Breaking the Chain
Now the flag is up!
‘There have always been great whites down here, just not this close to the shore’
Just about confirms the feeling I'm having regarding a certain anniversary of a certain day that happens to fall on the same day of the week as that certain day. This is the kind of sh** they were covering before that terrible and tragic day. Lights were blinking red and all flags were up -- just like at the nursing homes.
[flip to below fold]
The face I saw was that of Dekel Gelbman, 40, an Israeli-born former corporate lawyer who serves as FDNA’s chief executive.
The Globe is talking up impeachment with just days to go before the Sept. 4 primary election, and somehow the solid blue state has a red governor (well, purple anyway).
Related: Lynching Wu
I suppose it's no surprise that the Globe says Stephen Lynch, and his independent streak, deserve another term (not much of an endorsement, is it?), and here is mine:
"My story is about military service. I was an F-15E fighter pilot and commander of the drones with six deployments including combat time in Iraq. I am tired of wars. Our kids should go to prom instead of boot camp. Stephen Lynch voted for Iraq and against leaving Afghanistan. I am working for peace....."
He will not dance, though.
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"Problems persist with missing, delayed Boston school buses" by James Vaznis Globe Staff September 01, 2018
As the Boston school bus drivers contract was set to expire Friday, problems with school buses arriving late or not showing up at their destinations persisted, exasperating city officials, school leaders, and families.
“It’s irresponsible, negligent, and criminal to leave children at bus stops,” said City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, who chairs the Council’s Education Committee. “When we are not picking up kids at bus stops or dropping them off at wrong stops, that is a safety issue. If we can’t keep them safe getting to and from school, we have failed.”
Interim Superintendent Laura Perille declined an interview request Friday and instead issued a statement.
Wanted to get out of there and get her weekend started?
“The hardworking staff of the Boston Public Schools Transportation Department are doing everything possible to ensure all students in Boston are getting to and from school on time and in a safe manner,” Perille said. “I share the public’s concern that we continue to experience ongoing delays for some routes, but we are confident that improvements are forthcoming. We continue to work with our transportation vendor, Transdev, and union counterparts to improve service in time for the first day of school for BPS.”
Okay, problem solved!
A day earlier Mayor Martin J. Walsh publicly apologized to families for the hardships, while voicing his own frustrations.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the $eaport.
The bus drivers union, which is part of the United Steelworkers, did not respond to requests for comment Friday. The group initially authorized a strike vote in June when its contract was originally set to expire. The union subsequently reached a two-month extension of its agreement, which includes a provision that calls for a 48-hour notice of any strike.
Maybe Lynch can help. He came from that world.
The union is fighting for a cost-of-living increase, affordable health care, disability coverage, other benefits, and well-trained bus monitors for every bus, while it opposes such bargaining proposals as outsourcing work and reducing allotted time for daily bus inspections, according to a flier the union released this week.
Thabiti Brown, head of school at Codman Academy in Dorchester, said Friday bus service has improved at his charter school. He said every bus showed up in the morning and in the afternoon Friday, a sharp contrast to Tuesday when four out of six buses never arrived.
“I’m glad they made some strong positive moves,” he said.
City Councilor Kim Janey said she won’t be satisfied until all buses show up at their destinations and no student is left behind.
Bush failed.
“I think it is deeply troubling school buses have been showing up late or not at all and putting the education of our students in jeopardy,” said Janey, who represents Roxbury and parts of Dorchester, the South End, and the Fenway. “If the problem isn’t rectified, the problem will only get worse. I would like to see some urgency in getting the issues resolved.”
Trying but the bus is stuck in traffic.
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Looks like tempers are rising, what with the recent West Nile outbreak, so stay out of the hot tubs.
Be careful driving the kids to school, too:
Father of Marine killed in crash following chase blames Mashpee police and driver
That is regarding the crash in Cotuit, and after an extensive investigation, it was determined that the chase should have been ‘terminated’.
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Bull rider dies after suffering injuries at Norton rodeo
He was a Brazilian.
Related: Final Ferry Ride
Look who else is going up the river (one wonders what he was doing on the streets in the first place).
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Thousands of Vietnamese, including offspring of US troops, could be deported under tough Trump policy
Good thing they missed the ferry.
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I have an idea: Let's bus 'em to Canada!
"White House says trade deal with Canada not dead" by Alan Rappeport and Ana Swanson August 31, 2018
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration told Congress on Friday that it intends to enter into a revised North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and will continue working to keep Canada in the pact as talks between the United States and Canada move into next week.
While sticking points still remain between the United States and Canada, the decision to try to keep a trilateral deal is a significant win for NAFTA supporters and an indication that the Trump administration, despite its threats to leave its northern neighbor behind, wants to keep Canada in the pact.
The decision to try to reach an agreement capped off a rocky negotiating session Friday, as the United States and Canada struggled to reach agreement on several key issues and President Trump continued to disparage Canada. On Friday morning, the US trade representative put out a statement saying that Canada had yet to make any concessions on dairy products, which has become a source of ire for Trump.
The talks were further complicated by a report in the Toronto Star on Friday that quoted off-the-record comments Trump gave during an interview Thursday with Bloomberg News. According to that report, Trump said he had no plans to make concessions to Canada and that any agreement would be “totally on our terms.”
Trump responded in a tweet Friday, saying that his agreement to speak off the record was “blatantly violated.” “Oh well, just more dishonest reporting. I am used to it. At least Canada knows where I stand!” he added.
Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, said she did believe that Robert E. Lighthizer, the US trade representative, was looking for a win-win agreement, but she took a long pause before answering when asked if the United States was negotiating in good faith.
As he met with a group of supporters in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump again groused about the trade balance between the United States and Canada.
“They’ve taken advantage of our country for many years,” Trump said. “They have tremendous trade barriers, and they have tremendous tariffs. Dairy products are almost 300 percent tariffs. Nobody talks about that.”
Negotiators have been working around the clock to hammer out their final areas of disagreement but talks have bogged down over several areas of disagreement.
Canada has insisted on protections for its publishing and broadcasting industries over concerns that these businesses would be overwhelmed by the much larger U.S. market. It has also resisted Trump’s requests to reform its dairy industry. Unlike the United States, which directly subsidizes farmers, Canada uses a supply management system to regulate the volume of imports and keep prices stable for its farmers.
Canada has allowed foreign countries more access to its dairy market in past agreements, and agricultural experts said negotiators were prepared to make similar offers in the current NAFTA negotiations. However, those offers have fallen short of the broad access and substantial reforms the Trump administration has called for.....
