Weather fit for a skunk. She doesn’t have to cut the grass around here…
It’s Share Your World time in the wet and wild rain forest that has sprung up around The Nest, as the Gulf of Mexico has been busy dumping its entire contents upon the Midwest for much of the past two weeks now. If anyone has any grass eating goats who aren’t afraid to work in wet conditions that they can lend me, it would be greatly appreciated before panthers and anacondas start taking up residence in my yard (Actually, that would be cool). Anyway, let’s put on our Marty McFly life preservers and look at Melanie’s SYW questions for this week…
Repurposed from December’s plumbing disaster…
In your opinion, does patriotism require the belief that one’s country is the greatest on earth?
I’m not much on patriotism to begin with, since it revolves around the same concept that makes people believe they should root, root, root for the home teams and stay true to their schools. I’m too much of a contrarian to get caught up in all the pride hoopla… and when it comes down to patriotism, that’s really what it’s all about to most people. Shooting off loud ass, dangerous fireworks, barbecuing anything to slow to elude the butcher, and waving flags in everyone’s face all summer long.
And since I still haven’t answered the actual question…… no, it doesn’t. You can take a lot of pride in a bad sports team just like you can take a lot of pride in a fucked up country. It’s all yours, after all…
Uncle Sam would deport me if it wouldn’t mean he’d end up down at Goodwill.
Why is patriotism considered by some to be the highest of virtues? What is so important about love of country? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about humankind, or the planet as a whole, rather than a single country?
Because it’s human nature for people to have an “us versus them” mentality, and for those who believe the “us” is Amurrica and the “values” we believe in…. well, there’s where patriotism becomes such a big deal. It kinda works the opposite for those who believe the “us” is some oppressed group of people…. which is why you have questions like this challenging the idea of patriotism in the first place.
And in the end, it just comes down to where people’s priorities lie. There are no wholly right or wrong answers in life. Every solution that helps some in varying degrees is always going to make others suffer to varying degrees… and it depends on where your buns are buttered….
Fabio is here to butter your buns. Or maybe “not butter” your buns…
What is the relationship between decisions and consequences?
Cleanup on aisle three! Better bring the bloodborne pathogens kit…
What is social justice?
When something stupid you post on Facebook or Tweeter or Instagram or Crapchat or some other social media site for the whole world to see comes back later to bite you in the ass.
There goes that scholarship to Harvard…
What’s one body part you wouldn’t mind losing?
And as a bonus, I’ll gain back a body part I haven’t seen in years!
What is something that made you smile during the past week?
I got a letter in the mail Tuesday addressed to one of the (many, many, MANY) people who used to live in my house… which rarely happens anymore since I’ve lived here 11 years now. Or, I should say, it was addressed to “The Estate Of” someone who used to live here. An insurance company he had a life insurance policy through was trying to find his heirs after learning that the poor guy died on April 8th……………. of 2009!!! Alas, there was no check inside, and I didn’t have a stranger’s death certificate handy to file a claim… but it did make me smile thinking I might have gotten an unexpected windfall. And the guy’s been dead for 11 years now, so it wasn’t “too soon”…
Not that it’s ever too soon to draw humor from the dead…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
we love social justice… and we love mr. zuckerberg for his social court ;O)
We just need someone to come up with the social guillotine now…
Sadly I think I will have a problem getting that photo of the guy with two bodies glued together (!) in the blue speedo out of my brain – you can’t UNSEE that! Otherwise good job sharing today Mr. Squirrel.
Pam
That was a case of Oversharing my world, and I apologize!
Thanks E.S. for Sharing Your World…..Very thoughtful answers too…although a couple of the images (that fat guy in the blue speedo AND the (has to be) politician whose head exploded…O_o Still. In the interests of ‘social justice’ it’s fair to allow you to post and share any thing you like. I’m not complaining either, just in case what I wrote causes hurted feelers.. Oh poo. It’s one of “those” days and I’m not even marginally coherent. Good job, sir, good job!! Now make sure whomever has to clean up the mess on Aisle 13 is covered, head to foot, in cootie gear. We don’t need anyone catching cooties… 😛
The exploding head was ripped from an infamous scene from the movie Scanners, and is my go-to when a question causes my head to explode. The gratuitous blood and gore is bad enough, but it’s the gratuitous obesity that really made this post squeamish. If Greenpeace shows up, that dude is getting rolled back out into the ocean…
I enjoy getting mail that makes no sense that I should be getting it. I can see why that made you smile. Too goofy.
It’s not even the first time I’ve received mail for one of the past occupants of the pre-Nest that hinted at the possibility of money. A different guy kept getting mail sent to me a few years ago for some class action lawsuit against his employer. Alas, I didn’t qualify to stake a claim to any of that money either…
That blue thong. Yikes. I’m going to have nightmares.
As someone who spent childhood rooting for the BROOKLYN Dodgers and moved up to Boston so I could root for a team that hadn’t won the series since 1912 or was it 1918? No place is perfect. No team is perfect. My college sucked. And I’m VERY glad I no longer live in New York and moved out of Boston, too. But I still miss Jerusalem.
Well that’s a long time to be “living” in a low-rent coffin before your cash turns up and you can afford a premium model…