Thank you for saying this. I’ve traveled all over the US and this sort of extreme poverty happens everywhere, and is rarely acknowledged. I’ve been to a town of 1000+ people that was just shacks, no electricity or running water or even insulation. I’ve talked to people in New England begging for money to fuel their…

As someone who grew up in New Mexico, I can assure you that we absolutely do eat that much cheese, and we do put chile on literally everything. And we miss it like crazy if we move away. Like, my sister and I both flew in from out-of-town for the holidays, and both of us were immediately like, “Let’s go to Los Cuates!”

Many of them don’t even get paid that much. Public defenders typically make very little (relatively speaking), for example.

Immaculate conception is primarily a Catholic thing. Very few non-Catholics believe in it, including most non-trinitarian sects. At least that’s my understanding.

I can see that, but I think the same argument can be made for a lot of other modifications. Mother-of-pearl grips and scrollwork make some revolvers look like a prop out of some spaghetti western. I’ve seen camouflage-pattern guns that look like toy rifles I grew up with. You get the idea.

Another gun owner here who fully supports Obama’s actions. Gun violence in our country is absolutely out of control and these are remarkably small steps to try to curb it. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even understand how people can oppose this stuff.

I’m not the person you asked, but honestly, I don’t really see how pink guns are much different from etchings or pearl/wood/whatever grips or any of the many other aesthetic modifications people make to their weapons. I don’t care for them myself, but it’s personal preference (and the fact that it feels kind of like…

I don’t know specifically about Jolie’s kids, but I know that adopting out children that actually do have families is a huge problem with international adoptions like the kind she participated in. Often the parents are lied to and told that it’s just a temporary placement, or that the child is just going overseas for…

Pinkeye is just a colloquial term for conjunctivitis, which has a ton of causes and definitely isn’t just an American thing. ;) Staph infections are a common cause, as well as a few different viruses. Even environmental factors can cause it, although that type obviously isn’t contagious.

I used to have it done every week as part of my physical therapy for a torn shoulder muscle, and I have to admit, it did really feel good. I was skeptical but it was free (well, part of the PT that my insurance was paying for). I had two therapy sessions a week and one ended with cupping while the other ended with…

They are usually purebred, although they’re typically more from pet/show lines than working lines.* The coat is gorgeous, but it’s not as suited for all-weather work as the typical short double coat, both in terms of grooming requirements and insulation/water resistance. Which always kind of made me sad, because I…

It definitely does! Herding dogs are my first love (I grew up on a ranch, kept a herd of goats for years, and competed in herding trials with my dogs) and I used to work closely with a border collie rescue. I’d get all the “crazy” fosters, and like 95% of the time, they’d be totally different dogs after just a couple…

It’s definitely not something most people understand if they don’t have experience with it. :) Your dog sounds lovely. And just for the record, I love mutts and recommend them for most people looking for a companion, and I think a lot of people place way too much value on dogs being purebred just for the sake of being…

When you have working dogs, it is pretty important to know specifically what you’re getting. To use your herding example, different herding breeds work differently. It can be difficult to manage two different styles (say, a border collie which tends to use more of a hard stare and heading off stock and a heeler which…

As someone who works with donated body parts, all the handwringing about the tone of the discussions just about made my head explode. The videos I saw were perfectly fine; the tone was matter-of-fact and not sentimental, but that’s how everyone who works with any kind of donated tissue or bodies talks. If we all had…

Me too, but then it wouldn’t have been much of a TV show. ;)

In the show, it was a guy who had frozen his sperm due to cancer treatments potentially rendering him infertile, and it was supposed to be used on his wife but was used on the wrong woman. It was also his only viable sample, IIRC. So there are *some* similarities, I guess, but it’s a bit of a stretch.

I know a few people who have hunted bear and they do eat the meat. I’m sure not everyong does, and the primary purpose for my friends was to get the pelt, but they didn’t want to waste the meat.

I was a little put off by this article too, but I’m more familiar with his conservation work than his fashion stuff. I knew he’d founded TNF and Esprit and that definitely allowed him to do the work he did, but the man’s main love (from what I could tell) was conservation and the outdoors. He and his wife, Kris, were…

I fucking love Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. At first I thought I just loved it because I was young enough when it came out that it was cool and I hadn’t watched it in ages, but I recently rewatched it on Netflix and nope, I still love it.