Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

Murf - I think the word that you meant to use is extortion, as blackmail implies that I actually did something wrong, and somebody is using that information against me to get what they want. Whereas with extortion, I did nothing wrong, but somebody is trying to get something from me by making unfair threats. There is a difference.

Andy - I only saw the headline regarding the election result, but I haven't watched any news clips yet, did they actually say that they will be eliminating those events, or is it just something that they are considering?

HH, you are absolutely right. Extortion, not blackmail. Thanks for the correction.

If you lived in the South you'd be running into people who disapprove of the "Happy Holidays" greeting. Of course, our schools have capitulated to the woke crowd. It's now Winter Break, not Christmas Break. Most years Good Friday gets folded into Spring Break, though we do still get Good Friday off around here if it falls too late for Spring Break.

I told both my husband and my daughter that story about the woman who nagged you at the school meeting, and how the principal reacted. They both got a big laugh out of it.

My older son has a close college friend who lives in Manhattan with his wife and newborn daughter. They are folks who celebrate Hannakah, not Christmas. I am worried for them under the newly-elected mayor. I fear a great deal is going to change in NYC soon,, and not for the better, especially not for folks like his family. I haven't yet had the opportunity to ask my son what his friend is thinking. He had planned to visit them this fall, but I think maybe the shutdown and subsequent trouble at the airports has caused him to put that trip on pause.

As I told Mike and Andy a few years ago, I have always, and will always say Merry Christmas, and I will say it until the day I die, regardless of how society continues to evolve in the years to come, and they try to force us to conform to what they deem to be socially acceptable in their brave new world.

I know that I can be abrasive sometimes, that's why MauEvig doesn't like me, and probably why she doesn't come here anymore, but I always speak my mind, and the same things that I say here are the same things that I would say to anybody that I was having a face to face conversation with.

I know that my earlier comments may have come across as harsh, maybe even antisemitic, but I assure you that wasn't my intention. As I said, I don't discriminate against anybody, I have Jewish friends that are good decent people that don't push their traditions on other people. However, around here specifically, there are a large number of them that try to ruin Christmas for the rest of us by complaining that our Christmas traditions are insensitive to them.

I guess that things like that don't happen where you guys are, and you should be thankful for that, but around here they will just start arguing with you outside of Walmart because they saw you loading Christmas decorations into your car, that's what happened one day when we were there. We were loading the car and some woman just walked up to us and said ... oh, you celebrate Christmas? I replied .. yes we do, doesn't everybody? She sneered back at us ... No! ... I don't! But I guess you believe in the man on the stick. ... She was referring to Christ ... my wife saw how angry I was and told me to let it be, and honestly, if she wasn't there I probably would have spit in that woman's face.

Of course, she was a average looking white woman, so how was I supposed to know what her religion is? I don't know, maybe she thought we were the same faith as her until she saw the decorations, but even then, why bother to say anything to us? Just mind your own business and leave people alone. The bad thing is that incidents like that happen frequently around here, and unfortunately nobody has done anything about it.

I also wanted to clarify something from earlier, when I mentioned the Karen stereotype, there are actually 2 different types of Karens, the white privilege Karen, and the woke inclusive Karen, which is the one I was referring to. I don't know why society uses the same name to describe white women with different behavioral traits, but it shows you how dumb they are.

Regarding current events and the news, I'm going to be honest with you guys, I hardly ever check the news, I'm always so busy during the day and when I get home I just want to hang out with my family and do other things. So while I saw the headlines about the new mayor, I didn't click on it or watch any clips, and I didn't watch anything leading to his victory, so I legitimately have no idea what you guys are talking about, though it does seem to have you both concerned. Like I said, I don't know anything about this guy, but clearly enough people voted for him to get him in there, and unless he has stated outright that he intends to go after certain groups, or eliminate the events that Andy mentioned, then I doubt that he will be causing many issues, and if he does I'm sure that people will fight back.

HH, it is unfathomable to me that someone would accost a family over purchasing Christmas decorations. That is really terrible. The way that woman spoke to you about "the man on the stick" makes me wonder if she were a militant atheist rather than an adherent of any religion.

