even-tempered, I almost never let it out. It was hard for me to understand why he couldn't extend me the same courtesy.

Of course I understood mentally, but it still bugged me (which of course I also kept to myself, because God forbid I should lose my temper :)

Now I take things less personally, as I often find myself a bit short at the end of the day. It's still rare for me to get snappish, but I don't get my feelings hurt as easily and now I will bite back occasionally.

The irony of course is that the people by whom you should be the most difficult to offend are often the one's by whom you are most easily offended. And vice versa.

I have always figured that if you treat those closest to you as you would treat a perfect stranger, you will not go far wrong. Most people will cut a perfect stranger a little slack if something unexpected happens, but in family life, this is often when the lid blows off. I think if you expect to keep the same mate on a long-term basis, treating him or her nice wouldn't hurt.

Regarding the direct vs oblique approach at work - direct works fine in the US, but I had to learn the fine art of wasting another's time in Saudi Arabia. If you need something from a Saudi (man - you always work with men), you must go into the office as if you have nothing else to do, inquire after the health of the family and drink tea. In Arabic you can dish social pleasantries for long periods of time, each response more flowery than the last, and doing this same thing in English goes a long way toward getting what you need. (It helps if you don't mind shaking hands for the entire duration of the conversation, if the conversation is conducted while standing). Then, as you rise to leave, almost as an afterthought, you bring up why you came, and your wish is granted. It's the way that works. Direct communication is a certain dead end.

Why can't I make a new paragraph? Do I need some html for that?

Hmmmmm, the paragraphs don't show when using Preview, but they show up fine when you hit Post.

Yes, I noticed that too.

That's very Oriental - losing face if you appear too eager or bring up your business right away. I've always been far more patient than 90% of the people I meet - that's why I find it amusing that I am becoming less so with age (I always thought you were supposed to mellow?).

But maybe I was too mellow...

On treating your partner with as much courtesy as a stranger, that was one of the first fights we got in the first year we were married. I took your position: ie, this is the most important person in your life - why not treat them better than everyone else? Otherwise, who wants the hassle of being married? Not me.

The Unit was more used to people getting excited and yelling every now and then.

We worked it out. More often than not, people treat you the way you treat them. Hopefully if you stay calm so does the other person and if you're polite, they return the favor. If they don't, you're with the wrong person.

It's not like I never get mad. I have a horrible temper once I finally lose it. But I've always thought that, having picked a mate, marriage is a permanent decision to view the other person through rose-colored glasses.

Everyone should be able to come home and know that, to their mate, they matter the most. People have differing tolerences for conflict, but home shouldn't be a battleground: it should be a refuge against a world that isn't always a very nice place - where you can recharge your batteries and go back out to do battle with the heathens.

"Everyone should be able to come home and know that, to their mate, they matter the most. People have differing tolerences for conflict, but home shouldn't be a battleground: it should be a refuge against a world that isn't always a very nice place - where you can recharge your batteries and go back out to do battle with the heathens.

And then there are Christmas decorations.

You can get more co-operation with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word. - Al Capone

I suspect that spd rdr hasn't planned properly and expended the proper amount of energy in putting away his Christmas lights from last year, and now finds them a hopeless snarl. Or tring to find a burned out bulb that makes a whole strand non-operative. Those ******* minibulbs!
Been there, done that.

Courtesy is the social lubricant which we all appreciate to make human relations move better. But this can be relative to cultures. It can be extremely irritating and discourteous to waste someone's time with endless small talk when the direct approach is preferable IN OUR CULTURE.

Mathmom makes a great point about the obliqueness required in some cultures when trying to accomplish the desired end. This is also true when you are trying to communicate or extract information or approval from someone who is 4 or 5 tiers above you in your company/organization. They need to send YOU clues as to how fast to proceed. Their time is limited and valuable, but abruptness from a subordinate is not always appreciated.

And let's face it, some people are just imbecilic, self-obsessed wratchet-jaws in love with the sound of their own voice (or in my case, typing).

Good Lord spd, you have my sympathy.

I refuse to let the Unit have anything whatever to do with indoor decorations.

