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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/28/25 in all areas
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My father died last night. He was 87 years old. It was his time. He was ready. I wasn’t. But then, I suspect that we never are. We only have one father in our lives and, if we’re lucky, he’s a good one. Mine was. I can’t think of my father without thinking of fishing. I love to fish, he taught me to fish, and I passed that along to my kids. But the most meaningful fish of my life is a fish I never caught. Now, anyone who has ever fished with me knows that the world is full of fish I’ve never caught (why, the laws of physics may even be bent; I may have not caught more fish than have ever existed). But the fish I’m talking about was a flounder in the summer of 1984 or so. I was a teen. Being that age, I had a particularly difficult relationship with my father at that time. As I grew into myself and worked on figuring out who I was, a good part of that exercise was me pushing back on everything my father was, everything he wanted, everything he said, everything he even thought. I was….an unpleasant adolescent. And my father did not bend to my will. He pushed back. He loved me enough to stand fast, and to make me hate him, because he wasn’t going to stop being my father, even if that required standing strong and letting there be conflict. There was a great distance between us – the greatest it had ever been and ever would be. We had functionally nothing in common. We could go weeks without meaningful conversation. But we had one thing – ONE THING – that we still shared; we loved to fish, and we still liked to do it together. So, reaching out to me, to try to hold on to that last, tenuous thread holding father and son together, he suggested we go on a fishing trip to south Texas, to the bay house of dear family friends where we’d had so many great trips before. I agreed, because hey, I loved fishing. We had a great trip. We ate giant chicken fried steaks at the Brush Country Inn. We fished from a lighted pier all night long, every night for three days. And we caught fish, mostly speckled trout. But one night, I hooked into something big. My rod was bowed, it was a fight to get whatever it was to the dock. We were going to need the landing net. As I fought the fish close enough for us to finally get a glimpse, we saw that it was a beautiful, enormous flounder. Truly, the biggest flounder I’ve ever had on the line. I maneuvered him to the pier, my father laid out on his stomach with the landing net so he could reach as far out as possible to net the fish. As he lowered the net into the water, the flounder turned, shook his head once, and swam off. I felt in an instant when he threw the hook. My father flailed with the net, trying to scoop the fish before he got away. No dice. I was laughing – because of COURSE the best fish of the trip just shook the hook and swam away. That is the way of fishing with me. But what struck me was my dad’s reaction. He flailed with the net, and had a look of real anguish on his face. Anguish that the fish he wanted me to catch got away. Disappointment FOR me. Not IN me, but for me. He cared. In spite of all I’d put him through, how much I had alienated him, what mattered most to him was seeing ME have success. After all that had come between us – and still WAS standing between us – he loved me. Totally. Completely. Unconditionally. It still took us a long time to heal, and grow back together, but as we did so, I always remembered that fish, and how much he cared. Through everything, my father’s love was an anchor. His love for me. His love for my mother – oh, how he loved my mother. His love for my wife – a relationship that was far from easy, but was bound up in that same complicated love that I experienced for a time. A relationship that drew upon her pastoral strength and presence, which when he needed it, at the very end – it was there. Given freely, with grace, and with a connection to the divine that, well if you know wife, you know from which it flows. And love for his grandkids. To a person, everyone I’ve talked to about my dad since his passing has mentioned how he adored them. How proud he was of them. How they reminded him of my mother, my wife, me, and sometimes even of him. To the end, he talked about how his love for them was what kept him going. What he loved the most about each of them was their kindness – their intelligence and their achievements mattered, but when he spoke of them, he always spoke of how good and decent they are. Which makes sense, as his kindness was his enduring feature. There are things I knew of and saw along the way. When a family member was in a bind, how money was sent to solve the problem, no questions asked, and no expectation of repayment. And mind you, we were not a family of any great means. There also are things I didn’t know of before – how they opened their home to a young man as he started his cancer treatments in Houston and needed a safe place to stay. Again, no questions asked – just sharing of what they had, being kind because – well, why wouldn’t you be? My father was a child of the border, and all that entails. Some of it was hard; he was separated from his parents