There aren't many Jewish people at all in Murfreesboro. I think that population is concentrated more in Nashville, where there is certainly at least one synagogue, but we have no Jewish place of worship here. I have occasionally seen yards or apartments both here and in Nashville decorated with Hannakuh lights, blue and silver stars of David, or large outdoor menorahs. They are just as pretty as Christmas lights, and I certainly understand that their children want to set out sparkly lights at their holiday, too. Nobody is offended by either type of display, as far as I know.

We do have a surprisingly large Muslim population, and about 12 or 15 years ago there was a lot of controversy about a new mosque which was built in another part of town. Lots of locals did not like it, but so far there's been no violence connected with it that I'm aware of. Our neighbors directly across the street are Muslim. They moved here from Jerusalem maybe 25 years ago, a largish extended family. They have always been very cordial toward us. Once, many years ago, the father wished me a merry Christmas on Dec 25, which I thought was sweet of him. Their religion mandates charity, so periodically they will give gifts to people in the neighborhood, including us. The dad works at a factory that makes toiletries, so the gifts are excess bottles of shower gel, shampoo, that sort of thing. Once in a while I'll bake them a loaf of bread to return the favor. I try to keep up with when Ramadan occurs so I don't give them extra food at a time when they are fasting.

Whether because of factory work or the university in town, there are a fair number of Asians from non-Muslim countries, too. There is an ornate Buddhist temple on the outskirts of town. One of my younger son's good friends from childhood is a Buddhist. His family is Laotian.

My daughter has been intrigued by Messianic Judaism for many years. We have no Messianic congregations in Murfreesboro, but they exist in Nashville and Franklin. My understanding is that the Messianic Jews accept Christ as the Messiah, but they adhere to Jewish customs and festivals, and they don't celebrate Christmas.

Once, 15 or so years ago, I saw a billboard up in Nashville during the Christnas season that must have been paid for by atheists. It had a picture of the Wise Men on it, and the caption, "You know it's a myth." I did find that offensive. I'm not sure why people who don't believe in God feel the need to attack those of us who do. Sort of like that woman who accosted your family in the parking lot.

I'm starting another post just to break things up a bit. I am familiar with the term "Karen" and its modern slang usage, though I have no idea why it caught on. I haven't known a great number of women named Karen in my life. Does it perhaps reference a character in a movie or tv show?

I can certainly understand why you don't have time to follow politics. You have a lot on your plate! The new mayor-elect of NYC has attracted a lot of attention because he is not your run-of-the-mill politician. He is officially a Democratic Socialist, but he quotes Karl Marx and other Communist leaders approvingly, so most people believe he is really a Communist. Since NYC is the unofficial capital of the Capitalist world, many folks find that disconcerting. In addition, he is a Muslim (foreign-born, I believe) who in the past has expressed approval of the international jihad and those organizations that support it. He seems very hostile to Israel and has said that if Netanyahu were to visit NYC, he'd have him arrested as a war criminal (I don't think as mayor he would actually have the authority to do that, but he's said he would). Apparently a great many well-to-do people believe he will be hostile to them and try to tax or seize their property, as he has threatened these things, so some are actually moving out. Many people are dismayed that, only 24 years after 9/11, NYC has elected a communist Muslim jihadist as mayor.

It's true that he was democratically elected. So was Hitler. That's not a guarantee that the electorate has chosen wisely. I read an article a few days ago analyzing the coalition that elected him. The conclusion was that he was not elected by the working class, even though they are the ones who would supposedly benefit from his exonomic policies. Instead, he was elected by a coalition of recent immigrants and college-educated white liberals. Lots of "Karens," I guess.

Regarding the nutcase at Walmart, she was definitely of that faith because that comment about the man on the stick is something they say often now, though that was the first time we heard it. They also go around pushing the conspiracy theory that Christ is actually the Anti-Christ, and have said other, far worse, derogatory things about Christ on a regular basis, but I won't type them here, or ever repeat them out of my mouth.

It started during the pandemic, and it's got increasingly worse since then. I don't know, maybe they were stuck at home without family there during the holidays, and they looked out their windows and saw Christians celebrating Christmas and just went nuts. Of course, we don't know the real reason why they started to verbally attack anybody that celebrates Christmas, or why the city hasn't done anything about it, as it happens rather frequently. So far they have only been giving people verbal tongue lashings, but there hasn't been any vandalism or violence, though it's only a matter of time until it happens. To clarify, most of them that live here a decent people that don't bother anybody, it's only a small group of them here that behave that way, and it's mostly women. I guess they don't have anything better to do during the holiday season than to walk around the city and go to every Christmas event and harass people.

