Get your "no fits, no fights" vomit bags here

Here's a thread for fully realized individuals. For people who know that life is made up of harmony as well as dissonance. Creative types who know that without friction there is only pablum. Here's a thread for artists. Verbal artists, visual artists, performing artists. People who can rub two ideas together and come up with something startling and new!

This isn't a thread for phoney passive people who give a standing ovation and vacuous compliments because, well, that's just what's done in polite society. This is a thread for participants, not observers. Not for people who are ONLY viewers and audience members. This is a thread for people who give and take. Not sponges.

This is a thread for people who can smile and laugh AND yell and argue, who can poke fun just as easily as they can be made fun of. People whose opinions can be called into question without it UTTERLY crushing their sense of identity. This is a thread for people who HAVE opinions and who can state them without ALWAYS having to qualify that no offense is intended, that they don't "mean" anything by it. It's a thread for people who DO mean something by it and don't really care if anybody else has a problem with it because they don't have a problem with other people who MEAN something, who stand for SOMETHING.

Here's a thread for people who embrace reality and know that it sometimes has rough edges, blind driveways, blunt corners, warm tropical breezes and frigid air.

Here's a thread for people who want to puke when they see others settle for "nice." Not nice. "Nice."

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Updated On: 6/16/05 at 10:57 PM

That's absolutely fine. It's really very liberating to believe in what you say enough to want to stand behind it. Does this mean that people don't change and grow and evolve? No.

Certainly truly creative types aren't afraid of their own points of view, or of changing them over time.

This is a thread for people like that!

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No, this is not a thread about victory or defeat. This is a thread about real versus forced phoney. However, if that's the way you see it, then this is probably not the thread for you. Let me give you some directions to a place you will probably like. It's very "nice."
The Happiest Thread on Earth

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Alright...can I air a grievance (sp?).

It cheeses me (thank you, Namo) when people say I have to respect their opinion. No, I don't. I respect your right to HAVE an opinion. But I don't have to actually respect said opinion.

What if your opinion is, 'I think all blacks should go back to Africa.' Yes...I've come across people who feel that way.

Now...should I respect that? No. It's ridiculous. Why should I respect someone who refuses to recognize an entire section of the population's humanity?

If I have to respect every opinion everyone has...where's the opportunity to grow and learn?

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Here we go again...

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Namo's got it.


"The sleepless nights
The daily fights,
The quick toboggan when you reach the heights--
I miss the kisses and I miss the bites.
I wish I were in love again!"

~~Lorenz Hart

Thank you for informing me Gavrochegirl and I will take what you say and give it as much mental consideration as any 12 year old James Barbour fan's opinions receive by me. As I said, honey, this is probably not a thread for you.

And Jose, Hart was right. That's love. Not "love."

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God how I love a plug for me work. PLUG ME, NAMO, PLUG ME!!!

I don't have a problem with a thread where everyone is nice to each other. It's just not a place I need to visit. When everyone is going out of their way to be nice, real discourse, real discussion rarely happens. It's a reason I love papalovesmambo. He and I have completely different ideas of what our government is and should be. Both of our beliefs are very strong...neither of us are likely to hop the fence to the other political party. But he makes me see things from many different sides and I flatter myself that I do the same for him. And it not only helps me define even sharper who I am, it also allows me to see what other options are out there.

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Yeah, and how you can like people you disagree with. And you can sometimes dislike them too, and then like them again. THAT is life. Being phoney and polite all the time is exactly what the culture wants us to be: anesthetized zombies who purchase and purchase and purchase.

Well, I don't buy it.

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But you buy polo shirts, right?

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Discourse is a verb now?

I've said it before, I'll say it again, "every time" is an exagerration. And frankly, a school marmish tone just never sits well with me. And I react strongly against it. Now go be nice in that other thread.

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OKAY RATH. So go back to your other thread where you can cluck your tongue at the immature 30+s. JESUS CHRIST.

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I know! I did! (And his name is Nelson.)

I'm shocked I didn't make more errors in that one.

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