Honestly, things had been so rough in the beginning of 2020 for me personally, when the pandemic stuff started to kick in it almost didn’t register with me emotionally. For the first couple months everyone else was freaking out, but I was already maxed out on other stuff.

Isn’t almost impressive, how someone can be having their life completely fall apart around them, but still insist that “that group’s for people with real problems, I’m not like them...”? People can be so oblivious to their own realities.  

Right, but you’re talking about PTSD, not bipolar, which are two very different things, with different treatment options, etc. Some cases do require abstinence.  I’m glad you’ve figured out something that works for you, though.  

Oof, that sucks - I’m sorry.  I completely know what you mean wrt feeling like the person you originally knew is gone, but thankfully in my case they’ve managed to turn things around this year, and seem pretty stable (and totally sober), but it was really touch and go, and there were times I was very close to giving…

I have my own experience with someone who was in denial about their bipolar and thought that their alcohol use was under control. They viewed alcohol as a way of “medicating” their mental health issues, and saw no red flags in that.  I don’t have high hopes for Lovato’s path forward being smooth, based on those last…

Fair enough - it definitely could read a few different ways, and the whole thing is just too weird to dismiss.  I wonder if Nestor’s family has commented publicly on how they view the dynamic. 

Fair enough - I just forgot that customer relations is a thing (must be trying to force my tech support days out of my brain)

I’d imagine most orgs would opt out, since having DMs with non-work people can only be negative for productivity

I mean, on the one hand the whole dynamic is deeply creepy, but lots of 19 year olds aren’t financially independent enough to travel to Panama City without their (actual) parents agreeing to finance it (aka allowing it), so I could imagine lots of parents of technically-adult kids saying similar things.  The hitch…

Oh, I’ve heard about Gaetz in the news before, but I didn’t realize he was that guy with the wierdly pointy, off-brand Jack Nicholson eyebrows. This whole thing stinks to high heaven (just like everything about Gaetz, as far as I can tell).

It’s all very “protests too much” - doesn’t seem like anyone’s scrambling to find Prince Charles’ black friend to interview. Which, maybe that’s because there’s literally no one they could get to say nice things about Charles, but this scramble doesn’t reflect well.

It could be that that was them *then*, but he’s gotten a lot more famous since then, and maybe it went to his head.  

He was, but it sounds like Wetterlund implicated him in the toxicity allegations, so jury’s out - possibly not as stand up as we thought/hoped?

Sigh...that’s depressing, but I guess not that surprising.  

Nanjiani would be a particularly big blow for me, because so much of why I like him is his “beta male” thing, as he calls it, and The Big Sick is so tied in with the real life story of him and his wife.  I get that actors’ public persona aren’t necessarily real, but it’s very jarring if the “real” version of…

I hadn’t heard about that, but it makes sense

Who *wants* to see that shit? I get that some people have to see the gory stuff because it’s part of their job, but it’s really beyond messed up to want to see a little girl’s dead body.

Thanks for the historical note - I hadn’t realized other ethnicities were targeted (albeit in much smaller numbers, and a much smaller portion of the overall communities). Regardless, and I can’t believe I have to say this, it is wrong to place *anyone* in a concentration camp based on their ethnicity (or religion,…

Misogyny is in the mix too, but there’s clearly a racist element to how he picked the kinds of business and kinds of women on which he’d focus his hate. This idea that asian women go hand in hand with sex work, so their race was pure coincidence, is racial bias in and of itself, and needs to be examined as such.

Prices have really shot up in the areas surrounding the big cities during the pandemic - city apartment life isn’t so appealing when you have to stay in that apartment and can’t make use of the city’s attractions.  Houses are moving really fast in northern Jersey, for example, and often going for above asking price.