The weather forecasters promised snow, but do we have any? Of course not. Every winter I hear about predicted snow, and every winter it snows twice: once in November, and once in March. But snow gets predicted all the time, and people rush to the store to stock up on water and canned goods and kitty litter. Boy, does that cheese me off. They buy up the kitty litter to act as sand for their driveways, not tidy up after their cats! And it's flat here, they don't have steep driveways. Nashville goes into the most tremendous frenzy at the thought of, let alone the sight of, a snowflake. Schools close, drivers head home early, etc. I've been baffled by it for years. My theory is that everyone here has ghostly ancestral memories of the ice age which exert a powerful urge to prepare for wintry devastation, despite the fact that they all live in Gardening Zone 8. Either that, or they're just plain stupid, my less kind theory.
I just dropped by the WELL to read the latest in the sexuality conference. I got into a small thrash there a couple of weeks ago. One of the topics is devoted to 'men watching women's breasts and what women think of it.' It was humming along nicely, everyone commenting on their definition of perky, and how to check someone out discreetly, and what women did when guys weren't so discreet about it. Then, one guy wrote about his self-proclaimed experiment in staring at women's breasts and only looking them in the eye every once in a while. He claimed they loved it, that he got jobs because of it, and that it was a provable fact that women respond positively to such actions.
Right, buddy.
Several of the women in the group, and a couple of men, suggested the fellow who wrote this was dreaming. He got a bit touchy about this, accusing everyone else of denying the truth. Two other guys joined in to 'prove' that women want men to stare at them. I mildly offered my own opinion that they were incorrect, and that there were most certainly times and places where staring at breasts was inappropriate. I included a couple of other people in this gentle reminder that some women don't like having their breasts objectified (the debate had grown general and somewhat hot). I got told to learn to read, that I was the only who felt that way, and that probably I really liked it if I only would stop denying that I did. I was outraged.
You know what I did? I realized that the people writing such nonsense were getting defensive and were already clueless, and I just backed out with a polite goodbye. I still read the group, but I'm not going to fight this battle online. I prefer seeing the faces of the dolts who insist that their opinions are well-known facts. That way, I can see who to avoid.