You're absolutely right that it's kind of ridiculous to ban polyamorous marriages, especially given the historical precedent. I think the reason why no one's seriously pursued changing the law yet is because our marriage system is set up on the assumption that a marriage is two people. Legalizing polyamorous marriages…

That is a good strategy. In my experience, by the time the general manager gets involved they usually make damn sure that the bill gets paid, though.

I don't think any of these stories are beyond the bounds of human behavior, at least not to the point where you have substantiative reason to disbelieve them. I can see where there might be some elaboration, but none of this strikes me as outright fabrication. And if you want to get pedantic, we are talking about…

Edit: it should be "only Midwestern Christians are *that* bad." Weirdly worded, sorry.

Yeah, I was an English major too, and as far as I know it didn't give me any magical internet lie detector powers. And as a History major, the truth can be strange.

It's not that all Midwestern Christians are bad, it's that ONLY Midwestern Christians are bad. I've never had a Muslim ask me if I believe in Allah before leaving a tip, or had an orthodox Jewish person be upset that our non-Jewish workers do not cover their hair. People of other religions are simply not used to…

What? My point was that I think it's more difficult to believe stories en masse, because you're confronted with so much absurdity at once, but it's not too hard to believe that one absolutely crazy thing has happened to every server. I don't see how that's attempting to explain a blog to you.

It was also a chain restaurant, and it's likely that they can't really kick people out without corporate raining hell down on them.

I think that the reason you find them unbelievable is because they're all in one place, so the quantity makes it sound odd. But they're all from different people. It's not hard to believe that everybody who works in food service long enough is going to have That One Crazy Asshole come through once.

There's lots of conditions that cause bad body odor. With scaly skin, my guess would be some sort of persistent fungal or autoimmune condition. Though if both mother and son smell bad, it's probably a case of poor hygiene rather than disease.

Because at that point, the GM just wants them to GTFO so that the table can go to someone who's going to pay. While it hurts the server, the restaurant would rather not deal with the hassle of getting them to pay the full amount.

Ugh, this is so fucking depressing. I lived nearby when this happened and there was nothing the newspapers could do do make it sound anything short of abominable and horrifying (which, since this was Detroit, is saying a lot. The newspapers were pretty damn good at justifying and minimizing violence against black…

I would agree with you that the current drug laws in the US are absurd, but I tend to come down more on the side of legalizing other soft drugs rather than banning alcohol. Like rape, I think alcohol abuse is something that's very culturally dependent, and a lot of the drunken violence that occurs is due more to…

And what incentive do colleges have to enforce their bans? They apparently can't even be incentivized to severely punish rapists, and rape is a much more serious and insidious issue than underage drinking.

I don't think that's the best option. For one, there are many college students who are of legal age, and you can't ban people who are legally allowed to from consuming alcohol off-campus (I mean, I suppose you could find a way to, but at a non-religious university I don't think that would fly). Second, that presumes…

I totally agree with you. I also think that focusing too much on any one particular rape case obscures the actual causes of rape, because sexual assault in particular is a crime that has a lot to do with context and culture. Which isn't to say that individual rapists aren't responsible for their own actions, but I…

No, that's not victim blaming. Saying "we need to educate people on paying attention to their drinks" isn't the same as saying "when women drink they make themselves victims." I agree that universities need to own up to the reality of campus drinking and educate students on safe drinking instead of pretending they can…

Well actually, there have been many cultures around the world with extremely low instances of rape. Lots of them tend/tended to have very egalitarian views of gender or non-binary gender systems, though, as well as an emphasis on small, tight-knit communities. It's probably impossible to completely, 100% eliminate…

I'm in my twenties, and I really don't think that my generation drinks any more than yours did. I've only been crazy drunk once, and that was on accident when I was an idiot freshman and didn't realize that a shot of vodka does not equal half a glass of vodka (I came from a very sheltered family). I think that people…

Yes, but it involves educating people more on healthy drinking practices and on noticing the behavior of dangerous people rather than banning alcohol. The problem with these bans is that they seem to lay the blame for sexual assault on people drinking and not on their own permissive culture/the actual behavior of…