I know that you don't watch South Park, but many people blame that show for the rise in antisemitism in the last 20 years, as there is a character, a young kid, named Cartman that is a absolute racist, he's against every race that isn't white, but he targets their specific group the most, and while it is absolutely hilarious to watch, it has caused kids to emulate his behavior when they're at school, resulting in widespread, and undeserved racism, and it's probably one of the contributing factors that started the woke movement for inclusivity.

You can watch this 20 second clip to get a idea of what I'm talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PG6MkNJNCU

The atheists around here are actually very polite, which is why I didn't have much to say about them earlier. In their own words, their approach is logic based, they are the type of people that promote science against religion, they hand out flyers and pamphlets at events during the Christmas season and they only argue with you if somebody starts the argument first. Most of us are just annoyed by them, but they really are a small annoyance compared to the other people I've mentioned.

As for the other cultures in our community, surprisingly, they are all very nice people, the Muslims, Asians, and other cultures here are very accepting of our Christmas traditions, and they often participate in our Christmas events and activities. Actually, every Asian family that we know is Catholic, and they celebrate Christmas with the everybody else here. Most of the foreigners that are here are good decent people that just want to live in peace with their families, and they don't cause any issues for anybody.

I don't know where the Karen term came from, I can only guess that it was the name of the first woman they recorded being a b***h to other people in public.

Netanya WHO? I'm joking, I know who that is. As for the new mayor, based on the information you posted, I can understand why people might be concerned about his potential agenda, but I think that if something similar to the events that led to the start of WW2 were to occur in our world today that most people wouldn't stand for it and they would eradicate the regime.

Well, at least us older people would, the younger people today have been programmed since they learned how to walk to be mindless drones that obey and follow without thinking for themselves. Seriously, just look at how social media has manipulated their mind and turned everybody into *followers*, trust me, the people that operate social media didn't choose that word randomly, they knew exactly what they were doing, that's why they tell them to *follow* every single thing online, they are making sure that the adults of tomorrow don't have the ability to make choices for themselves.

Murf, you should be thankful to the Good Lord above that your kids are already grown up, because having school aged kids in the world today is more terrifying than it's ever been, and not just because of the external dangers in the world, but the dangers that come from within. When we started our family I didn't think that we would ever have to worry about what they were learning in school, but now it seems that they put more effort into poisoning their minds with the woke agenda than they do to further their education. I can't tell you how many times we ask the kids what they learned today, and do you think they tell us that it was something educational that they should be learning? No, it's always some woke garbage, and then we have to sit there and tell them the real truth.

My wife and I have seriously considered home schooling them, but the only reason that we haven't done it yet is because of the impact it would have on their social lives, sure, they have friends that live in the neighborhood, but it wouldn't be the same.

Do you remember the tagline for the X-Files movie? Man, they had no idea how right they were ...

It is true that the schools have gotten worse and worse in promoting specific agendas. I ran into that a little bit when my daughter was in high school, not so much in the schools but in Girl Scouts. She was working on their advanced awards, which at that time involved choosing among some booklets that explained different projects. At that time I thought she might be interested in a legal xareer, so I bought a book entitled Justice at the Girl Scout shop. But to my astonishment, it had nothing to do with justice or the legal system. It was about environmentalism and how unfair it was that everybody in the world didn't have access to the same natural resources. I have nothing against learning about emvironmentalism, but I never forgot how deceptive I thought that booklet was. It was clearly written by people who wanted to promote a specific world view.

The home schooling movement is very big around here, so much so that some families band together to hire tutors for specific subjects, and to get their kids together for sports, etc. Often these things happen through churches. The big difficulty for a family like yours would be that, usually, one parent stays home to teach the kids. That would be tough for your family-run business. But keeping the girls close and talking with them frequently about their curriculum is very smart.