often at a young age, because they weren’t going to send him to school in the crappy little Mexican ranching town they lived in. So he grew up mostly in Eagle Pass, with family. He found opportunity in education – a high school teacher told him and so many of his classmates that they could go to college, driving them to A&M – yes, A&M – in the local school bus to see the campus and watch a football game. He got that education, which let him live a life that took him on adventures around the world – his years working in Argentina, living in Buenos Aires with my mother, the two of them together living a life of dreams, was one of the highlights of his life. Indeed, my father’s story cannot be told – not even a little bit – without talking about my mother. The best things in this world are love stories, the real love stories, the stories of a love that is tied to your very being. Theirs was that kind of love story. My father was a freewheeling young man living in the valley, working in the oil patch. My mother was a striking beauty, but the product of a hard life of fleeing an alcoholic father, abuse, poverty, and betrayal. She desperately wanted a man who would be kind to her, and who could someday provide her the life she barely dared to dream of. They met. My father couldn’t believe that he’d met the beauty he'd seen only from a distance. And my mother couldn’t believe that she’d met a man who was so kind, and so devoted. They married having dated for only a few weeks. And they were together for decades after that. He gave her the life she dreamed of – a son, a home, safety and security – until she died three years ago. He was her rock. She was his love, his adoration, his heart. And dear God, did he miss her so. Every day. In the end, he was ready to go. So he went. On his terms. He was ready to see her again. I hope that is a thing, that we do see each other again in some beyond. In our last conversation – which I knew was our last – we talked of the universe, and stardust. And how we are at once insignificant pieces of coalesced stardust in a universe of trillions of galaxies….but that same infinite, incomprehensible universe cannot have its story told without speaking of the time that some coalesced stardust was my father. And some other coalesced stardust was my mother. And together, they found and fostered a love fitting for an infinite universe. We are in awe of the universe, but the universe itself should be in awe of love. We matter. Love matters. My heart is broken. My parents are now both gone. My children are devastated by loss. My wife is my rock, a guide and pillar for me as I grieve. And I am lucky. I am so goddamned lucky.128 points
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43 points
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spanky conflated his renal failure diagnosis with a death sentence to play for leniency for his bullshit positions per typical maga behavior "According to most medical sources, the average life expectancy for someone on dialysis is between 5 and 10 years, though many patients can live well on dialysis for 20 or even 30 years, depending on their overall health and adherence to treatment plans." his "miraculous" recovery was starting dialysis to counteract renal (kidney) failure there are 500k+ in this country on dialisys and the 37m with chronic kidney disease, 90% of which are undiagnosed "If we do not address kidney disease early and work to slow or stop the progression to kidney failure, the expense of treating kidney failure could bankrupt the Medicare Trust Fund. The Medicare program spends more than $130 billion – more than 24 percent of total spending – on patients with kidney disease. Further, end stage kidney disease, which affects only 1 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, accounts for 7 percent of Medicare spending." make sure you're sitting down spanky..... cause wait! there's moar! your brain is about to explode! "The majority of the Medicare trust fund is derived from FICA taxes, with the current rate for Medicare being 1.45% for both the employer and employee, which means around 90% of the Medicare trust fund comes from FICA taxes." that's right, spanky, the blood scrub that's keeping you alive is 90% paid for by FICA taxes "A new study shows that undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue in 2022 while many are shut out of the programs their taxes fund. The findings run counter to anti-immigrant rhetoric that undocumented immigrants are “destroying” social programs." https://alabamareflector.com/2024/08/02/study-says-undocumented-immigrants-paid-almost-100-billion-in-taxes/23 points
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"I think Stephen McGee was a better quarterback than Vince Young." "Why do you think that? VY set multiple school records and led the Longhorns to a national championship. McGee never did any of those things at A&M." "Ugh, it's pointless to talk to y'all in this echo chamber. No one listens to reason any more!"21 points