I'm so disappointed. It's the kind of thing that breaks a deal.
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Related: As GE shrinks, 800-job promise may lag
They $old us a lemon, and now you kids must bru$h your teeth (still didn't get the coffee stains off).
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Calif. assembly OKs law on net neutrality
EMD Serono names a new president
"Boston fund manager MFS Investment Management has agreed to pay $1.9 million to settle claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission that some of its marketing materials for its “blended research” funds contained inaccurate or misleading information. MFS didn’t admit to the allegations as part of the settlement. The company said it voluntarily discontinued the use of the materials in question in 2015, before the SEC’s investigation, and noted that the SEC made no finding of intentional wrongdoing or losses to clients."
Maybe we can sue the pre$$ for each edition over the course of decades.
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Lobbyist says he illegally helped Russian and Ukrainian buy tickets to Trump inauguration
It's New York Times and it has absolutely nothing to do with Trump, 2016, or Russian collusion.
It's FAKE NEWS!!!
Meanwhile, I'm told a Russian crooner who bridged eras, embraced Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and sang a duet in 2014 with Alexandxer Zakharchenko, leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic set up by Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine, died at 80.
Zakharchenko won't be attending the funeral:
Leader of self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic killed in E. Ukraine blast
Along with ten other people, while the republic's finance minister is in grave condition -- unless it's all fake and involves a certain country's security services whose entanglements remain shrouded in darkness.
Lawyer was reportedly told Russia had ‘Trump over a barrel’
Now the Globe is using Bruce Ohr to try and legitimize the Steele Dossier despite the years-old-stench of urine that is coming from it. How shameful!
If the Clintons had a newspaper it would be the Bo$ton Globe.
Somehow the Globe missed Elahe Izadi's eulogy at Aretha Franklin's funeral, but they were kind enough to call:
Neo-Nazi group making robocalls about Iowa student’s death
Now the Jewspew propaganda using Nazi cover for their agenda-pushing false flag divisions to besmirch her memory.
This paper is such twisted agenda-pushing propaganda today it is disgusting, an enemy of the people indeed!
Pennsylvania bishop punishes predecessor over clergy abuse
The punishment isn't enough until they all burn in hellfire.
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I'm going to save you the time when it comes to this story, and I have a confession to make: it's like the Globe is in an ‘alternative universe’ these days.
"S. Korean envoy to travel to North for pre-summit talks" by Hyung-Jin Kim Associated Press August 31, 2018
SEOUL — South Korea’s president will send a special delegation to North Korea next week for talks on a nuclear standoff and to set up a summit planned for next month, his office said Friday.
The planned trip on Wednesday comes amid growing worry over the slow pace of getting North Korea to end its nuclear program following President Trump’s Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June. Trump declared that summit a success and suggested the nuclear issue would be solved, but there has since been widespread doubt over Kim’s willingness to relinquish his nukes. Many analysts believe that Kim sees them as crucial for staying in power.....
The only thing that worries me is a war-promoting pre$$ that constantly pooh-poohs on peace.
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Turns out it is Moon Jae-in that needs to be looking over his shoulder, for when the missiles come flying he will find out there is nowhere to turn but to Trump.
This next item was the World lead in my printed paper, but was nowhere to be found when I went to find it:
"US ends funding of UN agency for Palestinian refugees" By Susannah George Associated Press August 31, 2018
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is ending its decades of funding for the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees, the State Department announced Friday, a week after slashing bilateral U.S. aid for projects in the West Bank and Gaza.
The U.S. supplies nearly 30 percent of the total budget of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, and had been demanding reforms in the way it is run. The department said in a written statement that the United States ‘‘will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation.’’ The decision cuts nearly $300 million of planned support.
It comes as President Donald Trump and his Middle East pointmen, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, prepare for the rollout of a much-vaunted but as yet unclear peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians, and it could intensify Palestinian suspicions that Washington is using the humanitarian funding as leverage.
I don't think they are using it as leverage. I think the "peace plan" is a Zettler plan.
The Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias, notably after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May. The Palestinian Authority broke off contact with the U.S. after the Jerusalem announcement.
In 2016, the U.S. donated $355 million to the UNRWA, which provides health care, education and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and it was set to make a similar contribution this year. In January the Trump administration released $60 million in funds but withheld a further $65 million it had been due to provide. The remaining amount — around $290 million — had yet to be allocated.
A mere pittance when one considered the billions in money and arms that flow from AmeriKa to Israhell.
‘‘When we made a U.S. contribution of $60 million in January, we made it clear that the United States was no longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA’s costs that we had assumed for many years,’’ the statement said. ‘‘Several countries, including Jordan, Egypt, Sweden, Qatar, and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) have shown leadership in addressing this problem, but the overall international response has not been sufficient.’’
Looks to me like they are cutting the Palestinians loose.
The statement criticized the ‘‘fundamental business model and fiscal practices’’ of UNRWA, and what the department characterized as the ‘‘endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries.’’
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the war that led to Israel’s establishment in 1948. Today, there are an estimated 5 million refugees and their descendants, mostly scattered across the region — a figure that has become a point of contention. Palestinian leaders assert the right of those refugees to return to land now under Israeli control.
It's ethnic cleansing, but it's okay when Israel does it.
Last Friday, the State Department announced the U.S. was cutting more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman called that U.S. decision an attempt to force the Palestinians to abandon their claim to Jerusalem.
Speaking before the announcement on UNRWA, its representative in Washington, Elizabeth Campbell, said the withdrawal of U.S. funding would leave the agency facing a financial crisis, but noted that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and others have provided more than $200 million in new funding to help cover its budget this year.
In recent days, senior Trump administration officials publicly expressed dissatisfaction with UNRWA but stopped short of saying the U.S. would defund the agency.
On Tuesday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, complained that ‘‘Palestinians continue to bash America’’ although it’s the main donor for UNRWA. Speaking at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, Haley also said, ‘‘we have to look at right of return’’ of those classified as Palestinian refugees. She called on Middle East nations to increase aid.
That rabid, blood-from-the-fangs *itch was speaking before a Zioni$t $tink tank whose founding was in early 2001:
"A tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself. At first, Emet floundered, without an executive director or a well-defined mission. But that changed after Sept. 11, and Emet changed too, into what is now the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The name is different, but the goal of influencing America's opinion-forming classes remains. What makes all of this possible is the support the foundation receives from its billionaire backers. Its nearly $3 million annual budget comes from 27 major donors, most of whom are members of "the Study Group"--also sometimes called the "Mega Group" because of their sizeable contributions--a semi-formal organization of major Jewish philanthropists who meet twice a year to discuss joint projects. Leonard Abramson was the point man for establishing Emet. He, Michael Steinhardt, and Edgar Bronfman were the foundation's board of directors at the time of its incorporation in the spring of 2001....."
