enoch said:

haha,this right here made me laugh out loud!
have you SEEN my commentary?
for a self-professed poet,i have an absolute horrid economy of words.

knowing me,your tiny,wee project would become a book that would make dostoevsky cringe.

shame watching gorilla decide to go all human torch on us,but that was his choice and had nothing to do with our interactions.

i did try to make a case for him though......./flushing sound.

you need to know something BB,and i mean this sincerely,i was being honest that i tread lightly when i feel compelled to engage with you,and nothing that you have really done outright to make me feel this way.i proceed from my base assumptions on who you are,and those assumptions are positive.it is more my style that i think i over-consider when engaging with you.i tend to be blunt,and speak in a bombastic and even aggressive manner,and i think i fear either offending you or hurting your feelings.which is NEVER my intent.i am sure there are many on the sift who may feel the same way when engaging me.

but here is what i love about you.
you never give up.
you will hang with anyone to work a disagreement out,or conflict,as long as they are being respectful and not being an outright ass..you will hang in there as long as it takes until there is some form of mutual understanding.

i really respect that.
possibly because i am the exact same way.
my commentary can be very long winded,mainly due to my very strong desire to be understood.

as for your "see something,say something"
yep..that flew right over my head,and i feel silly now because in retrospect that was pretty damn good BB!

but i hold to a general rule when throwing out dry and snarky humor.
do not hold back,the further you go into offensively absurd territory..the better.
and never..ever..feel the necessity to explain the joke.
that is like a magician showing you how he did the trick.

example:
years ago i was dating a wonderful young woman whose family was having a BBQ.her father was a retired NYC detective,grizzled and hardened from years on the streets and stood a whopping and imposing 6'6",and this was to be my first time meeting this legendary figure of a man.

to say i was feeling a tad intimidated is putting it mildly.my sweat was sweating.

so there i am at her parents house,sitting out on the patio pretending to be relaxed and chill,while my insides were finding new ways to tie themselves into knots.a shadow creeps over the patio table and a low rumbling voice asks me..
"you want a beer?"
"no sir,i just do heroin"
..........
tick tock..
tick...
....
and then this almost ground shaking rumble breaks the silence..
"heh heh..i think i like you son.you are alright.don't have any heroin,will pepsi do?".

that happened 30 years ago,and while i only dated his daughter for less than a year,he and i remained close friends till the day he died in 2004.

snark/dry humor is the art of the mic drop.

it can go bad,real bad but that usually only happens when you try to temper the joke,reel it back in order to not offend,and in doing so,you take a well meaning joke and make it plausible.so if your gonna do it..go for it..do not hold back.

if i had told mr kepic (that was his name,that and SIR) that i only smoked weed,instead of using heroin as an example.i may have gotten kicked out of his house and told to never see his daughter again,because weed would be an actual possibility,while heroin was so over the top that it was implausible.

hmm..think that was the first time i ever broke down one of my jokes.
how did i do?

radx said:

"[the] world is actually healthier, wealthier, better educated, more tolerant, less violent than it has ever been."

Not in places like Afghanistan, Libya, Jemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, downtown Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland. Not in Greece. And I'm not entirely sure it's a better place for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who left their rural areas to become work nomads. Also not sure about the all the millions of people in Africa whose livelihood gets crushed by subsidised produce/corn from the West. Not sure about all the Indian farmers who are driven into suicide by the monopoly powers of seed suppliers. Not sure about India as a whole, now suffering from the third year in a row of a belated monsoon and horrific drought.

"Democracy means you don't everything you want, when you want it, all the time" ... "and occasionally comprise, and stay principled, but recognise that it's a long march towards progress"

He talks the talk, but even for a center-right guy, he doesn't walk the walk. Principles went out the window in Gitmo. Principles went out the window when the drivers behind the illegal war of aggression in Iraq were not prosecuted in accordance with the Nuremberg Principles. Principles went out the window when carpet surveillance pissed all over the Constitution. Principles went out the window when US military forces aid Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria just because they oppose Assad. Even mentioning principles in the face of the gruesome, drone-driven terror campaigns in at least half a dozen countries makes me want to vomit.

And don't get me started on compromise. If you ban single-payer and drop the public option before negotiations begin, that's not compromise. That's theatre meant to mislead us plebs while you add an additional layer of "market" to an already dysfunctional market, which ends up profiting the insurance companies yet again.