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Some of y'all have gotten used to playing a bunch of upperclassmen on the OL/DL and forgotten what the physical gap between 21 and 18 looks like on the lines. It wasn't that long ago we were on the wrong side of that. The Ohio State transfer has a good athletic profile, worked for years under a top tier DL coach, saw some limited depth snaps on a loaded defense, and was in the mix for more there next year. That's a take every time. You want to bring Terry & Co - if any of them demonstrate physical readiness to play - along like you could with Collin Simmons; who by the way, is an absolute freak and very much an exception to the rule. You don't want to be counting them as foundational pieces from the outset.20 points
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17 points
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Sorry for the empty post here but fuck this motherfucker. And anyone that supports him Thats all.16 points
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Listen Boomer, outside of you gassing on about your intimate knowledge of OL play becuase you hung with the Oilers O-line in the 80s and early 90's, can you maybe not apply information from 40 years ago to make uninformed blanket statements about the demographics of places you haven't stepped foot in for decades? Sure, the "I used to talk shop with Mike Munchack back when telephones all had cords" is equally useless, but at least it's a football take and we can dismiss it accordingly. My brother and sister in law, niece and nephew live in the Woodlands. I'm out there once a month, and I've been to their academy and football games. It's all aggie. But you know, ignore Texas people who do actually live there like RGBIII telling you what it's like, or other folks familiar with the area becuase 40 years ago you used to live 20 minutes from The Woodlands. But if you must continue, please, tell us how Katy is actually not a College Station stronghold next. You have a vested interest in supporting this position, though.16 points
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I'm aware. But some part of him and his efforts to gaslight knows he has no response, and that means something. I mean, if I were mean I would have asked him all kinds of questions about his russian mail order bride, who he spent 15 or so years on these boards castigating as ruining his life, and how he felt about the fact that his children are anchor babies who's citizenship could be in threat becuase his wife was an immigrant. Or how he thought a few months ago he was going to fucking die, and has miraculously had a huge improvement in his health, encouraged by myself and many others who could be "liberal cucks" and the only lesson he seems to have taken from that situation is to continue to fuel hate and anger and blame the woes in his life on immigrants, who actually provide taxes to his precious social security funds, not that he understands that, and ignoring placing any blame on a skyrocketing national debt on policies he inevitably voted into office. Personal accountability is dead in this country.16 points
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I'll go line by line: 1) Who said they should get those benefits if they haven't been made full citizens? I haven't seen that argument. Was there an argument somewhere that illegal immigrants should get Social Security and Medicaid payments? What are you referring to specifically? 2) This is blatant bullshit. They don't pay with a fake SSN. They pay with an ITIN, which is a Tax ID Number, and the United States Government ENCOURAGES illegal immigrants to do this, becuase as they go through this process of trying to gain citizenship, it is seen as a "good faith" gesture by those looking to become full citizens, and is a positive checkmark in their application process, which you of all people know can be long and arduous. There's no crime. The government gives a legal pathway to pay taxes, and it encourages immigrants to do such. It was in the links I shared last night. And it has been this way FOR DECADES. 3.) I've never seen any kind of economic report put together by experts that says they money paid by immigrants in taxes, sales tax, purchased goods, as ANYTHING other than a net positive to our economy. If you have supporting documentation for your claim, I'd like you to please share that. Hopefully from a credible source.15 points
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My wife, a fed, pointed out two things: -the maximum legal buyout for a federal employee is $25,000, and... -there is no money budgeted for the federal government through September 30. The government is working on a CR that will expire in March. So, legally, money cannot be promised or committed by the administration through that date, because once again, Congress controls the purse.14 points
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14 points
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I have a little Jahdae Barron story I think I can tell now. At our fundraising PR event, two days before the Clemson game, Isaiah Bond was speaking to the press. He was promoting the event and about talking how much charity could help someone like him who didn't come from a privileged background. One of the idiot local TV reporters asked how his health was, and was he going to play in the game. (I thought this was pretty rude TBH, since we were there to promote the event. Maybe ask the guy privately, but not in the middle of the promotion, asshole) Isaiah answered him about how he felt fine and was going to say more about his health. I was standing next to Jahdae and he frantically waves with his hand to stop Isaiah from talking about his health, which he instantly did. I think this was less about the event, and more because they may have been instructed not to share any info about the team. Just a quiet, little show of leadership from Jahdae. I was very impressed with both of them.14 points