Yeah,"We are Israelis. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are your problem," and here is what his daughter has been up to:
"An heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune was arrested Tuesday in connection with her work with an upstate New York self-improvement organization accused of branding some of its female followers and forcing them into unwanted sex. Clare Bronfman, a daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., and three other people associated with the NXIVM organization were taken into custody and charged with racketeering conspiracy, the US attorney’s office announced....."
She claims she was drunk, and she finally knows what it feels like to be a Gazan.
There is deepening international concern over deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the West Bank and Gaza.
Maybe the FDD could help.
The State Department statement said the U.S. will intensify dialogue with the United Nations, host governments and international stakeholders about new models and new approaches to help Palestinians, especially schoolchildren, which may include direct bilateral assistance from the U.S. and others.
Protesters ran to cover from teargas fired by Israeli troops, while others burn tires near fence of the Gaza Strip border with Israel, during a protest east of Gaza City (Adel Hana/AP).
Oh, so the protests are ongoing still. Globe has pretty much dropped coverage of them since the invasion was called off.
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The print copy I received was a WaComPo pos that was rewritten and reedited:
"U.S. ends aid to United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees" by Karen DeYoung, Ruth Eglash and Hazem Balousha, August 31, 2018
The United States will no longer contribute to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, the State Department announced Friday, amid widespread Palestinian outrage charging that the decision violates international law and will aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation, particularly in Gaza.
What was it DeNiro said?
The statement called the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, an “irredeemably flawed operation” and criticized other countries for not sharing the burden of supporting the Palestinians.
As they pull all support.
That's one of the problems with the U.S. government; it has spent way too much time in the company of Zionists, so much so that they are staring to act just like them.
Blaming UNRWA and other international donors for failing to reform the organization’s “way of doing business,” the statement said the United States remained “very mindful of and deeply concerned regarding the impact upon innocent Palestinians, especially school children.”
Hollower words have never been spoken.
Among the administration’s many complaints about the agency — to which the United States contributed about one third of a $1.1 billion 2017 budget — is the way the United Nations calculates the number of Palestinians officially recognized as refugees. It would like to change the number from the more than 5 million who are counted today to the few hundred thousand alive when the agency was created seven decades ago, according to U.S. officials.
The administration has generally tried to cut back foreign aid, refocusing its attention on those countries and organizations that match “U.S. policy priorities,” officials said. The UNRWA pullback is also a response, in the words of Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to Palestinian hostility toward the United States, which intensified after U.S. policy changes that Palestinians deem pro-Israel.
The last sentence in that paragraph was verbatim print.
Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the pro-Israel bias of President Trump’s administration has disqualified it from any role in the peace process.
“By cutting aid, the U.S. is violating international law,” Erekat said, speaking several hours before the State Department announcement. He argued that “UNRWA is not a Palestinian agency” but was established by the United Nations, “and there is an international obligation to assist and support it until all the problems of the Palestinian refugees are solved.”
Erekat added: “Some may argue that it is U.S. taxpayers’ money and that it is up to them how it is spent. But by the same token, who gave Trump the damn right to steal my land and my capital and my future and my aspirations and my freedom by deciding to blindly support the occupying power called Israel?”
Erekat also predicted that the potential end of UNRWA, if other funding is not forthcoming, would spell disaster for places where large numbers of Palestinian refugees reside, leaving them at risk for recruitment by extremist groups such as the Islamic State.
UNRWA provides aid, mostly in the form of education, health care, food security and other essentials, to some 800,000 Palestinians registered as refugees in the West Bank and 1.3 million people in the Gaza Strip, as well as 534,000 in Syria, 464,000 in Lebanon and 2 million in Jordan.
Yeah, let 'em eat cake.
The United Nations, both among Palestinians and others, defines refugees as anyone who has been driven from their homes by war, persecution or violence. Descendants of refugees are included, as long as the displacement continues.
All U.N.-registered refugees maintain an internationally recognized “right of return” to their land and homes, an issue that has long been one of the core points of dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reducing the number of eligible refugees — as the administration would like to see happen, although only the U.N. General Assembly can do it — would drastically change the dynamic as the White House prepares to release its own peace plan to resolve the conflict.
Separately, the Trump administration said last week that $200 million slated for direct U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority would be “redirected” elsewhere.
The loss of funds will be hard on the Palestinians, said Ghassan Khatib of the West Bank’s Birzeit University, but will do little to change these people’s status as refugees, he said.
“It is only the U.N. that is entitled to give legal status or a description of refugees, and not individual countries,” he said. “The change in the American position will not have an impact on the international understanding of refugees.”
In Gaza, Amal Khalil, a 53-year-old widow, is worried. She has relied on aid from UNRWA to feed herself and her family for many years.
“It has already been reduced more than once. I do not know that it will be further reduced or stopped completely,” she said.
Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for UNRWA in Gaza, told a local radio station that if funds to the organization were suddenly stopped, the entire education system would be in danger of collapsing, with only enough money to last through September.
You know, hundreds of Gazans protested the UN agency layoffs and pay cuts, including "one staffer who attempted to set himself on fire, but bystanders and colleagues stopped him."
Hit particularly hard would be Jordan, where the 2 million Palestinian refugees — a fifth of the country’s population — use UNRWA’s services. Providing them all health care, education and shelter would fall to the cash-strapped Jordanian government.
Related:
"Jordan is known for its relative stability in an often-tumultuous region, and US officials looked on with concern last week as this key Middle Eastern ally faced its largest street protests since the Arab Spring unrest of 2011. The introduction of the new tax law proved too much for many Jordanians struggling with price hikes amid stagnant economic growth, but while Jordan’s King Abdullah II appears to have averted an immediate crisis, he faces a difficult road ahead as he balances the need to address the country’s economic woes with the demands of an emboldened population. Jordan is embarking on a three-year program of painful economic measures ordered up by the International Monetary Fund to help the kingdom cut its yawning public debt. Living costs in Jordan are already among the highest in the Middle East, and incomes have not kept up. Unemployment is at 18 percent. Fuel prices are more than 50 percent higher than in the United States. Adding to the economic stress are at least 650,000 recent Syrian refugees, on top of a population that includes millions of Palestinians whose ancestors were displaced from their homes long ago. Largely devoid of natural resources, Jordan survives in large part on handouts. While the Trump administration has slashed aid elsewhere, the United States has pledged more money to Jordan, which shares a 150 mile-long border with Israel and is a hub for thousands of US troops, but assistance from Saudi Arabia has dried up as that kingdom faces its own economic squeeze and butts heads with Amman politically....."
