OT - Fireworks?
 

Lesley wrote:

I didn't find them objectionable I just found it amusing they seemed
to expect there would be cheerful Cockney's like Dick Van Dyke in the
East End and we didn't go round saying "Lorr luvaduc" or have a pearly
king and queen on every street corner. I was just saying how after
I;d told them all the stories about how the match girls lived. the
suffragette connection etc the thing that really grabbed their
attention was the connection to a celebrity

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furball

Would you Adam and Eve it?

--
Adrian

OT - Fireworks?
 

On Jul 3, 6:05*am, Adrian wrote:


Would you Adam and Eve it?


I would have never believed you were a cockney me old china

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furball

OT - Fireworks?
 

On Jul 2, 5:16*pm, hopitus wrote:
..
Am I the last remaining reader of newspapers? Would like to think not.

Far from it- I read the 2 free papers every working day then I also
buy a couple of national papers (depending on what gets my attention)
most working days and also buy my local paper and sometimes weekend
papers (although I loathe those supplements and the fact I have to pay
extra for them I always hand them to the newsagent and say "Got a bin
behind there? If I wanted a glossy magazine I would have brought
one")

Dave reads them online

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furball

OT - Fireworks?
 

"J J Levin" wrote in
:



I live in Northern NJ. There are organized fireworks on the 4th, but
the NY Police Commissioner was just on the radio, warning NY residents
not to drive to Pennsylvania to buy fireworks. Private fireworks are
illegal in NY, and he specifically said that people who cross the
border to buy illegal fireworks will be arrested and their cars will
confiscated (as they do in drug cases).

Jay



How are they going to do that, have road blocks at the border?
would love to see someone try that

OT - Fireworks?
 

Not a debate, but just a comment. It seems the person elected is always the
one with the largest campaign fund. Too many people are swayed by repeated
advertisements and "dirty campaigning". Not enough people actually research
issues, look at voting records of senators who are running (Obama was
notorious for *NOT* voting more than any other candidate and seems to
continue is side-step issues by playing golf *70+* times and attending *35*
fund raisers just this year. He seems to seldom actually be in Washington
or talking to the senate or congress. [And yes, I'll probably get my ass
handed to me on a plate for those comments since he is still the favorite
among liberals even though he has a 70% disapproval rating over-all.]

Still, that's not an argument *against* the people being responsible - just
an explanation for *why*.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, created by "Yowie", maintained by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.net/rpcablog/

Email: L(dot)T(dot)Crews(at)comcast(dot)net


"Yowie" wrote in message
...
On 3/07/2011 10:04 AM, wrote:
hopitus wrote:

On Jul 2, 4:18 pm, wrote:

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

Lesley wrote:

In the end they almost wanted to come back and hire me as a
tour
guide.... but after all the things I told them when I
mentioned the
Minnie Lansbury clock they asked "Is she related to Angela
Lansbury" (Sort of Minnie was her grandfathers first wife
when the
clock needed work done she put 5K or so into the fund) and
shot off
to take photos

....And then we wonder why American tourists have a bad
reputation in
Europe! At least, in the UK they are justified in expecting
the natives
to speak English. (One of the prime complaints against us in
other
countries.)

I don't understand. What did she say that was objectionable? I
mean,
she was on the right track, wasn't she? Minnie *did* have a
connection
with Angela, if not by blood, then by marriage, so how was this an
example of being an obnoxious tourist?

You are right; she did NOT say anything objectionable. What I
believe
Lesley
was LOL pointing out was not a big deal of Merkin tourists being
"obnoxious"
but simply pointing out that as tourists out of USA , they have the
attention
span of a gnat when someone *they ask* on the street (a stranger, if
you will)
tries to inform them of the answer to their historical
question......they run off
to shoot photos of the local sights . Kinda airhead behavior but not
obnoxious,
just thoughtless.
Feel free to disagree with my interpretation.

