Teacher here. It's made-up-nonsense. I don't give a shit what gender or sexual orientation a kid is and im CERTAINLY not going to try to convince anyone to change anything about themselves.

That said, I'm going to acknowledge that gay/trans people exist in authorship and literature as it arises. You can't read someone like Whitman (Leaves of Grass, arguably America's greatest poet) and not come across references to sexuality either implicit or explicit. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45472/i-sing-the-body-electric

It becomes relevant in passages like this:

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

----------------------------------
Maybe a conversation like:

"'Love flesh swelling' like he's in love with some woman and they...he...?"

"Probably not, he didn't have any serious female relationships as far as I am aware."

"But the title is 'The female form'"

"Well, it's possible, but it's not likely the case that he was talking about himself being in love with a woman. This poem is in the text but he wrote many other pieces about he-himself falling into and out of love with various men and we have letters documenting those relationships with his male significant others. Although, I'm not sure what to call them because gay marriage would have been illegal at the time. He's likely writing the poem in a way where he appreciates the female form and sees men who are drawn to it like the way I appreciate watching bees act obsessively driven to the middle of flowers. I like watching Bees in action, but that doesn't mean I'm going all pollen crazy, still I appreciate it for what it is."
-------------------

This is an example of how discussion of sexuality would come up in my classroom as I imagine it. Note how I'm not trying to convince the kid I'm talking to to turn gay like it's a big game of rainbow-red-rover or something. Nevertheless, knowing the author's sexual preference in this instance informs our understanding of the piece.


My own personal theory?
The people railing against things like this are the same shitheads that can't be bothered to read ANYTHING and instead giggle and guffaw at "hurhurhurhur he hadd'a boner" where I get to live an early stage of Idocracy.

Also, I agree that the "funky stuff" shouldn't be just avoided altogether. For goodness sake, just let teachers have the difficult conversation that everyone is avoiding. Reminds me of when Peggy Hill was struggling to say "Penis" when she was assigned sex ed.

Totally agree with all the wtf sentiments.

I'd never prank my kids like this, and I think it's bad for them in general.

However...

1. I do enjoy the clips where kids are really sweet and generous with responses like "It's totally okay. I don't mind." and "I hope you didn't get a tummy ache." These are the types of kids where they seem to be getting good parenting otherwise (and seem to lack lowlife genes).

2. For the other dipshit kids with atrocious responses, I feel like they respond with selfish toxicity and disgust because they're already probably being raised that way, so this prank is just par for the course.

---

Weird flex I know, but fwiw my kids don't eat their Halloween candy, and they donate their haul at the dentist to send the junk to our troops.

(My kids don't eat candy in general, but if we, their parents, did tell them we'd eaten something they wanted, they'd respond with hearts full of happiness hoping we enjoyed it. My boys are wonderful. ❤️)

agreed.

I would add that science/doctors have been pushed out by the administration from day one, to the point that they use it to attack biden ("he's going to listen to the scientists!")

also, the inconsistency he is referring to for example in restaurants and flights, is entirely driven by economics, not science. Those are two of the hardest hit industries worldwide, you have a president who has made it clear he prioritises business over public health, of course they made some theatrical protocol to make it seem safer when really, its not.
(same in my country, and having a bakery myself have had to do the same stupid dance).

Pointing at the survival of christie, trump or any other celebrity, no matter how overweight, old or whatever, is not analogous to the experience of normal people who cant afford that level of treatment, most wouldnt have access to it even if they could afford it. not to mention that we dont even really know long term effects for survivors, including importantly how long the immune response lasts.

That whole segment just came off as the typical selfish "i dont think this will kill me, lets get back to normal" BS. Weve known for a long time now that what makes coronavirus dangerous isnt its mortality rate, its the combination of a long asymptomatic incubation period and airbone transmission that make it highly contagious, when hospitals collapse the mortality rate spikes.

I actually agree that we have to learn to live with this because i dont think a vaccine is nowhere near close to ready for global deployment, but i thought his arguments were terrible and his focus selfish.

***finally anecdotal experience here in Chile, 3 friends have gotten covid-
44 year old, former national team field hockey, good shape
41 year old, former point guard national team basketball, good shape
38 year old, professional poker player, overweight bordering on obese.

the 44 year old was in the hospital for 12 days, no ventilator, felt aches and pains for a solid month after going home
the 41 year old was in the hospital for 28 days, ventilator (and the induced coma that comes with it), still feels physically drained
the 38 year old had a fever for 3 days and never went to the hospital, is feeling fine

Between different strains and different body/blood types, comparing one case to another doesnt seem to work

Small update re: my condition. The ultrasound didnt find a hernia, although it was an amazing amount of fun (sarcasm) having some unknown lady groping me for 30 minutes and leaving me with a small towel to deal with the literal POOL of liquid that they use to make the sensor work.

The right testicle has went down in swelling some, but it is still about 2-3 times it's normal size and it is uncomfortable sitting for any length of time.

I'm almost done with the medication they gave me (doxycycline because they think it got infected and prescription aleve, which is nigh useless for the aching pain) and I am due to go back on the 21st for a re-evaluation.

If the swelling doesn't go down more, they may want to discuss methods of draining the excess fluid. Not looking forward to that. Hopefully I will be back soon, bear with me.