I'm sure the war in Yemen hasn't helped.
Yeah, maintaining stability in Jordan has been a top US priority in the region for years, but the unpopular austerity measures followed several days of mass protests across Jordan against the tax plan, the latest in a series of economic reforms sought by the International Monetary Fund to control the rising public debt.
The king looks like he is in good company, and the IMF, and it's known for this, often has very ambitious ideas about reforms.
Good thing there was a terror attack to take attention away from all that.
On Friday, Germany and Japan pledged to donate more, but it is unlikely the increases will cover the U.S. withdrawal.
The agency’s now-uncertain future has left Israelis in a quandary, with members of the security establishment expressing fears of a total collapse of Palestinian society’s infrastructure and what might come in UNRWA’s place.
Awwww, POOOOW WIDDLE F***ING ISWAIL!!!
You wanna be a friend of the people?
Change that tune!
“In Gaza, I am especially concerned that Hamas will take over, which is worrying because even at kindergarten level they educate their young to hate Israel and not to accept any form of peace,” said Amos Gilad, head of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, but Einat Wilf, a former Israeli lawmaker and co-author of a book on the subject, said she would be happy to see the end of UNRWA, which she described as the No. 1 obstacle to peace....
Yes, we would all be happy to see the dissolution of Israel into Palestine once again.
What is worrying is the never-ending Khazar supremacism that accuses the other side of the exact same conduct of which they are guilty.
Besides, after everything Israel has done there for the last 70 years, why wouldn't they be hated?
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"What better way to punish a newspaper than to cause the cost of newsprint to surge so high that it forces staff layoffs and other deep cuts to absorb the sudden price spike? It’s the kind of conniving attack on the mainstream media we have come to expect from Trump, and it was casting a pall over American newspapers — until now....."
I'm sorry, I am SO SICK of the SELF-SERVING WHINING of the Bo$ton Globe!
They are getting worse by the day, and are now trying to pretend it never happened.
Well, we all know what is their future.
Now go to the game and enjoy the Good Life:
She said she wasn’t into monogamy anymore
You know what I'm not into anymore aside from the moral turpitude of the Globe?
$hamele$$ $elf-promotion by certain cho$en people:
"The Dating Issue | Magazine
How Meredith Goldstein became an advice columnist when her own love life was falling apart; An exclusive excerpt from the Love Letters columnist’s new memoir, “Can’t Help Myself.”" by Meredith Goldstein March 22, 2018
IT WAS NOT A GOOD TIME to start writing an advice column. I was not at my best. Not in 2008. I’d always been good at helping friends with their problems; I was the consoling, honest confidante who could make anyone feel better about a breakup or a bad first date, but during that long period of dejection, which lasted a full twelve months, I was the woman crying near the vending machines at work.
I had a special spot where I liked to turn into a puddle — next to two snack machines in the old Boston Globe pressroom where they prepared the circulars, those colorful ads with coupons that fit inside your newspaper. I’d sink to the floor under the glow of the Coke logo and weep, usually for about seven to eight minutes at a time. Sometimes no tears would come, and I’d dry-heave like the wind had been knocked out of me. Sometimes it was a Claire Danes Homeland cry, with a trembling chin and angry whimpers.
As opposed to the new pressroom.
The vending machines were just out of the way of the spot where broad-shouldered men with Boston accents brought stacks of newspapers to and from a freight elevator. If those guys noticed me in tears, they didn’t let on. I’m sure they did notice, though, because my nose blows were mighty, like the trumpet of an elephant, thanks to my sinus polyps, which, according to my ear, nose, and throat doctor, are “very impressive.” I’d never been a big crier, but back then, I couldn’t stop myself from weeping about “Patrick” (not his actual name), my ex-boyfriend and co-worker, who’d dumped me when I’d least expected it.
I'm just going to step back here and marvel at the self-absorption and immaturity coming from the standard bearer of elite femini$m. This weak, quiver creature with her heart shattered. So much for strong women. Even sadder still is the Globe's endless advertisements for her show and book, only because it exposes their supremacism in that the focus is on the Jew millennial dating scene and sort of doing the sleeping around like Seinfeld.
Patrick, who took me to dinner by the beach and bought me cotton candy at Fenway Park. Patrick, who was the tallest guy I’d ever dated (6 feet 6!). Patrick, whose e-mails about our colleagues were so deliciously sarcastic that often I’d have to minimize them seconds after I received them so that no one near my cubicle would see.
Sometimes I’d cry about Patrick because I’d accidentally crossed paths with him in the Globe cafeteria. That kind of run-in was devastating, because he always looked content and relaxed — like the breakup hadn’t ruined his life. He wore his everyday khakis and button-down suit shirt, and chatted with co-workers with an easy smile on his face. I’d hide behind the cafeteria plants thinking, How dare he. How dare he eat.
When was the last time the health department came by?
Other times I cried because I hadn’t run into Patrick. Early on, I thought it would feel better to avoid him, so for the first few months after the breakup I brought a toaster to the office to make my English muffins at my desk. No more cafeteria for me. I would live in my cubicle like it was a panic room. But all the toaster did was attract mice — there were pellets everywhere — and I was no less miserable. Avoiding Patrick made me feel like he could just disappear, like our closeness had never happened.
I just wanted him back. I wanted him to run to my desk and tell me he’d made a mistake by letting me go. “I miss you,” he would say in my fantasies, with the slight Boston accent that got worse when he was drinking. “Let’s go get burgers.”
#MeToo strong!
I was miserable without Patrick — but I never wanted to marry him. I didn’t want to have babies with him. I never even thought we’d move in together. The truth was that the breakup devastated me because I had no intention of marrying Patrick. I’d decided — during our short relationship — that he might be an alternative to everything I didn’t want.
I'm starting to feel sorry for the pathetic little wretch -- almost.
As I entered my 30s, I was surrounded by peers who were either married or looking to be, but I didn’t see myself on that path. I couldn’t imagine living with anyone besides friends, and I had no desire to have kids. Maybe it had something to do with my mom, who gave up a piano performance career to marry my dad, only to get a divorce. She always said she loved raising my sister and me, and that on most days, teaching piano lessons in our living room was a more rewarding use of her Juilliard degrees, but I couldn’t imagine making those sacrifices for a relationship. I liked putting work first, and I loved my freedom. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be alone.
