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Hang With Friends

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Location: Earth
Members: 808
Latest Activity: 2 minutes ago

Come on in, pull up a chair!

Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

Nobody here is into mind games. A discussion started with a loaded guilt-throwing question will be deleted.

This group is not intended to compete with other groups on topics they cover but to "fill in the cracks." Whenever a discussion dwells at length on a topic for which there's an existing group, we urge you to provide members a link to that group to continue along their tangent.

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Please start a discussion to share stories, photos, and videos. Replies will pop up in your "latest activity" and a conversation can develop from the feelings and thoughts you contributed. Groups are built on discussions.

Discussion Forum

A tribute to my father

Started by Brent Feeney. Last reply by Brent Feeney 3 hours ago. 13 Replies 1 Like

So, I guess most of you here know that my dad died back in January of complications of Parkinson's disease. There have been times that have been rough since then, but I'd think it's all part of the process, so to speak.Today was Remembrance Sunday…Continue

Facebook

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Joan Denoo yesterday. 4 Replies 2 Likes

This captures my opinion of Facebook. AN is so much better.Continue

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Comment by Steph S. on July 21, 2012 at 10:40pm: Oh Tony you are so right! Bravo! Such wisdom!

Comment by Tony Carroll on July 21, 2012 at 10:31pm: A society that devalues love devalues that upon which civilized society itself
is based. Should any form of that love for one another be discouraged?

-Scott Bidstrup

Joan, marriage is a simple concept, yet fraught with pitfalls. It is based, in our current society, upon the concept of love, yet it is being subverted, in my opinion, with the thought of sex. Sex is NOT love. Wonderful when you can have both at the same time with another person, but hell, you can have an orgasm by yourself.

Love is a deeper committment, a mature, emotional response. I realize there are different levels of love, and we tend to bandy the word love around like a shuttlecock at a badmition match, but marriage should be based on the fuller, deeper meaning of love. I have told many a male friend that I love them, and invariably, they didn't take it in a sexual manner. They knew what I was saying.

If any two people profess that love, who are any of us to deny it, and try to stop their commitment to each other by something as trivial as denying them the right to marriage?

Comment by Joan Denoo on July 21, 2012 at 10:08pm: Tony, Great history of marriage!

sk8eycat, Sorry, from one who has no sense of humor, I don't get it!

Comment by Joan Denoo on July 21, 2012 at 9:59pm: STFU Oh! that is what it means. Luckily the computer knows all these things.

A new one: DIMI: Don't Insult My Intelligence. Thanks Flying Atheist. (or is that an old one that I just don't know about?) No, I can't find it in the deep, dark, orders of the computer.

Comment by sk8eycat on July 21, 2012 at 4:33pm: Tony, I don't know where or how they learned about the custom, but slaves, who weren't allowed to marry officially, "jumped the broom" in the American south. I remember reading about it, and seeing it performed in Alex Haley's Roots. Both the book and the TV version.

If marraige were a simple agreement between the bride and the groom...why not? It's classier than the un-funny fad of smearing cake on each other's faces at the reception. (When did that start, anyway? I never heard of such a thing in the 1950s and '60s when most of my friends were getting married.)

Comment by Tony Carroll on July 21, 2012 at 2:56pm: @sk8eycat. 'Jumping the broom' is still used colloquilary (sic) around here in this part of East Texas. Hear it in casual conversation all the time.

Comment by Idaho Spud on July 21, 2012 at 1:52pm: Always enjoy seeing people slide around --- as long as it isn't me.

That snowplow driver had to know he was going to cover the news reporter. lol

Comment by sk8eycat on July 21, 2012 at 1:49pm: PS: I just saw a news story about the Aurora, Colo shooting; the perp was described by a former neighbor as a "shy, quiet kid from a nice Presbyterian churchgoing family."

Roger Ebert wrote a good Op-Ed piece titled, "We've Seen This Movie Before"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/opinion/weve-seen-this-movie-before.html

The Usual Pundits will blame this on everything but easy access to military-type weapons in this madhouse we call a country.

Comment by sk8eycat on July 21, 2012 at 1:41pm: Just in case you are feeling sorry for yourself on these 90+ degree days...With humidity!

click on the snowman:

Comment by sk8eycat on July 21, 2012 at 1:38pm: To add to Tony's information...in the times he's talking about, marriage among the upper classes was a formal contract between the husband, wife (and their families since titles/property/inheritance was always involved), and the church...which in those times was also the state. Today, it's still at least a 3-way contract...husband, wife, and state. Why else have a marriage license even for a secular wedding?

What puzzles me is why is any exchange of vows necessary once the license is obtained? If it's meaningful for the couple, fine, but if you get a driver's license, you can wallk out of the building, get behind the wheel, and drive. Same thing for a fishing license. So why isn't a couple officially married as soon as they get the license?

Oh..."once upon a time" common people sometimes married each other by holding hands and jumping over a sword or a broomstick while reciting some lines.... And then they had a par-TAY!