I hadn't considered the significance of the term "follower" in social media, but.of course you're right. The internet is such a double-edged sword. It enables people like the two of us to have interesting discussions, when otherwise we'd never have met. But it also enables people to retreat into echo chambers and hear only what they want to hear about news, politics, etc. I fear it is making our society more tribal.

Double H I have never thought your personality to be abrasive.It's more like blunt force trauma, and I respect that.

I live in oregon and news that you hear about portland and eugene are pretty much dead on. One of my sisters always says that eugene is where old hippies go to die.

The rest of the state, however, is about as Caucasian as you can get, roughly 83% of the state as a matter of fact,, and the balance live primarily in PDX, EUG and Salem.

Facts that I learned when I worked for the local CBS affiliate in the sales and marketing department and had access to a phenomenal demographic compliling and reporting software.

If you ever want to see fleets of giant plain white domestic pickup trucks with lift kits and red white and blue graphics on their tailgates this is your place.

I have never thought your personality to be abrasive.It's more like blunt force trauma, and I respect that.

Thanks Andy, that's the best compliment I've received this year.

I'm going to start this post in my past, it won't make sense at first, but I promise that it will later.

When I was a kid, shortly after my eighth birthday my grandfather told me that you shouldn't ever talk down to kids, that you should always speak to them as though you were speaking with another adult. If they don't understand what you're saying then you patiently explain it to them in a way that they can understand it. He died a few months later, but like many of our previous conversations, his words stuck with me, and I have lived by them.

When we were young, both our parents lied to us about everything. My mother did it to shield us from the cold reality of the world, in her way, I know that she was trying to give us hope that a fairytale life was possible, and maybe she even believed it. My father lied to us because he was a deceitful piece of garbage that lied to, and cheated everybody he ever met. His lies to us ranged from small to horrific, and he constantly lied to us. Sometimes it was simple like telling us that he would get something for us when he knew that he wasn't going to do it, to looking straight into my mother's face when I was a baby and swearing on my head that he wasn't cheating on her. Spoiler alert, he was cheating on her. I won't even mention the lies and evil he did to other people, or I would be typing until next week.

I learned a lot from their lies, and what I learned was that I wouldn't ever be like them, that I would conduct myself in this life with honor and decency. I've been respectful towards everybody, and I have never cheated anybody in business. I also made a promise to the Lord that I wouldn't ever lie to my kids about anything, no matter what it's about, and I haven't. When my wife was pregnant with Phoebe, Sam was only 2 at the time and she asked us how the baby got in mommy's tummy? I didn't lie to her and tell about a stork, or that it was magic, yeah, some parents today actually say it's magic, but I told her the truth, I sat there and explained the entire human reproductive process to her. Of course, she didn't understand a word of it, she just smiled at us, and sure, you can say that she was only 2 and she won't remember that conversation, and she doesn't, but in the eyes of the Lord, I didn't lie to her.

When my kids ask us anything, I will tell them the truth, if the answer is something that they are too young to know yet, then I tell them that I will explain it to them when they are older, rather than lie to them. A few months ago, Phoebe asked us what a certain swear word meant, the way I look at it is that she already knows the word, so I might as well tell her the meaning so that she doesn't misuse it when she's around others, and I also told her that she shouldn't say the word, but she's a kid, and you know she's going to.

When my wife was pregnant with our kids she would play classical music such as Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, Wagner, Grieg, and others, she would even put the headphones over her stomach so the music would reverberate through her womb. She would always walk around during the day and talk to them, explaining to them the things she was doing, and just telling them about life, people would ask her who she was talking to, and she would tell them it was the baby, and they would give her a unusual look, but she just laughed at them.

When they were born, I would stay up at night with them, thankfully I'm nocturnal so I would feed them and take care of them while my wife got some sleep. I would also talk with them while I worked on different projects, explain things to them and talking to them about various topics, from science and math, to philosophy and religion. I knew they couldn't understand me yet, but I also knew that in some way that it still had a effect on them.

While my wife and I both work full time, we still make sure that we teach them as much as we can ourselves, from life lessons to expanding their education far past what the current public school education system is capable of, or even cares to. We always review their homework, and are often shocked by how low the schools threshold for education standards is these days, as the homework they give to Sam, who is 11 and currently in the sixth grade, is something that my wife and I were learning when we were in the third grade, and the worst thing about it is that this is considered normal by today's standards, that kids are *learning* at a much slower level than we were, and the fact that this is acceptable is disturbing. It shows you just how far the educational system in our society has been flushed down the toilet.