Patrick, a Massachusetts-bred sports fan who worked in the paper’s advertising department, was 37 when we met and seemed to share my lack of interest in marriage and kids. He’d managed to avoid marrying two decades’ worth of girlfriends, and still lived in a Brookline condo he’d bought after graduating from Holy Cross. He enjoyed his status quo, just like me. It all started when he approached me in the cafeteria to tell me he liked my writing, specifically my stories about nightlife and things to do around the city.
“I’m Patrick, from the advertising department,” he said with a big smile. “I liked your story the other day.”
He was blond with broad shoulders and looked like the kind of guy who had masculine nicknames in high school. Like Champ. Or Kicker.
After a few more inevitable run-ins around the building, we started to e-mail. Then we traded phone numbers and began texting. Months later, we shared our first meal outside of work. It took us even more months to admit our regular dinners, most of which were at the Cheesecake Factory, were probably dates. I began sleeping over, sometimes wearing his oversized Timberwolves T-shirt. I’d never dated the kind of guy who had a Timberwolves T-shirt. I didn’t care enough to ask why he was a fan of a team in Minnesota — I didn’t even know what sport the Timberwolves played — but I was happy to wear the uniform.
I fell hard for Patrick and adored all of the ways he was one hundred percent himself — and my opposite. He refused to try new foods, loved the Pogues, and liked to vacation in places like Las Vegas. When bad things happened, he’d spit out one of his many catchphrases: “Sucks to suck.”
People at work were shocked to find out we were dating. Patrick, who was beloved at the Globe, was Catholic and stoic and kept a stack of baseball biographies on his nightstand, whereas I was a Jewish oversharer who slept near a copy of Harry Potter. It didn’t matter, though; on nights we were both free, we could be happy together, ordering fast food, my feet in his lap as we watched television.
I think that is when I started tuning her out.
The thing I liked most about our relationship was that it was always about respecting each other’s separate routines as opposed to combining them. I’d text him while he was out at bars with friends, but never expected to come along. I never felt bad going to a party without Patrick because he never worried about missing out. We could always get together after and talk about the highlights. While other couples I knew took big next steps, Patrick and I stood still. I started to believe that we could maintain our noncommittal cable watching for the rest of our lives — that perhaps two people who weren’t fond of change were meant to stay exactly the same, together.
When he broke up with me, a move I hadn’t seen coming, he sat me down on his beige Jordan’s Furniture couch, under his framed 2004 Boston Red Sox World Series championship mementos, and said something like, “I just don’t see this going anywhere,” and I thought, “Me neither!”
I didn’t want to go anywhere with Patrick. That was the point. But it turned out Patrick was looking for a lot more. He was interested in new experiences and considered his lifestyle to be temporary. He wanted a real partner — maybe a wife — and I wasn’t even close to what he imagined for himself. He just hadn’t said so. I didn’t know where that left me, but I feared the answer was: alone.
After it was over, something changed in me. I stayed home a lot because I didn’t want to hang out with couples. I also avoided single people because they depressed me. I became a mediocre friend. At night, I rewatched every season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because Buffy had been through worse, and it made me feel like I had a destiny. Sometimes I’d watch the same episode a few times in a row while eating frozen waffles in bed.
If I ran into Patrick at work, face to face, my instinct was to bolt before he could talk to me. On rare occasions, though, I’d confront him, looking for more answers. One time I spotted him in the parking lot, near the rows of green Globe delivery trucks, and approached him, telling him that he’d “ruined the Cheesecake Factory for me.” That is something I said out loud.
“I can’t even go there anymore,” I told him. “The Cheesecake Factory was our thing, and now I can’t even set foot inside without getting upset.”
“Nope,” Patrick said, not letting that one pass. “I’m going to have to stop you right there. I did not ruin the [expletive] Cheesecake Factory for you, and you know it. You go to the Cheesecake Factory with everyone you know. You were going to the Cheesecake Factory long before I was around.”
He was right. I went to the Cheesecake Factory with everyone.
“But now the Cheesecake Factory makes me think of you,” I whined, and then grimaced, because I was embarrassed by the person I’d become. I was self-aware enough to know that with my blubbering and begging, I was one pint of ice cream and a flannel blanket away from becoming a more sedentary Bridget Jones, but I couldn’t stop myself. Sometimes breakups turn you into the kind of person you wouldn’t befriend in a million years. Sometimes they turn you into a caricature. In other words, sucks to suck.
IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER the Cheesecake Factory meltdown that my Boston Globe editors considered an idea I’d floated just before the breakup. After covering entertainment, nightlife, and social trends for years, I told my bosses I wanted to write a local advice column. I said I wanted the column to be written for an online community — with a robust comments section — so that it felt like a chat room. I would ask commenters to weigh in with their own advice to make the experience something like group therapy.
I was deeply interested in writing about the way people lived now — the expansion of Facebook, the dawn of text messaging, and the rise of online dating — and this kind of project seemed relevant.
She is looking for a Prince Charming!
From the time she was old enough to know what sex was, my sister, Brette, who’s more of a Bette Midler character, preferred big experiences and excitement, [and] had sexual chemistry with almost every human she met. She lost her virginity when she was 16 to one of the hottest guys at our high school. They did it in her twin bed while my mom was sleeping down the hall. Then they went outside and had sex on our swing set. Brette didn’t care that the hot popular guy was only offering a one-night stand, and that her peers would hear about it and judge. My mom found out about my sister’s virginity loss because Brette wound up doubled over in pain with a urinary tract infection. Even then, Brette had no regrets.
So the whoring around runs in the family?
With Brette, I learned that women can live on their own terms, without caring about rules that someone else set for them.
Yeah, make-up, booze, and open legs are liberation.
That why they are also pro-abortion?
MY EDITORS WERE HESITANT about the advice column idea at first. But one editor of the website wanted to give it a try. The news business was changing, and he needed stories that would make people want to stay online all day. An advice column with a comments section was starting to sound like a good idea.
That's funny because I'm looking to get the Globe slop up and get off as quickly as possible.
I panicked, because the breakup with Patrick had altered my brain. How could I be helpful to readers when it had become clear that I could no longer help myself? I can attribute my rally — in part, at least — to Lisa, an acquaintance from work who was around my age.