Outdoors, I turn him loose and whatever he comes up with is the most wonderful thing I ever saw in my entire life :)

We're like the US and Soviet Union: we co-exist peacefully so long as we both have our separate spheres of influence...

...and if all else fails, there's always 'making up'. Or alcohol. Or better, both.

'making up' + alcohol + spd rdr + 'the goddess' = 19 daughters.

QED

"....and Christmas is canceled!"

I am noticing that setting up a new site has Cass thinking about getting older.

I only use my gun whenever kindness fails--Robert Earl Keen

Somebody has been busy around here. Looking good, and the recent comments is much easier to read now. Funny, I probably never would have noticed stuff like that before.

You are partially wrong, Cass.

If I may be so bold, Planned Parenthood desperately wants to kill as many black babies as they can.

Their founder, Margaret Sanger, called them "mud People", and wanted blackes eradicated from the face of the earth.

Their followers are proudly following in her footsteps.

Planned Parenthood is racist to the core.

Cassie, I am going through something similar as I get older. In my case, I spent my whole life being TOO accommodating. It was a defense mechanism against some things that happened to me early on. It's been a struggle to fight free of that. It's been a positive thing for me, but I sometimes worry that I've moved too far in the other direction. The thing is, there are plenty of things today that we SHOULDN'T be so tolerant of, so the struggle now is to find the right balance and save being offended for the right causes.

One of my favorite quotes: "The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
--George Bernard Shaw

Well, (snark mode on)
I can't see you as the cranky post menopausal woman in the commissary, despite your Unit's rank and length of service.

Snark mode off:
I have always tried to live my life by the maxim: Tact is telling someone where to go and making them look forward to the trip.

The oblique way of business in some cultures I find interesting, because at some point, oblique lines WILL intersect, and listening is a great art and skill we have lost.

And so the social lubricant if you will, of small talk, chatting people up, intermingling, all serve a purpose if you are coming from a position of either strength or weakness. Know your enemy.

Having said that, and having lived here in the south for two years, I find that being courteous is also a lost art. There is a difference between being politically correct and Christian kindness.

The former to my way of thinking springs from a desire to not offend out of fear, and the latter springs from a genuine concern that usually isn't offensive. And people can tell the difference.

Purple Raider,

I had typed something on that and decided not to go there. PP as an organization may or may not adopt its founder's racist views, but the results are the same. Besies, the personal failings of any messenger do not necessarily make the message wrong. A Christian hypocrite spreading the true word is still telling the truth. Not that such concerns apply to PP.

Cricket:

It will no doubt help that I haven't set foot in a commissary lately... :) Ft. Detrick has one, but I've yet to haul my tuckus over there.

re: There is a difference between being politically correct and Christian kindness.

The former to my way of thinking springs from a desire to not offend out of fear, and the latter springs from a genuine concern that usually isn't offensive. And people can tell the difference.

Exactly.

Well, just make sure you and your Unit bicker about every single purchase and give the Hairy Eyeball to ANYONE who DARES to go the wrong way down the aisle
(I don't think they do that anymore. I think the AF put a stop to it and widened the aisles at theirs).
Place your cart at a right angle to the aisle while you do this so no one else can get past you. Read each and every ingredient when you stop to look at an item, and be SURE to pull out your palm pilot or iPod and check your menus, cross it off your list, and calculate your purchases. After you do that, then check your e calendar to make sure you order your party trays and you do every time you have to think about it. heh hehehehehe.

A Christian hypocrite spreading the true word is still telling the truth. - Posted by KJ

I once heard it expressed this way:
If a hypocrite is standing between you and God, the Hypocrite is one step closer to God than you are.

MM,

Nice. I try to make up a something when someone else has already said it in a much more clever way.

I just remind myselft that unlike most people here, I have no talent...
so I plagiarize :-)

"Once I gave sugar for sugar,
Now I give salt for salt."
I find as I get older I am less interested in SEEMING good and more interested in BEING good. Maybe the small unique adorable offspring has something to do with that as well.

KJ, why limit it to Christian hypocrites? Isn't the same thing true for any hypocrite?