I mention this because today both our kids are unbelievably smart, and that's not me bragging, or being a arrogant bastard, it just the truth. Sam is currently reading, spelling, and doing her math at a tenth grade level, and she can already do her multiplication by the hundreds. Phoebe is also doing very well academically, with reading and writing being her strong subjects, and her mind is as sharp as a knife, she's so quick witted, throwing insults at her rivals faster than they can open their mouths to respond, but she really excels at her gymnastics and martial arts. She's extremely precise, coordinated, and focused while she is competing, leaving her opponents in her dust.

We know that they are where they are now because my wife and I took it upon ourselves to teach them, and not depend on the current education system to do it. We are proud of who they already are, and we look forward to the people that they will become. If they choose to further their education after high school, then they will have the opportunity that I didn't, and regardless of what they decide to do, we will support them no matter what.

When I was in high school I had to balance work and school, and I struggled just to maintain my grades to graduate. Today it seems like they will let any idiot graduate just to get rid of them. As somebody that employs young people that are currently in, or have graduated high school, or are currently in college, I can tell you most of them lack the skills required to get far in this world. I've already mentioned their atrocious spelling when they send texts and emails, but some of them can't even do basic math.

There was a situation once where I put 2 new employees to run the register at the front of the restaurant, they had both graduated high school, and I assumed were both capable of counting out change, so a customer was trying to pay for their meal, and the register stopped working and they called me over to look at it, I couldn't fix it immediately so I just asked them how much the meal was, I still remember it was $34.57, and the customer gave them two 20 dollar bills, so I told the girls to give the customer back $5.43 in change, one of the girls asked me if I was sure, I said ... yes, I am. The other girl pulled out her phone and used the calculator and said ... he's right! They both looked at me like I had just performed a act of sorcery, like how was he able to figure out the answer without a calculator. Then they started to count out 43 cents in charge, and I swear to you, the 2 of them stood there struggling to make the correct amount, they really had no idea how to correctly add up the different denominations of the coins to total 43 cents. I stepped in and gave the customer back her change and apologized for the inconvenience. It goes without saying that those 2 girls didn't work on the register ever again, as I made them servers after that.

I honestly couldn't believe how stupid they were, and like I said, they were both high school graduates. I knew how to correctly count out change by the time I was 6 years old, and if I didn't learn it then my father would have put me through a wall. That was just one example of the stupidity that I have had to put up with, there are countless other instances, but it would be about 5 full pages of posts to cover the number of dumb people that I've encountered here in the past 25 years.

The young people of today are damned, they rely on their phones for everything, and are incapable of functioning without them. I'm sure you have heard about how students today use artificial intelligence to do their homework for them, even worse is that some teachers today are so pathetic that they use the same thing to grade that homework. If every answer is available at your fingertips, then how the Hell does anybody actually learn anything? It's scary to think that the world of technologically dependent morons that we have seen in movies for years is actually happening right now. A entire society of people that know how to use technology, but knows how to do nothing.

That's the world we live in now, if everybody else wants to let technology raise their kids then that's fine, my wife and I will do it the old fashioned way. As Murf said a few months ago when she quoted Voltaire, "cultivate your own garden". I'll look after my family, and the people in my immediate circle, and I will always be willing to help others if they need it, but I'm also perfectly happy to sit back and watch the world burn.

That's a crazy story, about those two girks' not being able to make change. That's such basic math. I think my kids were learning that in first grade.

I was a college English prof and have graded thousands of papers. I would never want to do that job now, with AI in the mix. The last time I taught, 2017-18, it was a dual enrollment high school and college English class through a local community college. They gave me a syllabus to folliw, so it was the easiest job I've ever had. But at one point the kids were assigned to write an essay in response to some essay by Betty Friedan, the well-known feminist. As I started grading, I discovered that a number of students were turning in the identical essay. Turns out there was an essay someone had written on line that answered this assignment. The college's faculty handbook allowed me the freedom to handle this plagiarism on my own, so I did. I talked to each student individually and made them re-do the assignment, then used the episode as an opportunity to discuss the issue of plagiarism and how it could torpedo their college careers. The internet had already created opportunities to cheat. I can't imagine how tough it must be now, with AI.