Lisa’s husband had died recently in his sleep because of some rare genetic problem that no one would have been able to prevent. Lisa had real troubles and had experienced genuine loss. All of a sudden she was alone in a condo in the suburbs trying to figure out how to start over without her life partner. As I listened to her talk about her new reality, I had enough sense to feel ashamed.
“I’m an idiot,” I told her. “Here I am, devastated about a dumb breakup with a guy I was dating for less than a year, and meanwhile, you lost a spouse. You’re experiencing real grief. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”
Lisa’s response shocked me. She told me I wasn’t stupid at all.
“Sometimes breakups are worse than death,” she explained matter-of-factly. “The pain of rejection is different, but it can cut much deeper.”
That's a tough one to swallow. Even a divorce doesn't end in a fatality.
Lisa told me she was sure that if her husband were alive, he’d want to be with her. The whole point of their marriage was that they never wanted to let each other go.
“But a breakup means that someone is content to live without you,” she said, looking at me like I was the one who deserved pity. “Patrick is healthy and alive and chooses not to have you around.”
It was true. Patrick was in Brookline, on that stupid beige couch, under that framed Globe sports page from 2004 that said “Finally!” probably eating a peanut butter sandwich, not thinking of me at all.
At the end of 2008, I published a call-out for love problems on the Globe’s website and crossed my fingers that someone would respond. I freaked out when I saw the first e-mail, shaking as I opened it, realizing that real humans — people I didn’t know — were going to tell me about their lives. A friend in the paper’s design department made a logo, a tiny envelope with a heart, and we decided to call the column Love Letters.
Within months of the launch of Love Letters, the number of comments tripled and then quadrupled. Most days, the website had a few hundred pieces of advice from readers within hours. It also appeared that it wasn’t just a local thing. Despite my theory that Boston needed its own advice column, people wrote in from all over the country, sometimes noting to me privately that they’d gone to college in Boston and landed elsewhere.
People wanted my advice — but they also wanted to crowdsource their love lives. I knew it was misery loving company. And yet, with the online company, I was starting to feel a lot less miserable. I didn’t know where I was drifting, but I knew I wasn’t the only person who felt unattached. My peers might be coupling up, getting married, having kids, and leaving me behind, but I had a new group of imaginary friends who kept me busy. They gave me countless problems to consider. With them, maybe I didn’t need Patrick. That said, I did hope he was reading.....
Oh, the Globe's poor little Jewish princess!
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Did you see the dedication?
"Revelers gathered at Tuscan Kitchen in the Seaport on Friday night to celebrate the launch of “Can’t Help Myself: Lessons and Confessions From a Modern Advice Columnist,” a new book by the Globe’s Meredith Goldstein. Goldstein’s memoir, about starting the Love Letters advice column while juggling her own dating life and family issues, was released Tuesday. Guests enjoyed tagliatelle in a Parmigiano wheel and grilled cheese sandwiches (an inside joke for readers of the column). The guest list included some familiar screen names from the column such as “Two-Sheds” (who, spoiler alert from the book, shocked Goldstein by turning out to be a man despite his measured advice), “MHouston,” and “Valentino.” Also in attendance were Jenny Johnson of “Dining Playbook” and her husband, Nantucket Magazine editor Robert Cocuzzo; young-adult author Sara Farizan; NBC Sports Boston personality and Olympics curling reporter Trenni Kusnierek; ESPN’s Michele Steele; 7 News’s Kimberly Bookman; “Ma Speaks Up” memoirist Marianne Leone with her husband, actor Chris Cooper; and Lori Earl of This Star Won’t Go Out, an organization that helps families of children being treated for cancer In the book, Goldstein writes about how her life changed when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. The guest list also included Jenn Ryan, Mass General’s associate director of development, and Mass General’s Emily Olson, who was on Goldstein’s late mother’s care team."
Hey, I don't wish that upon anyone.
I just wish the EUSraeli Empire wouldn't make so many widows and widowers as well as orphans.
Time for a toast:
"‘It’s like dinner and a show’: In the age of Tinder dates, bartenders bask in the awkwardness" by Dugan Arnett Globe Staff March 25, 2018
It was Thursday night inside the dimly lit barroom of Lord Hobo, a popular Cambridge watering hole, and the guys working behind the bar had just spotted yet another one.
The young couple at the bar’s edge were showing all the requisite signs. They’d arrived separately. They’d spent a long stretch wordlessly scanning the menu. And at the moment, they were nervously working their way through a first drink, struggling mightily to keep the conversation afloat.
“Look, he’s shaking his glass, he wants another beer,” said longtime Lord Hobo employee Nick Gardner, as he watched from the other end of the bar, analyzing the situation with the refined eye of an art critic. “And they’re both staring forward, thinking, ‘What’s the next thing I can talk about?’ ”
As dating apps like Tinder and Bumble have spawned a rash of first — and essentially blind — dates, the resulting awkwardness has made for what might very well be the city’s best nightly theater, particularly for the folks behind the bar.
“It’s like dinner and a show,” said David Spielberg, a bartender at the South End wine bar SRV, of the entertainment supplied by the boom in “Tinder Dates.”
Indeed, ask any bartender about the most memorable first dates they’ve witnessed, and you’ll get a laundry list of cringe-worthy encounters. They’ve seen women spring from barstools mid-date and storm out. They’ve watched as men get up to go to the bathroom and never return.
“I’ve seen people come in, meet each other on a first Tinder date, and leave with other people,” said Andrew Toto, a longtime bartender now working as the general manager at Yellow Door Taqueria in Dorchester.
I'm already looking for the exit.
Once, Justin Baker, a bartender at Puritan & Company, noticed that one male customer was hosting a different first date at the bar on a weekly basis — and that those dates very often ended with the woman leaving in disgust. Curious, Baker finally asked one of the disgruntled dates what the guy was doing to provoke such a strong response.
“Apparently,” Baker said, “he was trying to collect women to come and have some sort of sex thing at his home.”
The first date is nothing new, of course; Adam and Eve, you might recall, had theirs in a garden, but whereas past romances tended to spring up organically — would-be couples meeting through a friend, or at a party — today’s dating landscape seems far more manufactured, quantity often taking precedence over quality.
Years ago, said Liesel Sharabi, an assistant professor at West Virginia University whose research has examined the effects of online dating on first-date success, it would have been difficult for someone to go on five dates in a single week. “Now,” she said, “it’s pretty easy.”
