japaneseknotweed

FWIW: I heard filmmaker Ken Burns speak live (he's a local) after his WWII documentary came out. During the post-speech Q&A an audience member asked him what changed for him as a result of the research involved in making the documentary.

He took a long deep breath and said "The bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible. The cost in immediate civilian mortality and later extended misery due to infrastructure damage were terrible."

"Had they not been dropped, the damage done through extended ground combat and conventional bombing would have been significantly worse. Many times worse."

"That's not something I used to believe. Now I do."

This was in uber-liberal, highly educated southeastern Vermont, in a hall full of advanced-degree-holding, organic-munching Bernie-voting aging hippies. We didn't want to hear this. We didn't want to believe this.

He went on in detail about the Japanese psyche, the landscape topography, the plans for resistance and attack on both sides, and by the end?

We believed him. In spite of ourselves.

Food for thought.

What are the most common well-meaning trying-to-be-helpful things people do that are actually annoying, insulting, or depressing?

"locum" means substitute/temp -- even doctors take vacations. I have a friend in a specialty that locums his way around the country following all the interesting birding opportunities.

Why can't I buy gas for the price you're getting?

anti-fun scold

Paul is way more problematic than that, especially if you're female. And/or maybe not-straight. And like to say things and be heard.

If we could re-start the entire Christian church, redo the bible without any of the letters, decide that the words of Christ are doctrine from the mouth of God and the words of Paul are highly-contextualized suggestions/metaphors from the mouth of a completely ordinary human, I'd be in church every Sunday.

Oh wait, I'm a working church musician, I AM there every Sunday...OK, I'd be way less pissed.