Yes, you are - but that still doesn't make your attitude any more justifiable. The right to speak,

even when you're essentially telling others to shut up, will not save you the discomfort of contrary responses, with which I totally agree btw.

My dad was a career military man, and so were my brothers.

If any of us had said a single word promoting war, I shudder to think of the consequences. Among many other things, General Omar Bradley was right about Nam: wrong time, wrong place, wrong war. People who think like Patton would bring on WWIII in a heartbeat. Then we could all go up in flames - but that would sure show the Ruskies!

Are we then to discuss only matters you yourself find worthy?

This is an enormously critical situation. Instead of demeaning those who bother to comment on it, why not instead celebrate the good sense and solidarity of purpose (for once) being expressed? I find good sense and solidarity worthy of applause.

Even the Irish can't argue with Sun Tzu. No point starting a fight nobody can win.

I'm always in awe of that man's powerful influence reaching across the centuries.

I was going to write you a specific thanks, but will instead refer you to my post #72.

Obvious though it might be to those older and wiser, the point DOES need to be stated for the sake

of our lurkers, trolls, and potentially ignorant passersby. Maybe even the silent DUer at risk from the forces of darkness to be found everywhere IRL. I find the OP timely and appreciate it. Just because there's not a general hue and cry for WAR! here, at least not as yet, doesn't detract from the value of the statement one whit.

Depraved GOP Poster Boy!

Can't say more now, gotta run puke.

Thank you, all truly wonderful ideas if a person has $ and/or lives near civilization. Neither

applies to me. Somebody gave me the 4 bags of beans because they didn't know what to do with them. I have no idea where their friend got the beans, but it certainly wasn't anywhere around here. Although it's the county seat, by golly, this speck on the road is so small it doesn't even appear on many maps.

It makes most people laugh. For some reason. They know my gallows humor, and I know theirs.

But I know, nothing like an iron skillet if you can't find anything else...

Unfortunately, no... I don't have a mortar and pestle. Never saw one in this area's minimal

shops. Some of the stuff I thought I had in the Penske when I moved here disappeared between the time I packed and unpacked.

More unfortunately, it was not atypical when a 30-something guy here bragged to me that his girlfriend had almost made it through 11th grade. Not that he made it anywhere near that far, but he still declared himself an exceptional intellectual. There's absolutely no end to the amount of crap in people's 'brains' around here. But that's how they grew up, and since they don't see where it hurt them a bit, they totally believe there's nothing else of value to know that they don't already. They will tell you, for instance, with the straightest face in the world that the bread you might feed your dog will literally transform itself into worms.

Here's perhaps the saddest consequence of their xenophobia: a mother (whose husband was the banker) bragged to me about how her daughter turned tail and ran back home when she was sent to college in Chicago. They're rich enough that I could easily believe the setup described: a lakeside apartment in a prime building with a doorman etc. But the daughter 'realized' where she belonged and quickly fled home. The world on a platter at her feet, and the pitiful creature turned up her nose at it. Now, with what passes here for a high school diploma, she's the bank's senior officer since her parents retired. Who needs book larnin' anyhow? They already know that the outside world is evil and to be sampled at their own peril.

No, I'd almost bet my life that half these folks wouldn't know what a mortar and pestle is for, at least in the kitchen. If they don't already (think they) know something, they certainly don't need to. Direct quote there, pal.