Thank you for the long comment!

I don’t think Trump’s an angel. But it’s possible that backing off on the traditional model of aid might give Africa some breathing room regardless of US intentions. And I’ve read good things about China’s approach, so if the US were to go that route it might actually help. Who knows?

Those songs were pure gold.

I remember my brother getting excited about these video things on TV and me not understanding the point. I don’t know when MTV started but it was before MuchMusic in Canada.

My information may be out of date. I haven’t seen anything in the media about this, though, and I gather that Poverty Inc is still going strong. If people are doing aid differently now, they should talk about it more, educate us non-specialists.

That is not what I was saying at all. Based on my reading of the issue (one book by an African expert, one by a former World Bank economist), well-meaning aid from the West has not helped Africa, and has even made things worse, over many decades. If the West wants to help, it needs to toss its current model of aid,…

I know. It’s embarrassing. But broken clocks are right twice a day and all that.

I find myself agreeing with Locomotive Jones here, reluctantly. Foreign Aid does not work very well/does not work at all. We’ve had decades of it, in various forms, and yet Africa is for the most part not getting any better. There are real valid arguments that it might even make things worse. Charity at home works…

I feel old. For me it was Madonna’s first album, Wham!’s first album (imported), the first B-52s album, Alan Parsons Project (yes, I’m embarrassed), ABBA, ABBA, ABBA, and the first Aha album.

You’re a sample size of one. Researchers looking at large groups of people say that, overall, it doesn’t work.

I think it’s abuse. How hard is “don’t hit people”?

They made a full length movie about Grey Owl. That’s how they got Brosnan.

I did the 23andme test, and they told me I have trace amounts of SubSaharan African and Native American, and I found it frustrating that there’s nothing in my family history that would tell me who these people were and how they got into my whiter-than-white establishment family. I’m still whiter than anyone, just…

I’m worried that Quine expects “drastic, internal completeness” from this surgery. My understanding of transitioning is that it doesn’t guarantee anything. Some people find it helpful, but some continue to have the same mental health problems they had before the surgery. Some even detransition again because…

A vacuum cleaner, instead of an electric broom.

They did that in Montreal. Though every once in a while they’d bring out the big dump trucks and cart it all off somewhere else. It must have cost them a lot of money. They also cleaned the streets twice a week in summer, spitting stones leftover from winter onto the sidewalks (which only got cleaned once in the…

How big is your driveway? Regular size, double wide, country lane?

Yeah, I felt like I was pooping, too. Bizarre.

I was wondering if anyone else found anal easier than vaginal. I could get it in my vagina, but it hurt a lot (still does, am seeing yet another specialist next week). Anal, for some reason, did not hurt. I didn’t like it though, and said “never again”. It was just too weird for me.

My grandmother was wiry/shrivelled. (She couldn’t eat well at the end.) The Queen, however, is quite thick through the middle. Big bust, no waist left. Solid. I notice it because I’m not as slender as I used to be either, and I see that a lot of older women thicken up. Not that that makes me feel better about it.