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Lets start with the NRA assertion that the 2nd amendment is not  about hunting.  Agreed, but its not about overthrowing the gov't either, in fact, attempting to do so is treason.  The Preamble says "...insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense..." 

At the time it was written, and until after the Civil War, there was  no standing army, so how was that to be done?  The obvious answer was through state militias, and up to the mid 1830's  in most states, every able bodies man between 16 and  60 was required to serve, provide his own weapon, and to drill on a regular basis.  Note that most Civil war regiments were raised by the states, not the fed. gov't. 

One of the reasons the constitution was written was because under the Articles of Confederation the central gov't had no power to "insure domestic tranquility" and several states face popular uprisings, the most famous of which was Shays Rebellion in Mass. (Danial Sheys and his followers were members of the Mass. Militia). And centralizing the power to intervene was shown to be effective when militias from Virginia were used to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in Penn.

Claims to the effect that the purpose of the second amendment  is to protect the populous from "tyranny" from the gov't are absurd.  They suggest that those "rich and well born" gentlemen Hamilton referred to in the Federalist Papers and who wrote the document were providing the masses with a vehicle  to overturn the system they had so carefully constructed to protect their own interests. That strikes me as pure fantasy.

So what is the contemporary purpose of the 2nd amendment?  Beats me

Posted by: Don Carlos at May 12, 2013, 11:05:44 AM. There are 41 responses

Almost everywhere in America & Canada, the long-held intolerance toward gays is disappearing. We have openly gay actors, gay politicians, gay teachers etc... We have gay marriage in several US states & Canadian provinces.

Sports, on the other hand, isn’t so welcoming.  There has been the odd athlete who has come out and said they’d support an openly gay teammate, but that’s not quite the same as opening it’s doors to them is it. 

Even though I’d be considered a “religious” person to most people here, I would not have an issue if every single person on my team were gay but me.

So…what gives here? Will it take a very famous athlete to come out, and start the ball rolling towards acceptance?

Posted by: warped at April 15, 2013, 07:10:32 AM. There are 29 responses

I am an fat, black woman..... Much as the phrase pains me, I am morbidly obese.

I rarely hear people make fun of other people because they are of a certain race or gender. I mean, I guess you get the occasional 'because you're a woman' remark but really it's not so straight forward or in your face when it comes to your race or gender.  But people seem to have no problem jumping to the fat jokes and making comments as though you can't hear them.

I can count the number of times I felt I was treated inappropriately because I'm black on one hand.
I can't even think of a time I was blatantly chastised for being female
I can't begin to tell you how man times I have heard comments about my weight.


I was in line at an amusement park- last time I went because I refuse to go again until I lose weight. Two guys inline behind me decided to make sounds like the earth was shaking every time I took a step. It was humiliating and the whole time I wanted to turn and tell them off but I was with a friend and I couldn't tell if she was aware of it- I don't think she was- and I didn't want to go into the details with her so I just tried to ignore it but that was 10 yrs ago and it still hurts like it happened 5 minutes ago.

Once I was running to enter a store and some guy driving in another lane - let me preface this by saying he pulled out of a parking space  row away from me and and needed to go right to get out of the parking lot- instead he turned left, circled around and pulled up beside me so his friend could point and laugh 'Oh my god it can run'

Why is it okay to just make fun of people because they have oases they're struggling to deal with?  No one is fat by choice. If it were as simple as diet and exercise we'd all be skinny but there are a multitude of reasons for obesity (part of it is I like to eat and I hate to work out but also part of it is I ate to soothe pain I didn't want to address.

  Either way it shouldn't matter if a person is fat or not we still feel so why go out of your way to to be mean on that particular level.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm sick of fat jokes. It's not funny I don't care who you're talking about. 

Posted by: snozberries at February 22, 2012, 03:24:34 PM. There are 305 responses

Remember that one special recipe that seemed like your grandmother (or mother or grandfather) was the only one who knew how to make? Meatloaf, pan fried chicken, apple pie and Irish stew are just some examples where grandma outshines professional cooks at 4 or 5 star restaurants. Which one was your favorite? Or just name a food that anyone in your circle of friends and family could make better than any restaurant or delicatessen. 

