Back in the day, you COULD string your own telephone line to your house from the pole in the alley. 

I wondered - I had a feeling that may have been the case.

I saw that after I replied, thanks. My own views on this have become much clearer and stronger as a result of the whole incident. I wouldn’t have made that reply if I’d seen your later posts.

This is a hard thing to process. I’m finding it to be so as well. I think ultimately it’s a very good thing that the incident has started an ongoing, very necessary conversation. 

Whether or not anyone got physically hurt to the satisfaction of a television viewer, that is what is immaterial. Couldn’t be MORE immaterial.

If a slap is performed, it is violence which is being performed. There’s no such thing as a non-violent slap. No. Such. Thing.

It was baroque and impractical and weird and beautiful and stupid and still one of my favorite things. Mainly because I loved the idea of him sitting alone in the dark, brooding and waiting. I respect the objections to this iteration of Batman! I also love it.

Used to be there was a hotline from the Commissioner of the Gotham Police Dept directly to the Bat-Cave. Or somewhere in Wayne Manor. It was a dedicated landline. For some reason though I don’t associate it with the Bat-Signal, and don’t remember them being used both together.

Then it registers for you incorrectly. It really does. The words aren’t anything but drama. The slap is something else.

My mother slapped me from the time I was a baby, in public as well as private, and people at most turned their heads and “tsk-tsk”ed about it (over and over, year after year, family included). Tell me it’s not violence. It’s violence. 

Then by all means, get up and slap someone in public you DO know. Slap your boss, for being a boss. Slap the bus driver! You probably know the bus driver about as well as Will Smith knows Chris Rock.  Would you be surprised to find there are repercussions?

And dismissing it as “kindergarten stuff we learn to outgrow” is...so wrongheaded! The stuff you learn in kindergarten is the most basic stuff about how to function in a society, outside of your home! What else do you learn in kindergarten that you don’t have a need for later?

It just fucking gripes me that we have to keep saying this over and over and over. It’s so obvious. Whatever anyone’s feelings, it was assault. It was violence.

Bingo.

“I don’t FEEL like taking selfies while driving was wrong. Your honor.”

Whether he “felt like” he was assaulted or not, he was assaulted. That fact isn’t dependent on anyone’s feelings. 

An act of violence which a lot of people want to say is justified. Which it isn’t, in any way.

I will always blame “Star Wars” for this tendency, which began with Darth Vader’s redemption and becoming a Force Ghost/angel at the end of “Return of the Jedi”. I really can’t think of it being a thing before that.

Yeah, “alright” used to bug me too, then I dug a little and...yeah. It’s fine.

It’s your turn, Sam Barsanti. Every time.