For the uninitiated, most dating apps work something like this: Users scroll through a seemingly endless collection of profiles, swiping right (yes!) or left (no, thanks) based on little more than a photo or two. When two individuals swipe right on each other — called “matching” — they’re able to begin chatting via text message. If things go well after a couple days of texting, they’ll schedule a first date.
And this, say local bartenders, is when the real fun begins.
By now, any bartender worth his salt can spot a first online date within seconds. One person arrives before the other, then spends the next few minutes nervously checking the phone. When the date arrives, there’s the awkward decision over whether to have a first hug. Then, at the bar, comes the stream of generic, surface-level questions: What do you do for work? Where are you from originally?
Spotting them has become so easy, in fact, that some bartenders can identify which online app was used for the date.
“Tinder is notoriously the hook-up app, so you notice it’s two people getting loose and really touchy-feely,” said Greg Coote, beverage director at City Tap House. “Bumble is more like the interview process. It’s like they’re going through all these formalities.”
And make no mistake, the restaurant staff is silently evaluating the performance.
Said Jacki Schromm, assistant general manager at Lion’s Tail in Boston, “We know exactly how your date is going, probably before you do.”
Barry Chin/Globe Staff
Excuse me, where is the bathroom in this place?
While the demonstrably bad dates make for the best stories, far more common are the ones that end not with a bang, but with a whimper.
In these cases, the conversation wanes. The woman begins looking off into space — or worse, down at her phone. In an effort to fill the awkward silence, one party will steer the conversation into increasingly questionable territory. Politics, for instance. Or, in the case of one middle-aged gentleman, the wonder of strip clubs.
This isn’t to say, of course, that a first online date can’t end well.
Plenty of couples hit it off quickly, laughing and flirting their way through multiple drinks. And there are the occasional times, said Toto, “when you can’t get a word in with a guest because they’ve been sucking face for 10 minutes.”
Despite their nightly exposure to online dates both good and bad, local bartenders insist it does little to aid them in their own dating lives.
Not long ago, Baker, of Puritan & Company, went on a first date with a woman he’d met through a dating app. The date went well, and the two made plans to see each other again. A couple nights before their second meeting, the woman unexpectedly showed up at Puritan & Company, while Baker was working behind the bar.
For the next couple hours, he was forced to awkwardly deliver drinks to the woman — and the guy she was with on what appeared to be another first date.
At least they aren't meeting over by the vending machines.
--more--"
Next time go to a ballgame.
Affleck gets the last laugh
Only because he passed out, and when he came to she was gone (hadn't even lived there two months yet) and not talking about it. Probably got out of there just in time.
Why did Danny Amendola unfollow Olivia Culpo?
If you want the naked truth about it, I have it from reliable sources that the former one year wonder willingly hooked up with a producer to land a reality show for herself. She didn't think her celebrity boyfriend would find out. Apparently though, she accidentally sent a selfie of herself in the hotel room where it happened and the s**t hit the fan so to speak. Now, no more relationship. Olivia Culpo (Danny Amendola)
She also ended up not getting the show.
"Model and onetime Miss Universe Olivia Culpo looked like a million bucks, but Culpo’s two-year relationship with Amendola looked like the real thing. Until it didn’t. No matter. Culpo has plenty to keep her busy. She makes a cameo in Amy Schumer’s new movie, “I Feel Pretty,” which has drawn criticism from some who think it sends the wrong message about body image. “I feel like the backlash I’ve heard is a misinterpretation of the film,” Culpo told us. “I think the message [of the film] is that we are as beautiful as we allow ourselves to believe we are — and we are all beautiful.” Culpo had nothing to say about Trump though it’s clear she knows him. In 2013, according to the new book, “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,” Culpo was photographed with Trump and Russian pop star Emin Agalarov at a Las Vegas nightclub....."
Oh, that's why he broke up her at signed with Miami!
She was just supporting the team:
Gronk’s galpal Camille Kostek gets a modeling gig with Sports Illustrated
And when he took her home:
And when he took her home:
Court documents detail how Gronk’s house was robbed
Police hunt for three stolen guns, last suspect in Rob Gronkowski burglary
Found them in Dorchester.
Meanwhile, owner Robert Kraft has been doing the now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t thing that he does from time to time.
"It’s not clear why John Cena and Nikki Bella are kaput — they’d dated for six years — but speculation is that she wanted kids and he didn’t. You’ll recall that Cena proposed to Bella at WrestleMania last year....."
Actually, what is "lost in the salaciousness in the rest of the story, people need to be talking about the $10K a day this former A+ list athlete is spending on coke and hookers a day (#233 in your program)," and he's seeing Amy Schumer after hitting on Beyoncé?
Actor Corey Feldman says he was stabbed, but police say there 'are no lacerations', and among those who got their sexy back at Justin Timberlake’s recent show at TD Garden was the singer’s wife, Jessica Biel. Before the show, the actress and four girlfriends stopped by Bodega Canal for tacos and cucumber margaritas. . . . Former “Today” host Billy Bush had lunch at Scampo with his daughter the other day. Bush was fired by NBC after a recording surfaced of him and Donald Trump having a lewd conversation in 2005."
"Is Brad Pitt dating an MIT professor? That’s the question rocketing around the Internet after a Page Six TV story reported that the handsome actor has been spending time with Neri Oxman, an Israeli-American architect who is a professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab. According to Page Six, the two met through an MIT architecture project. No more details were given in the report on when the project took place or what it specifically focused on. Pitt has a home-building organization for those in need called Make It Right, and the organization has partnered with MIT-associated professionals before. However, this might not be a romance — not yet, anyway. The source said the relationship between the two is “best described as a professional friendship.” “Their friendship has not turned into romance . . . as both are cautious,” the source told Page Six. However, the source also said that Pitt “is very interested in spending more time with Neri, she is fascinating.” A representative for Pitt reached by phone declined to comment. A bounceback message from Oxman said she is currently traveling with limited e-mail access. Pitt, 54, has been separated from his wife, Angelina Jolie, since 2016. The two are currently finalizing their divorce. Before Jolie, Pitt was married to actress Jennifer Aniston. Oxman herself is renowned in her field. According to her MIT staff page, her work is included in permanent exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Museum of Science, and the Smithsonian Institution, among others. She has won several awards in design, and has graced the covers of several magazines, including Fast Company and Wired UK. She studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem before receiving a PhD in design computation from MIT. In addition to her many accomplishments, Oxman was also named to the Globe Magazine’s 25 most stylish list in 2012. “Opening my closet is a form of meditation,” she then told the Globe’s Christopher Muther. “I pick whatever I feel is right for the day. It’s usually only a matter of seconds before I’m out of the house.” If Pitt and Oxman do indeed become an item, they would be the latest Hollywood pairing where one half has Massachusetts roots: Amy Schumer recently married Martha’s Vineyard-bred chef Chris Fischer, and Gwyneth Paltrow recently got engaged to Newton native Brad Falchuk."