My husband's high school faculty has been warned that AI programs will never answer a question "I don't know." Instead they will fabricate an answer out of nothing, complete with footnotes and links thay lead to nowhere if you take the trouble to follow them up. If you don't, the article will appear to be well researched when in fact it's built on nothing at all.

Regarding cheating in school, people have been using cheat sheets for years, and obviously as technology advances people are going to find new ways to use it to their advantage, but the only people they are really cheating are themselves.

I told you the story about how when I was in high school that I was accused of cheating, but I had the ability to retain the information that I learned, that's why they couldn't fail me regardless of my attendance issues. Though I'm sure that from somebody's point of view they would still say that was cheating.

Regarding the girls that were unable to count change, while they were dumb as a bag of rocks, at least they were honest. Most of the people that have been employed by us have been decent honest people, of course, there have been some less than honest people that have worked here over the years, but thankfully there weren't many.

As a business owner, I keep meticulous track of our inventory, it's a skill that I acquired while working at Home Depot, and it is vital to operating a restaurant efficiently, because we always need to know when we're low on products so that we don't run out, and because there have been employees that have tried to steal from the kitchen inventory. We also have cameras everywhere, including above, and to the side of the register, and every night after closing we add up the receipts with the total orders for the day, and if any discrepancies come up then we know that somebody made a mistake, or is trying to cheat us.

Something that I don't think most people are aware of is that if you get fired for stealing from your place of employment, that information goes on your permanent record, and it can hinder your ability to secure employment anywhere else. So it's in your best interest to conduct yourself with honor regardless of where you are employed.

I think that one of the main reasons that young people today struggle with handling money is because we are slowly transitioning into a cashless society. Most people today make purchases by debit, credit, and other online payment options, including using their phone to pay. So they don't handle cash the way we did growing up, and they just let technology calculate the total for them, the issue with that is that some of the dumber people are incapable of tracking their spending, and if they get cheated they aren't aware of it, or when they do find out it's too late. When I'm out shopping, it doesn't matter where I am, I always add up the items I'm getting and do the taxes in my head so that I know the total before I get to the register, that way I know right away if somebody made a mistake.

I was at a yard sale during the summer and a young woman around 20 years old picked up a item for $1, and then approached the woman running it and asked her if she accepted debit, the woman looked at her as if she was a moron, and said ... No, this is a yard sale, cash only. The girl put the item back and walked away. Can you believe it? She has been so conditioned by our current society to use electronic payment that she didn't even have $1 on her.

I don't know if any of you remember the large blackout that happened in Aug. 2003, it affected the Northern part of the country, as well as a large part of Canada. There was no electricity from around 3pm to 2am, and during that time people were stuck in elevators, couldn't cook anything, had no air conditioning, and most importantly, couldn't pay for any purchases electronically, and places would only accept cash. That was 22 years ago, and I learned a very valuable lesson that day, and that's to always have cash on you, and since then our society has embraced electronic payment and moved further away from using cash, and even inventing imaginary currency like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Also, the banks give you the illusion of freedom and control of your money by telling you that you can access it anywhere and anytime you want to, but here's the question, do you really have control of it? They manipulate the weak minded into tying up their funds in bullsh*t plans or investments that usually screw you over, and charge you ridiculous fees for their crappy services. Let's not forget about cybercrime, if your information is floating around online, and let's face it, that's everybody today, then you're at risk of being scammed, especially the people that don't really understand the technology that they are using.

Here's my advice for anybody reading this, look at how much you currently have in the bank and go withdraw 1/3 of it so that you have it in cash for when you need it, just put it in a place where only you and your significant other are aware of, and don't tell anybody else in your family. I know that you might be laughing at that, and think that your funds are safer in the bank, and it might be for now, but if you don't think that another widespread or long term blackout, or even the possible collapse of our current societal structure could occur, then you're just fooling yourself, because it's not a matter of if it happens, but when it happens.

As the old saying goes, those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Here's another one, a failure to plan is a plan for failure.

Words to live by.