I recall learning a definition of class that revolved around the axes of ownership of means of production and authority over workers. Having neither makes one working class, having the former makes one old middle class, the latter new middle class, and both upper class. It's a fairly flexible way to look at it.

Are they experiencing consequences for this? If not, one of those young women is going to snap and your school is going to have a lot more on its hands than that. The administration must be tearing its collective hair out.

That seems likely. There will always be a certain fatigue that sets in with the incumbent party, especially after two terms. Whether or not it's justified, people who had trouble in those terms might blame the party that's been theoretically running the show during that time. As always, life is more complicated…

Oh lord, this is exactly the kind of thing that Trump's going to suck at handling, too. Someone is going to need to step up their diplomacy for the sake of avoiding war.

I don't know if a large group of people can reflect on itself, being a group and not an individual. I think that might be part of the problem with party politics. Even if one member examines the party, many more probably won't.

The strange thing about politics is that large numbers of people, all of whom are different, get represented by a very, very small number of people who may or may not speak for the interests of any of them. Whether it's democracy, monarchy, various flavours of dictatorship, etc., the many always seem to end up being…

Did they ever do a Wolverine story that was basically the premise of Lone Wolf and Cub? That seems like the kind of thing that someone would have done with the character. It'd be funny if the last Wolverine movie was abruptly as gory as those movies with no warning other than the rating.

You could well be right about what Clinton would have done; the situation with Russia is tense and any false moves could tip that over into conflict. The thing that gets me about a possible US-China conflict is that I didn't think that situation was all that tense up to this point. Would such a war really be over…

That's a good point, especially about social dance. Irish ceili music is much like that when it's intended for accompanying dances.

You weren't wrong!

I have pretty much always chosen friendship over romance and I think that my life is better for it. One of my best friends has always had a "never date friends" rule precisely because she hadn't been able to just go back to friendship afterwards. There has now been a highly notable exception to that, as she added…

I knew a Gord when I was a kid. Don't think I've met too many others. It's a generational thing.

Euge! Placetne mihi.

There's a Mark Knopfler song about Kroc, of all subjects, and it's pretty good.

That was exactly how I thought about pizza when I was 11. I didn't see how it was considered unhealthy.

Here's a highly original thought, everybody: almost anything else that you do with your time is more worth your while than watching Celebrity Apprentice. Unless you're a neo-Nazi out to go do neo-Nazi things, your time is worth more than this bullshit.

In all fairness, it's been hell living through this nuclear war that Jones told me Obama would start the morning after the election. If only we had listened.

High match percentages aren't all they're cracked up to be. My highest match percentage in town is with one of my best friends, with whom sex would be sort of like incest. My new girlfriend is highly compatible with me in real life, but was only 65% compatible on OKC when she messaged me. The numbers are best as a…

I heard the live version. It's more like a sort of modernized poppy western swing than it is country, per se. It honestly isn't a million miles away from something Corb Lund might do in terms of sound. Country has been weird about horns for ages now, but I really don't see why they should make the difference for…

I have to admit, old time purists sometimes drive me up the wall almost as much as bluegrass purists. Just let someone take a solo here and there! You get a great head of steam going, people are into it, and then you just don't let the fiddler cut loose for a verse? Madness.