> Hi, Carolyn, Many of our friends and neighbors have kids (we don't) and have now reached the age where they or there parents are trying to fundraise;
> We can afford to buy whatever they're selling, although we almost never want the stuff. The thing is, we all live in an upper middle class community, and our friends could afford to just give the schools more money themselves. I resent feeling like I have to buy this stuff to fund my friends' kids' private schoold education. Am I being a grinch and do I need to suck it up? I am wondering if I stop buying, maybe these parents will think that fundraising is more trouble than it's worth and they'll just take on the added financial cost.
Again, badgering people takes away the decision and the judgement from the place where it belongs (= with those people).
It's immoral, in my opinion, unless you know that (almost) everyone who is bothered will be OK with it.
So why can't the people being "badgered" (badgees?) just say "no thanks, I don't need an XYZ, but good luck with your fundraising" when the children come?
My school didn't do this, except the stupid stamps thing, but it wasn't an obligation or anything. I only did that once when I was with a friend who did that.
I think perhaps the school just told the children they could sell stamps and what it was for (some charity about children in Africa), and then after school, when they were being picked up, some children would ask their parents whether they could sell stamps or something?
Mind you, it was of course not money for the school. That would have been absurd.
@DavidWallace Does what?
And why would a school need more money anyway?
In recent years, universities have started begging in subtle ways. I think it's an Americanism, but either way it's blegh. But at least one is never approached personally, so it can be ignored or acted upon without being badgered/etc.
Maybe a school needs more books for its library. Or better computers. Or a new roof over one of its classrooms. And the money that they get from the government won't stretch to it.
And school libraries aren't terribly important anyway, at least we never used ours in high school, and primary school doesn't need a large library. We always went to the public library.
Okay, if begging is truly their only option to hire enough teachers and a building with a roof, then you're in a third-world country, so then all bets are off, maybe begging is your only option, and then parents will agree that it is reasonable. But in the West?
@DavidWallace Somehow I doubt that. Don't those schools just want money for non-essential things?
If, indeed, at some time in the future, it becomes absolutely necessary to have recent computers at school (how many, anyway?), then schools need them. But that is not the case now, since everyone has a computer at home. An I strongly doubt whether that will come to pass any time soon.
I teach children, and they use computers. And, since they do after-school work with us too, they need computers in our building. But they're about ten years old (XP) and a bit slow, but they work perfectly fine for accessing the web and office applications. That's all they need.
Look, I don't know the situation of schools in your country; all I can say is that it sounds weird to me if you say "schools have no choice but to beg".
And when a school DOES need (want?) new books for its library or a new roof for one of its classrooms, it asks local businesses for "prizes", and runs a raffle which involves kids trying to sell as many tickets as they can.
The kids are encouraged to sell those tickets to their relatives, neighbours, parents' friends and so on.
It's how things work. Here and in many other WESTERN countries.
And it surprises me a little that you claim that this doesn't happen in The Netherlands.
Maybe. What annoys me is when they send 20 (or some other number of) raffle tickets home with each kid, and tell them they have to bring the money back after they've sold them.
@AndrewLeach The French do not have a hereditary monarchy now. That was not my point, though.
And the Americans have been ruled by the same three-odd families for decades.
Everything new is well-forgotten old.
The US, China, and Russia right now are all more of monarchies than the UK or the Netherlands.
So anyway. Neither is it impossible to get your traditions back, nor is it advisable not to get rid of shit traditions just because they are traditions.
If someone uses swear words in chat such as "shit", "fuck" or "asshole" then they might get flagged by other chat users and subsequently (and automatically) banned.
If someone personally offends a user without using any swear words to the point where the attacked users decides to leave chat for...
I just recently heard this expression and couldn't quite figure out its meaning from the context, unless it means something like "take the bait."
Is this a common expression? Is it perhaps an abbreviation of another expression? Most importantly, if it is a common phrase, what does it mean?
Edit...
@RegDwighт I said in modern times. France was in the 19th century (twice).
And neither China nor America have the good part of a monarchical tradition, which is the rituals and the national symbolism. Instead, they have the bad part, and I wouldn't call them an monarchic, but rather oligarchic.
And, as Hobbes has shown us, an oligarchy is perhaps the worst thing of all: at least the damage is somewhat limited to a single family if you have a Leviathanical situation.
Two thousand years from now, there will still be monarchs. You just speculate to no longer be alive then to get called out on being wrong. So I'm calling you out today.
Once you destroy the old ceremonies, you can never recreate them, because people in modern times lack taste. Look at modern architecture: for every beautiful, harmonious, decorated building you destroy, you always without exception get a hideous modernist block in return.
@JohanLarsson The current ruling dynasty is or should have been rotating between the Clintons and the Bushes. Next term, it will be Clinton again, probably, with Hillary.
@RegDwighт They don't lack taste in every area, but they do lack taste when it comes to decoration and harmony in the visual arts. And the essence of a ceremonial monarchy is decoration. It is decoration.
I looked at a nice carriage in a museum just last year. I only paid 5 Euro, once. And I didn't have to put some asshole in there and pretend that he's somehow better than me because he happens to be inside.
@RegDwighт That's an artificial setting. If your King were to parade around town in it, you could appreciate it the way it was intended. I know, the monarchy in Germany was pretty bad, so understand that you wouldn't want to have it back.
@Cerberus it decorates itself. It does not decorate anything else. It is its own purpose. If it can sustain itself all by itself, so be it. If it has just one right more than me, or costs me just one cent, it should go kill itself with a pillow.
@JohanLarsson I would probably watch the wedding of my own crown prince(ss), but that's about it. I don't know the names of all the princes and princesses either. So it doesn't interest me that much. But I'm still very glad that we have it.
@RegDwighт No, it decorates the country. And do you have any idea how much your government spends on "decorating" your country with hideousness every year? I think it would be € 10 billion on hideous government buildings alone in Germany. And, no, most of those 10 billion are not needed at all, just a ego boost for the mayor or civil servant.
It just looks weird, but at least it has some sort of charm. There are two problems: 1. it is most likely ugly from up close. No decoration, just huge plates of copper, and lots of bolts and concrete between the plates. That's part of the issue with modernism: it only looks from a distance, not from up close, at how a building looks. It doesn't care about the people who actually use the building and its environment.
2. It doesn't fit in with other styles: it's totally random. There is no harmony with other buildings. But at least Rotterdam was bombed hard so it doesn't matter a great deal any more.
It's funny how in Asia news about an earthquake looks exactly like a video game.
> Women who thought they had to tell the truth admitted they had more sexual partners than both the women in the control group and men in general. For men, the effect was the opposite, in that they tended to claim more sexual partners when they could get away with lying. Apparently, sex itself is the one area where the two sexes feel compelled to live up to their reputations.
(This is when people are subjected to a fake lie-detector.)
(By the way, all lie detectors are fake, in that they do not work.)
If someone uses swear words in chat such as "shit", "fuck" or "asshole" then they might get flagged by other chat users and subsequently (and automatically) banned.
If someone personally offends a user without using any swear words to the point where the attacked users decides to leave chat for...
I just recently heard this expression and couldn't quite figure out its meaning from the context, unless it means something like "take the bait."
Is this a common expression? Is it perhaps an abbreviation of another expression? Most importantly, if it is a common phrase, what does it mean?
Edit...
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…