OK, no problem. I don't disagree. I was just thrown off because first,
the story didn't sound very bad to me, and then Evelyn was talking about
people expecting people to speak English? What did that have to do with
anything? :)

However, I have to say that American tourists do not corner the market
on airheadedness or short attention spans. Airheads come from everywhere
and they come in every size, shape and color!

It's funny - I know I don't come off as the most patriotic type, and I
have a lot of criticisms of our government, our economic system, and
many aspects of our culture. If someone outside the US criticizes those
things, I can only agree with them. Even when it's a caustic criticism,
like when Jack said that the goal in the US is to burn up every last
bit of available energy. It's embarrassing to hear that, but I can't
deny that we are the biggest wasters of energy in the world.

Actually, thats not entirely true. Australians are, per capita, the
biggest emitters of carbon on this fair planet.

And I do
think people outside the US have every right to criticize it because
it affects them, too. This country has an abysmal energy policy.

But when people confuse American *policy* with American *people*, and
start critisizing or making fun of us as individuals, I really bristle
at that. How is that different from any other prejudice? We aren't all
alike, any more than members of any ethnic or national or racial group
are all alike.

You are right, Joyce, blaming individuals for the actions that their
country undertook is a form of racism, although its darn hard not to,
sometimes.

The USA is a democratic country. The people who make the decisions about
what *America* does was elected by *Americans*. Therefore, the actions of
America cannot be entirely decoupled from 'the will of the people' (even
if you personally disagree with those actions).

I'd love to chat with you some time about it all, but not in a public
forum. Its too sensitive a subject, and we'd be relying a lot on the fact
that we're friends and wouldn't say things with the intent to hurt or to
troll. This sort of stuff could easily be taken *way* out of context. Feel
free to e-mail me, though.

Yowie

OT - Fireworks?
 

"Yowie" wrote in message
...
On 3/07/2011 8:47 AM, CatNipped wrote:
I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place of such history -
any longer than a couple of centuries' worth.


You, like I, live in a country with many thousands of years of human
history. Its just not Western history.

Yowie

Got me there! ; And it's more an oral history than a written one. And
seeing that I'm part native American I shouldn't have made that gaff to
being with! shame faced

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, created by "Yowie", maintained by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.net/rpcablog/

Email: L(dot)T(dot)Crews(at)comcast(dot)net

OT - Fireworks?
 

On 2011-07-02, Lesley wrote:
On Jul 2, 11:01*am, hopitus wrote:

You did forget "Special K".

That must be American over here "Special K" is a diet breakfast
cereal!

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furball

A little rpca content sneaked in because Special K is the veterinary drug
Ketamine.

Bud

OT - Fireworks?
 

Ketamine is actually a treatment for RSD - they put you into a coma to
administer it. I never had the nerve (much less know any doctors) to do it.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, created by "Yowie", maintained by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.net/rpcablog/

Email: L(dot)T(dot)Crews(at)comcast(dot)net


wrote in message
...
On 2011-07-02, Lesley wrote:
On Jul 2, 11:01 am, hopitus wrote:

You did forget "Special K".

That must be American over here "Special K" is a diet breakfast
cereal!

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furball

A little rpca content sneaked in because Special K is the veterinary drug
Ketamine.

Bud

OT - Fireworks?
 

wrote:
"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

Lesley wrote:

On Jul 2, 11:01 am, hopitus wrote:

You did forget "Special K".

That must be American over here "Special K" is a diet breakfast
cereal!

Here, too! (Where does it mean something else?)

It's a drug name in the US as well. I believe it's ketamine, but I might
be wrong. Ketamine is a heavy-duty animal trank, often used for anasthesia
during surgery.

I'm wondering what "Charlie" is, if it's not what American soldiers
called the North Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam war.

And *what* are Catherine Wheels and Roman Candle?? It sounds like
someone's building a torture dungeon.

Kinds of fireworks - "Catherine Wheels" are mounted on vertical surfaces
and spin around in circles of colored fire. "Roman Candles" are hand
held, and shoot out colored balls of flame.

OT - Fireworks?
 

