At that age, any reference of “tonight we’re gonna—” usually involved watching shows that ended at 8pm, unless it was a sleep-over because someone’s mother was reckless enough to get a pay-per-view pro wrestling event for 9 kids going into mountain dew apoplexy.

I was camping way up on the Maine/New Hampshire border last summer, and the park rangers were VERY aggressive about the 10PM quiet hour rule with us. As in, we basically had to stop all conversation at 9:30 pm as part of a “wind down” process, which is funny because we’re all basically old people now. We just had the misfortune of camping right next to the ranger’s resident campsite.

So you can imagine my displeasure when the camp ground children could be up at quarter till 5, riding their bikes up and down the road, apparently reenacting the battle of stalingrad, with total impunity. They woke us up and kept us up. I got out of my tent at 7 am, sat on my car hood with a bottle of whiskey and chain smoked while glaring at the parents of a few of the kids for a few minutes while I got morning-drunk. I’m not proud, but I’m not ashamed.

From the HollywoodLife comments on this article: (“ARTICLE”)

“people grow apart. people change as they mature. what you love at 21 is not necessarily what you want at 27. good luck and a happy life to the both of them.”

Fantastic voice of reason in the tumult of the brunette-to-blonde type-change. I feel calmer already.

You’re touching on the biggest mystery, as far as I know, in Christianity: The ethics of God creating while knowing there would be tragedy. This is definitely an issue that can’t be resolved completely in real life, let alone on a web board. I think Christians go about dealing with this in a peculiar way, as it’s scripturally illustrated as a matter of a faith decision rather than one of being logically convinced: Job wanted an explanation, all God essentially said was “I am who I am. What are you going to do about it?” This answer is either horrifying and repugnant (which I understand completely) or an extremely poignant qualitative illustration of the nature and relationship of creator and creature. The reaction depends entirely on the reactor’s perception of the person and implications of God. That is not something I, or anyone else, can really convince anyone of one way or the other on any argumentative terms.

I can really only offer a few points on how “I am who I am” became satisfactory, or at least close to it, to me. I have huge philosophical issues with saying “Non-existence would have been better than existence.” so I can’t begrudge God for the act of creation as a start. As far as a Godless universe, I have trouble reconciling the concept of “tragedy” to an arbitrarily chaotic reality. If significance of life or an individual exists in such a universe, it is entirely subjective. If our origins are “accidental” or the result of the settling of atoms in the expansion of an arbitrary universe, than so is our existence and destiny, which in the former is brief and painful, and the latter is uniform annihilation. Any feelings of significance or meaning an individual experiences is simply a matter of choice or happenstance, and correlates to nothing objective. This does not mean that such a reality doesn’t exist, it simply means once we accept it on a logical basis, the HONEST course is to address the concept of tragedy as nothing more than an unpleasant evolutionary specter. Anyone can, of course, decide to react and hold to concepts about anything however they want to, but I take issue with trying to, on one hand, show the universe to be a hopeless place, and then cram sentimentality into it, and claim logic as their sole compass.

This is going to get very long, so I’ll cut to the chase. I accept hope in God, not in spite of suffering, but because of suffering. I believe that God suffered for the sake of man, and thus suffering can serve a real purpose, not necessarily in of itself (God does not like suffering) but suffering can participate in an objective meaning, which is His purview. The Cross is my nexus point between suffering and benevolence, and because of that instance, I can’t hold suffering as an indictment against God’s love. I cannot possibly know if or when there is an objective meaning to any particular case of suffering that does not relate directly to me, or what that specific meaning is. I distrust anyone who offers such an explanation, but I also distrust anyone trying to rule out the possibility of meaning as well.

And the assumption problem is very real and totally worthy of a lot of discussion. I’m just seeing a lot of atheist friends on social media use this as an indictment against the entire religious community as some kind of “SEE? LOOK! THEY ARE OPPRESSING US!” and this just isn’t a good example of the actual cultural oppression that takes place by localized religious communities.

I mean… he WAS in the Bible Belt. It was poor execution, but I think some people want this to be a bigger blunder or hugely awkward situation than it was. I get plenty of loaded blank stares or demands for explanations from atheists as to why I go to church. Being offended over what other people think of your beliefs is not the worst thing that can happen to you, as evidenced by the pile of rubble behind them in the video.

This is an honest question. Is there an actual shame-based stigma out there that exists for this kind of thing? Like is anyone out there thinking “No, nope. What an attack on femininity!” I think “Don’t get cancer if you can help it” is a pretty supported choice, right?

Ke$ha joke. Something about getting it out of their system young, or whatever. It’s just really lazy.

For an even MORE erotic literary experience, get your phone book and read it aloud to yourself in the mirror while eating Tums like candy.

I’ve decided the irony is just baggage now. I love this kid. I want to be his older brother.

NO! PICK A SIDE AND PREPARE TO DEFEND YOURSELF.

I mean fair enough, and I didn’t mean to sound like I was condoning out and out harassment of the poor guy. I guess I’m thinking in terms of the mostly sane people at videogum who see the humor in saying “Ha! What a weirdo! Ain’t that people tho? Say, you look like a fella that enjoys a good cigar!”

I also don’t think Gabe was being mean or vicious in anything he said, just as a disclaimer.

Actually, the more I look into this, the more I feel kinda bad about this being on videogum. Not to get all downer, but this all appears to be something that her brother does with her to make her happy and keep her entertained and the more I watch, the more obviously handicapped this lady appears to be. I mean, he takes her on an annual trip to visit Thomas the Tank Engine… I’ll limit my sanctimony to just saying “I really hope these two don’t end up as a parodied butchering by the internet ass hole army.”