He didn't mind her wanting Harvey, huh?
Apparently, it didn't work out between those two.
Btw, did you see where Jolie spent the summer?
I wonder if it is connected to the split.
A true angel:
"After a booted contestant on The Voice called out Kelly Clarkson as “small minded” for likening her to fellow gay artists, the coach had something to say. Hopeful Molly Stevens, who is openly gay, revealed in a now-deleted Instagram post that she was upset by a comparison that Clarkson made during the battle rounds. The original American Idol winner said Stevens reminded her of the Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge, which Stevens found a “labeling trap” and “small minded.” “While I’m extremely honored to be in that category of talent I do believe that comment did us all a disservice and only threw us into a labeling trap,” she wrote. “It felt small minded to me and exactly what I feel we need to bring attention to the world.” Stevens added, “I am a singer songwriter who happens to be gay. And so is @melissa_etheridge and @indigogirlsmusic. Glad I can work through this one today on a carousel in Central Park with my mom and niece. But it’s a common stereotype that happens too often. People put us in boxes.” Clarkson, 35, took to Twitter to point out that Steven neglected to include a comparison to straight singer Patty Griffin and assert that the connections had nothing to do with sexuality. “Wow. This really bums me out.”
See where the Globe found that?
Phone is lighting up!
"(Ping!) You have (Ping!) a new (Ping!) group (Ping! Ping! Ping!) text" by Dugan Arnett Globe Staff June 12, 2018
“It was a group text,” Margaret H. Willison, a 33-year-old librarian and culture writer from Jamaica Plain, explains, “of bisexual women talking about their formative, adolescent crushes.”
If you’ve picked up a smartphone any time in the past 12 months, you’re no doubt aware that group texts — text-message conversations that can have dozens of participants — have emerged as a go-to form of communication for those of a certain generation.
Years after online chat rooms went the way of the belt-beeper, group chatting seems to be making a triumphant rise, infiltrating nearly every aspect of electronic communication, taking over smartphones with the ping, ping, ping of a seemingly endless stream of texts.
Most of today’s popular apps — Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram — have implemented some form of group-messaging option, while some, like Slack, are designed almost exclusively for that purpose. Just this week, Apple announced that its newest update would allow up to 32 users of its Facetime app to participate in a single group video call.
None, however, seems quite as prevalent — or polarizing — as the group text.
Proponents laud its convenience, describing it as a quicker and easier alternative to group e-mail, a way to instantly pass on information — the date and location of a party, for instance — to a large group of people, or keep in daily touch with out-of-town friends and family.
To others it is nothing short of a daily assault.
Indeed, anyone who’s been inundated with text messages from acquaintances planning a distant bachelorette party while trying to get through the workday can attest to the distraction it can present. It’s not just the group member who replies incessantly — and there’s always one — but the sheer banality of a weeks-long discussion devoted to, say, the birthday party planning for an acquaintance’s 7-year-old.
Dropping out of unwanted conversations might seem like the obvious solution, but it’s not always as easy as that. In some conversations — involving certain models of phones — there is simply no way to do it. And even when a “leave conversation” option is available, many consider it a social no-no.
It’s no wonder that some compare receiving group texts to being held hostage, and in a sign that the practice has truly jumped the shark, there are sub-group texts, created solely for the purposes of discussing what’s going on in the main group text.....
Delete, delete, delete, delete.
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So when is the wedding?
"This couple avoided the angst of wedding planning with a $36,000 click" by Janelle Nanos Globe Staff May 04, 2018
To the unfamiliar, the luxury sale site Gilt.com is a flash-sale site that offers short-term deals on a limited number of high-end products, such as handbags, designer clothing, or spa treatments. And, it turns out, weddings.
Now, to be clear, David Bower, a health care consultant, and Nezha Mediouni, the head of US finance and accounting for a consulting firm, don’t have a habit of making rash decisions. The duo met as co-workers at a Boston consulting firm five years ago, and as their friendship slowly evolved into courtship, Mediouni learned that being with Bower meant living with his “cautious” way of making choices. For Bower, merely picking out running shoes or luggage is a painstaking process. Before they got engaged, the couple made several three-hour trips to a jeweler in the Berkshires to decide on the perfect ring.
“He likes to know all of the options,” she said. “It takes forever.”
“Once I find the best thing, I keep it forever,” he said, matter-of-factly, but when it came time to plan their wedding, Bower surprised her.....
--more--"
Here is where they went on their honeymoon:
"A YouTuber warned Disney World resort patrons about an active shooter as a prank, police say" Washington Post June 01, 2018
Erin Taylor was taking a stroll in the sand along the water at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando when a young man rushed up to her with terrifying news: The resort was in a state of emergency, he said. She needed to evacuate immediately. There was an active shooter on the property.
Taylor worked as a manager at the resort but somehow did not know anything about this.
She started to panic. And that’s when the young man said he was just joking. He had been going around scaring people just to record their reactions as an experiment for a YouTube video, he said, according to court records.
The police would not find his prank very funny.
Confronted by a hotel manager, Jose Castillo, Dillion Burch, 22, claimed the YouTube video was for a school project, the affidavit said.
Castillo told him that he was not allowed to do that and that the police were on their way to speak with him.
He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three days in jail.....
--more--"
What do you mean you want the ring back?
Here is where they went on their honeymoon:
"A YouTuber warned Disney World resort patrons about an active shooter as a prank, police say" Washington Post June 01, 2018
Erin Taylor was taking a stroll in the sand along the water at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando when a young man rushed up to her with terrifying news: The resort was in a state of emergency, he said. She needed to evacuate immediately. There was an active shooter on the property.
Taylor worked as a manager at the resort but somehow did not know anything about this.
She started to panic. And that’s when the young man said he was just joking. He had been going around scaring people just to record their reactions as an experiment for a YouTube video, he said, according to court records.
The police would not find his prank very funny.
Confronted by a hotel manager, Jose Castillo, Dillion Burch, 22, claimed the YouTube video was for a school project, the affidavit said.
Castillo told him that he was not allowed to do that and that the police were on their way to speak with him.
He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three days in jail.....
--more--"
What do you mean you want the ring back?