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Donald Trump never suffers consequences, so if his idiot followers suffering is the best we can get, bring it on.13 points
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Not nearly as funny of a wrong link situation as NowThis.13 points
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12 points
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I’ll just say this sentence says a lot about you, and how you view non-white people in this country.12 points
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12 points
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Just sitting here listening to AOC's last IG post to talk about week 1 of the new admin and what's going on. Clearly/explicitly, in laymen's terms, and discussing what the implications for these EO's are and what we should do. Explaining how the oligarchy is upon us and who is involved. But we live in a country that doesn't want to listen to an educated woman. Especially a 30-something Latina from a working-class background. Because it makes them feel insecure that they aren't nearly as intelligent as her. They want to listen to billionaires who have spent their entire lives enriching themselves, like their daddies before them did, and convince themselves that they are on the people's side. I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than realizing that some people are saying things, but they might seem "maddeningly" silent because they are being silenced. The media is complicit. This is aside from the fact that people were told BEFORE the election exactly what would happen, and frankly, too many people didn't give one shit. What is more noise going to do? The tree is falling in the forest.12 points
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Quick update on the current status of higher ed: shit show We already have students who have trouble with FAFSA, so this is going to take it to another level. This also impacts those students who have Pell Grants as well, which is just cruel. I’m having an emergency meeting with all departments within my division (I’m the dean) on what to do in case ICE shows up on campus because faculty are freaking out. We in administration are having a hard time telling if students not showing up yesterday and today are because they were just lost on campus, forgot class began, or are scared of ICE showing up.12 points
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If you begin with the assumption that he is an asset/puppet of a antagonistic, foreign power, it all makes more sense.12 points
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Of course you're a gd methodist You demonstrated a shocking lack of basic knowledge of how taxes work, and have yet to address any of the rebuttals levied toward you, you fucking coward. Stop being a bitch. Be an adult for once in your life.11 points
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11 points
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Look at this. This is what racist white trash looks like. He should be face down in a dumpster because he went on a two week bender after losing his job selling used cars. Instead he runs the defense department. This idiot, more than any other idiot in charge now, is emblematic of everything wrong with the United States. Mark Milley should be firing this guy out of a cannon right now for fun. Instead this living, breathing example of the lowest form of life we currently have on display is trying to inflict pain on a general because he had the temerity to say what a complete and total loser his god king is.10 points
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10 points
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Sorry Brother. I just lost my mom last Monday night, 13 days shy of her 87th. Ultimately, you're the man now dawg. We have that in common, whether we want it or not. Your family will look to your for strength. We honor our parents by how we carry on. He was no doubt proud of the husband, father, and son you were, regardless of that distance. Again, sorry for your loss, but there is a sense of peace also, if you're like me. My mom and I were close at times in life, but not recently. It's like her passing finally put us at rest with one another. hard to describe, and maybe a discussion for another day. It's complicated, but I sense some similarities in what you describe. Keep on keepin on sir.10 points
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Yep it’s a fucking shame that’s even a possibility. But pain needs to be felt for people to wake up out of this fucking daze. Or it’ll happen with nary a peep from an exhausted populace further entrenching authoritarian rule. Can’t wait to see which!10 points
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