Posted by: Indy Gent at February 16, 2012, 06:33:55 PM. There are 16 responses

According to Kurt Andersen(in a Vanity Fair Article comparing 2012 to 1992), not much in the way of fashion, popular music, graphic and car designs, ect. has changed much since the late '80s/early '90s, add to that most men have been wearing the basic casual clothing for about 30-ish years(jeans, sneakers, t-shirt) in his opinion, here is a quote from the article:

Since 1992, as the technological miracles and wonders have propagated and the political economy has transformed, the world has become radically and profoundly new. (And then there’s the miraculous drop in violent crime in the United States, by half.) Here is what’s odd: during these same 20 years, the appearance of the world (computers, TVs, telephones, and music players aside) has changed hardly at all, less than it did during any 20-year period for at least a century. The past is a foreign country, but the recent past—the 00s, the 90s, even a lot of the 80s—looks almost identical to the present. This is the First Great Paradox of Contemporary Cultural History.

Think about it. Picture it. Rewind any other 20-year chunk of 20th-century time. There’s no chance you would mistake a photograph or movie of Americans or an American city from 1972—giant sideburns, collars, and bell-bottoms, leisure suits and cigarettes, AMC Javelins and Matadors and Gremlins alongside Dodge Demons, Swingers, Plymouth Dusters, and Scamps—with images from 1992. Time-travel back another 20 years, before rock ’n’ roll and the Pill and Vietnam, when both sexes wore hats and cars were big and bulbous with late-moderne fenders and fins—again, unmistakably different, 1952 from 1972. You can keep doing it and see that the characteristic surfaces and sounds of each historical moment are absolutely distinct from those of 20 years earlier or later: the clothes, the hair, the cars, the advertising—all of it. It’s even true of the 19th century: practically no respectable American man wore a beard before the 1850s, for instance, but beards were almost obligatory in the 1870s, and then disappeared again by 1900. The modern sensibility has been defined by brief stylistic shelf lives, our minds trained to register the recent past as old-fashioned.

Part of me is kind of agreeing with some of this, that alot of people have been just rehashing and recombining past fashions and music styles(just look at Adele), but this has been going on for alot longer than since 1992, I think alot of the "revolutionary" trends that alot of people recognize(like hippie counterculture, punk, grunge, ect.) were really just reactions against the prior trends of there times instead of being a totally unthought of radically new things. I think he neglects hip-hop culture and music/ certain styles of electronic music which has changed ALOT since 1992, back then it was still mostly the sample-based old school style with the G-funk sound coming in with The Chronic, compare that to 2003 when dirty south rap and crunk was becoming popular. The productions of Timbaland, The Neptunes and Lil Jon are noticably different from that of circa 1993 Dr. Dre. Even comparing 2003 to 2007 there is a difference in the sound of rap music, going from the energetic crunk sound to the slower snap rap sound and autotune(although still dirty south based).

The '00s have brought us crunk, hyphy, autotuned R&B, baile funk, reggeaton, chopped and screwed, electro-house, dubstep, grime, ect. so there HAVE been new styles but they gave not had the impact of earlier styles like psychedelicia, punk, or new wave, our culture is alot more fragmented with almost infinite options available to people. It might be too early too tell the full impact of these styles but one area where Mr. Andersen has a point is in mainstream rock music, the genre that used to be culturally/musically innovative but now has been stuck in 1995 for 15+ years, I think the hipster subculture in particular maybe somewhat responsible for the stylisitc unoriginality that he is complaining about.

Do any of you agree or disagree with Kurt Andersen's assessment? Here the full articlehttp://www.vanityfair.com/style/2012/01/prisoners-of-style-201201

Posted by: Emman at January 25, 2012, 04:39:20 PM. There are 92 responses

Celebrity Heaven	"James Gandolfini "Tony Soprano on "The Sopranos" " by Claybricks
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The 1990's	""Achy Breaky"'s country top-40 debut - When?" by Sammy Reed
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The 2010's	"Royal baby birth hospital revealed" by Philip Eno
Song Parody Contests	"2013 ABC Competition S/T Voting Thread (7/2/13)" by Blaydeman
Song Parody Contests	"2013 ABC Competition U/V Entry Thread (7/2/13)" by Blaydeman
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Playful Penguin Place	"TV licence dodgers' excuses revealed: Funniest 12 reasons given for not paying" by Philip Eno
The 2010's	"A Big Dig in Detroit" by LyricBoy
Life on Mars	"Scrabble app changes anger players on Facebook" by Philip Eno
The 1970's	"Help with a hand-held game/toy" by Creatrix

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