Hi folks!
A few of you have apparently been bothered by the image I’ve sent out in my last few emails (for those of you who subscribe to the blog via email). Well, basically? Tough. Those people are all members of my family, and I love them, and I think the picture is kind of fun. Still, I’ll handle some of the objections below.
- Yes, that there is a transgendered teen. No, I don’t care if her existence offends you. We love her around here. As for which bathroom she uses, I have to say (a) I don’t care, and (b) I don’t think she has an option that won’t offend somebody, so the hell with it
- No, those are not foster kids. I don’t post pictures of foster kids online. Yes, those adult-type people you see in the picture used to live with us. What of it?
- Yes, that’s a glass of whiskey sitting next to me. Sometimes I drink the stuff. Specifically, it’s the 15-year-old Laphroaig. If that matters to you. It certainly did to me! Good stuff.
- Yes, there are a couple of cigars in the picture. It was Thanksgiving, and a couple of us indulged. Yes, there’s a small child present. Outdoors, and with a breeze, and no, you can’t point to a study that shows the effect (good, bad, or indifferent) of a kid–or anyone else–smelling a lit cigar once every few months. Or every week, for that matter. Or even, it turns out, every day. That sort of “if a lot of something is harmful, a little bit must also be harmful” thinking is, frankly, just silliness. Sorry if that’s not PC enough for you. Jacob Sullum over at Reason has quite a bit to say on the subject of cigars specifically, but if you like we can get into the notion in general at some point. Science may not work the way you think it does.
- You are of course welcome to your own opinions. I encourage you to hold them, and act on them, whenever feasible. Y’all help make life interesting that way.
Okay. I’ve posted the above, so I won’t reply to further email on the above subjects. Unless I want to, of course.
That said…I’m pretty excited. Just two more days till September 1. I’ve carved out my first-thing-in-the-morning time for the month, and a bit more time Monday-Friday, and I’m looking forward to reading whatever stories result.
So. Have fun out there!
Wow. Just wow. I saw the photo, I noticed the cigars, and a few people that have that look people get at the end of a long, busy, fun day. Nothing unusual or offensive. I must be missing something, I didn’t notice anything that would offend me.
I did look and thought that this was a cool pic of your friends/family hatching some plot to take over the world. The hula hoop in the background might play a huge part in that plan. The guy in front looks tired, like he argued for his method and had to compromise. The guy and girl on the opposite side probably got their way and don’t want to rub it in to the rest of you. They are cool for only being a tiny bit smug about it.
One more day, c’mon September.
Yeah…the thing is, I don’t mind conflict and arguments (I enjoy ’em), but it really didn’t occur to me that folks would object to that pic. Some people unsubscribed, and I got three emails. One was a long rant, one was a nasty one-liner, and one took the passive-aggressive more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tack. Interestingly, the people who sent me email didn’t unsubscribe. Maybe they will now? Beats me.
From my POV, it’s just my family. Not all of my family, or even a majority, but some of ’em are in there. I don’t generally agree with anyone at all about anything political, so disagreement is sort of natural and expected, but the pic wasn’t about politics in my mind. Just some of my peeps. Thought I’d share an amusing picture of ’em.
On the world domination front, shh! Nobody can know about that. Yet. But watch out for apparently-local power outages….
And oh yeah! One more day! I was tempted to try to cheat and write some stuff in advance, but that kind of messes with the magic if any. We’ll see how it goes.