Flashback to YEARS of enjoyment [my wrists still ache when I reminisce]. *promote nostalgia

For about 10 years now i've had severe stomach problems, to the point of sometimes being all but housebound. At some point in my attempts to try and find some resolution, i came across the idea of a gut flora transplant.

I never did it because you've got to find someone healthy with a great diet and i suppose bowel regularity, which is difficult in itself because those people are rare and the subject is embarrassing.

But if you're crippled with stomach aches, woken up 7 times a night going to the toilet (and then not even doing anything), then putting someone else's shit into your own bum is nothing. As Terry Pratchett once said about Alzheimer's - it's a desperate situation, and he'd eat the rotting arsehole out of a dead mole if it meant a fighting chance.

For anyone interested, i stopped eating gluten for a while and had minor improvement. When i ate gluten, i'd get feverish and flu-like, joint pain, headaches, sweats and excruciating stomach pain. I figured it was coeliac disease and hoped i would fully recover before long. I didn't, but 2 weeks ago i also cut potato (nightshade vegetable) from my diet and i have been stomach ache free since (that is, 75%+ of the time my stomach feels painless). Apparently lectins are problematic.

If anyone has ever had severe pain for a very long time, they'll know the utter relief and joy of being pain free. It's hard to describe, but for a few days to a week, it's a euphoric feeling.

Admittedly, i don't watch this type of video often, but it the twist of the ragdoll is interesting and it must take a great deal of skill, concentration, and body control. Kudos.

To be honest, this video made my heart unexpectedly ache so intensely that I had to take a walk after watching it and then sit in a quiet corner for some self reflection time. After an uncertain amount of time and 2 cups of tea, I realized what memory string this was plucking. Suddenly the magnitude of this emotional disturbance made sense. This wasn't a single thread, but something that spanned across years of my life. This girl reminds me of an exgirlfriend from long ago. She loved theater and did events part time. We were deeply in love and I thought we would be married, but life often doesn't fit in with unsought expectations. Often we are told to chase our dreams; however, this, for me, was only told to me in relation to what job or career I went into. I guess that I'm slow or just never thought about applying this advice to life as a whole. Well, regrets are a waste of time, but it nice to revisit the memories. Thank you for the sift. If I might beg your indulgence, I did do have one picture that was snapped of us in an unrelated news story. Unfortunately, it's the only photo left as I lost all of mine. Here is Bella and I getting a drink at the local bar.

I did the "master cleanse" once for about a week. After that I felt like I was doing more harm then anything beneficial.

The most important thing is a healthy diet. The past month I have literary been detoxing.... really, I should have gone to rehab - that is how bad my alcohol problem has been The key to my success (10+ years of drinking 5+ drinks -pretty much every single day) - I started drinking two Kombucha's a day. There is no real evidence that Kombucha has health benefits (it even contains a small amount of alcohol). But, it has been a fine replacement for alcohol and has worked for me, it also doesn't contain many calories, so I've been sober, feeling good, losing a little weight and probably saving some money. It may be a "pseudo-scientific" product, but it's way better than any of the alternatives, as the fermented tea is a little like having an actual drink.

Another detox product is a herb called Kratom. This can be used in place of an alcohol or opiate addiction to overcome sometimes deadly withdrawal symptoms. Some people in the medical profession even use it for their aches & pains as they do not want to be on pharmaceutical drugs... but the DEA is going to be scheduling it as a Schedule I drug. Fucking... idiots....

sign the peitiion: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/please-do-not-make-kratom-schedule-i-substance

Well we seem to be devolving into miscommunication, so let's all be clear! bareboards2, I was not singling you out at all. In fact, you have by and large been the image of civility, so much so that I picture you with a monocle while writing your missives to us.

I too think that MonkeySpank (god help us all) seems to have the most historical and accurate interpretation of the situation; one does not traumatize a people, be they Jews or African Americans for decades and decades and decades and then expect them to up and happily integrate. There's a reckoning that has to happen, and I am sorry if your lilly white ass didn't personally own slaves, you were born into a societal architecture created by those who did and you can't pretend the playing field is level. You can stare at your voting right's act, you can belly ache about how Ashley with her 3.5 didn't get into U State university while a minority did, but it doesn't change the fact that that there's a lot of redress to be done, and it'll take a LONG time to remedy. We have some signs of improvement, with prominent African American politicians and intellectuals taking the stage and garnering universal respect, but that's the tip of the iceberg, and we have a LONG way to go.

Here's the lyrics from the song he should have used:

'So I looked at the scenery,
She read her magazine;
And the moon rose over an open field.
"Kathy, I'm lost", I said,
Though I know she was sleeping.
"I'm empty and aching and
I don't know why."'

Except it's not 1968 anymore; it's 2016 and we know EXACTLY fucking why we feel that way now.

I disagree to some extent. She seemed to have found the achelies' heel of the argument (she did not actually find it btw) and went with that. Statement rather than a question? Absolutely. He handled it well though, and more discussions need to be had like this as you say.

LMFAHS @ "Huh."

I don't know what all the belly-aching is about lately. Looks like fun to me.

And I love Paul Rudd in everything he's ever, ever done... except as Phoebe's husband on Friends [spoiler alert!], but that wasn't his fault.

I hope she's a naturally bubbly person because MY face started to ache after that...