Yowie wrote:
On 3/07/2011 3:32 AM, CatNipped wrote:
LOL! Your post sent me back to a childhood of playgrounds set in
concrete.
Bones had to be sticking out of skin before anyone was sissy enough to go
home crying to mom when we fell off the top of the monkey bars or
"tightrope
walking" on the top of the extra tall swing set - not to mention
trying to
get the swing to go completely around in a circle and more often than not
banging into the steel posts instead. Then there was the ever popular
child's game of "Lawn Darts" where children stood on opposite sides of
the
lawn and threw very large steel spikes at the target at one child's
feet -
can't tell you how many times I had to pull a dart out of my leg.

There were public pools that kids could attend alone at any age, dive off
the high dive 25 - 30 feet above the deep end of the pool, and drown
if the
lone "lifeguard" happened to be flirting with a pretty girl at the time.

Not to mention being basically kicked out of the front door with a
backpack
of sandwiches at first light and not allowed to come back (even had we
wanted) until after dark. I lived next to a large copse of wild woods
with
many wild animals, such as nutria (think rats on steroids - they could
take
on a large dog and win). there were streams to cross on a fallen log,
trees
to climb to serious heights, ropes strung across the trees to swing on
like
Tarzan or make a rope bridge. To build tree houses we had to "borrow"
from
our garages machetes, axes, hammers, ten-penny nails. saws, etc. - all of
which we were never taught how to safely use - we either figured it
out or
lost a piece of finger. Any less serious injury was treated with spit
and a
mud pack (it's amazing how few infections we had - I guess we built
immunities pretty quickly).

I sometimes think that we were still practicing "evolution in action" in
those times. Anyone smart enough to live through a childhood like
that had
the privilege to grow up to marry and contribute to the gene pool.

I walk past the playgrounds of today, with their moss and wood chip
ground
cover - nothing high, nothing steel, everything a very light plastic, no
monkey bars, no see-saws and more often than not totally deserted (how
could
kids possibly have fun on those unthrilling, vanilla "toys"). And
children
have to be accompanied by parents, they're not allowed to venture
anywhere
on their own now-a-days (even if they should desire a few minutes away
from
their Nintendos and WIIs). It's all pretty sad really. And I'm sure
it's
why so *MANY* of our children in the US are seriously overweight and
having
*HEART ATTACKS* in their *TEENS*!!! That was unheard of when I was
young.
There was maybe one poor child in the whole school whose single mother
coddled into overweight and that poor child was teased and hounded to
misery
(there weren't any awareness programs about the damage this did). I can
say, righteously, that I was not a teaser - having lost my dad at age
4 and
being brighter than my peers caused me enough teasing and grief from my
peers that I could empathize all too well.

Most of that is due to the culture of suing if a child gets hurt. If
local councils choose to put in play areas for children, they have to be
as safe as possible and have signs all around saying that children have
to be supervised at all times and that any use is solely at the user's
risk.

Combined with the general culture that sees 'outside' as a big scary
place and that 'unsupervised' children are 'neglected', and you have an
indoor culture. According to current wisdom over here, children should
not be left unsupervised for any length of time until they are at least
12. I was walking to and from school which was just under a mile each
way by the time I was 7. Sometimes I walked with friends, but often I
walked alone. I knew how to cross a road, and not to talk to strangers
/unless it was an emergency/. I knew how to dial emergency on a public
phone, and knew my next door neighbour's phone number (we didn't have a
phone) if something happened and needed to contact my parents. I fell
over and grazed verious bits of me more times than I could coung, got
sunburnt, got beat up by a boy I liked once, and was even approached by
a stranger once (I don't know if he was dangerous or just 'not right in
the head' - I ran home). I went to the shops for Mum to pick up milk and
bread and like you had the kicked-out-in-the-morning, be-home-by-dusk
curfew. WOuldn't, and couldn't, happen now though - that would be
considered neglect.

Unless crime in Australia has lagged behind the U.S., it's not a
question of "neglect", it just isn't SAFE! (When I was a kid, little
boys were never seen in the ladies' lav in department stores, either,
but nowadays it's not really safe to let them use the mens' with no
attendant parent or companion.)