Keep in mind your school was one among probably millions. There are still plenty of schools with extremely lax and liberal dress and grooming codes out there. Similarly, there were plenty of them with extremely strict codes when you were in school, whenever that actually was. I know my own schools in the 90s were…

Gosh knows I’ve been appalled watching my 5yo nephew just tap on every button presented to him, without a moment’s hesitation in games like that. He can’t read them, but I sure as heck can. Apparently noone’s ever taught him that those things sometimes == money spent, and my protests fell on deaf ears. Only a lack of…

Oh not at all. It’s depicted as a slow slide, and he’s shown to have many, many chances to turn around and reverse course. But every time he doubles down on it and makes things worse. Usually backed up by Wonder Woman, who ends up generally agreeing that a brutal dictatorship is the way to go. It all makes a sort of…

The Toy Story movies are some of the most intensely horrifying movies ever made. They are pure existential nightmare.

Got it. So braids aren’t the issue. Thanks.

Are hair extensions required for braids? The article here says the school specifically cares about the hair extensions, but also refers to braids in general as though they were the same thing. This is something I am honestly not familiar with, and I don’t understand.

Er, you seem to be taking my observation as an attack, and that’s not my intent at all. I just wanted to point out an interesting historical antecedent to the issue we’re seeing today that you indirectly referenced. I thought it was interesting.

Yes, but my point was that you used it specifically in the same breath with Dracula, which at the time was NOT public domain at all. It was essentially equivalent at the time to the people now making fan games and having to change them to remove the copyrighted elements. It’s just interesting.

Kind of aside the point here, but I’m amused you called out Nosferatu here, given that it specifically exists because someone wanted to make an adaption of original IP (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and they couldn’t get the rights. So they changed a few details and did it anyway. It seems very relevant here somehow.

I think the real commentary here isn’t so much that having an added narrative is bad, but rather that a very specific and focused one has been added that detracts from the larger presentation. The net effect is a reduction of the overall richness of the experience.

And what they don’t call out here are the kids who attend because they think they have to, even if they don’t want to, even if they know they could technically opt out, because they are aware of the damage it would do to them socially not to attend. It’s not really possible to get those kind of numbers, since by…

Wait, it’s not? I got it from Netflix months ago. It was excellent.

I wish I could be sure I remember eating Hydrox or some other actual off-brand cookie. The ones I remember were unpleasantly stiff compared to Oreos. The taste was different, but not actually worse I suppose. But the texture heartily disagreed with me. I am a very texture-oriented eater.

I frequently watch TV with captions just to help me keep up with dialog at varying volumes, or when people have strong accents and speak fast. They are a real help. But they can also be pretty distracting if you’re not relying on them, especially when the timing isn’t perfectly ideal. A caption that pops up a few…

Tough question! I’d be a kid again in a heartbeat. I recall most of pre-puberty to be pretty happy, so I guess I’d be ok redoing the 80s. Of course, once the hormones hit around age 10 stuff went to shit, and I think I’d rather live that part over in the here and now where I’m more likely to find understanding and…

Without this episode, I’m not sure I would have ever cared that much about the change in actresses. But I never could buy for one moment that 2nd Aunt Viv had anything like this in her. This sort of thing was in her character in general, but this moment brought it into sharpest focus.

No need to be rude. About the 10th time I had to read twice to get my bearings, I was sick of it though.

Please, please stop calling him “Vladimir TrumPutin”. It makes it very confusing to tell who you’re talking about without a close reading.

That is understood. It is simply a matter of degree of acceptability. There is essentially no level of feminine behavior acceptable for a child seen as a boy, transgender or otherwise.

That’s pretty much the same fundamental logic why female same-sex interaction is widely and gladly tolerated in popular media by so many, but male same-sex interaction is still borderline pornographic even in its mildest forms, and when tolerated it usually involves strongly “effiminate” male characters. The…