Not that Bob

Similar but not exact situation. My thoughts, worth exactly nothing, but I can suggest suggestions from counselor and being old and weathered. Kids are in the process of separating, which is normal, but not easy for any involved. You can't fix it. Step back. Be kind but unattached. Treat them as you would the checker at HEB, kind but not offering suggestions or help...unless requested, and then tread lightly. As I am sure you know, they don't want your suggestions. They see it as you saying they don't already know this stuff. They see it as infantilizing. And in fact, they do already know. Trust your previous parenting. Play the long game. All easier said than done, especially for dads who have the natural instinct to fix it. I call it "Be the Queen" patterned after the Queens on The Crown. Kind. Interested. But not offering solutions. Trust your previous parenting. You know you did a good job. As for the spouse...I got nothing.

Evidently no Yanks working at the BBC scheduling department.

I get that his "tone" or "timbre" is different, and I get that to some it is not pleasing, but he hits all the notes. No sour notes. No waver or searching around for the note. A chainsaw playing middle C is still a middle C. His guitar work is just fine. He's no Segovia, but he's just fine.

Props for your music

It is very helpful that this book has a "Major Characters" list. I can never keep all the names straight and this list is a great help.

Even more than the cancer the catheter was my greatest worry...sort of. Anyway, it was my worst nightmare. I'll have to say that it wasn't *that* bad. Pretty low bar from my "worst nightmare", but still not *that* bad.

It seemed like they played it the whole game.

Y'all ever hear the SMU band?

Sorry if my post sounded like I wanted to "lock 'em all up". That's not what I intended at all. I only wanted to point out that the problem is multifactorial and difficult to impossible to resolve. No one action is going to get us out of this mess. I absolutely agree with your statements regarding changes that need to be made.

I think that, again, ignores the elephant in the room. None of these shooters give a shit about laws, licenses, or regulations. Psychotic people are incapable of that type of thought. Even people who are not technically psychotic, just really pissed off mood disordered people, have no sense of self control. They are without impulse control. Unless you can catch them in a very narrow window of time you can not stop them. I'd be interested to know what these other countries, who have it under control, have for psychiatric care. Serious question. I'm pretty fatalistic about it. I'm not a gun guy, so I don't care if we take them all away, but I just think that is treating the symptom. The disease is mental illness. Not frequently, but several times in my old mental health career, I was charged by a florid schizophrenic. I was lucky enough to have copious back up, but a raging schizophrenic will fuck you up.

Interesting thought on the "weird elevated place" upon which we place guns. PS Blondo is rude. Also interesting thoughts regarding the "right" to refuse medical treatment. We are very hesitant to require people to "follow medical advice." I have known a couple of people who died for refusing to take blood pressure medications. We are a complex species, and it seems we are too big for our britches.

I go back to my thought that we will have to have an enormous shift in our American "ethos", if that is the correct word, our absolutism regarding "freedom". Land of the free. Home of the brave. All that shit. 1) Remove all the guns? Too late even if we tried. Can you imagine the "revolution" if the government came to everyone's door and started collecting guns? That horse is already out of the barn. I think it would be logistically impossible. If possible, it would take generations. 2) Stricter gun laws. We can't/don't enforce the one's we have now. Experience says laws don't do it. Do we put the seller in prison? A licensed seller who has passed all the tests and shown himself to be a good hobbyist? We have a drummer on this board who might take offense. 3) Keep guns out of the hands of crazy people. See my original post. It is difficult to impossible to 100% accurately diagnose a crazy person, and some crazy people come in and out of their illness. At what point do we say "Okay man, you've been psychotic three times and three's the limit. We gave you two chances, but no mas. Here's your straight jacket". Or, "Fuck man! We missed that one! He killed people on his first psychotic episode! Oops!". Crazy people are an invisible group, in most cases. If not invisible, at least very difficult to see. And if we see them with 100% accuracy, at what point do we take away their freedom? Where is that line? Who gets to determine that line? Who gets the responsibility for enforcing that line? 4) In the deep dark recesses of my past, I spent 5 years working at "mental asylums", or "looney bins", or the "nut hut", whatever. They are not as horrible as the horror movies would have you believe, especially with the advent of more refined antipsychotic medications. Not as bad as you think, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live out my life in one. I sure as hell wouldn't want my precious family member to live out their life in one. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the one who made the decision to sentence a fellow human being to live out their life in one. Even if we spent half the national economy making mental hospitals into "resorts", I wouldn't want to live my life out in one. "Sir, here is your room at the Hilton on Waikiki Beach. Your dinner will be served at 6PM. You will not be allowed to leave the premises. Ever." As I said above, this will take an enormous change in the fundamental beliefs we have about society, about the worth, and the price of freedom. Is my freedom from the anxiety of worrying about mass murderers equivalent to the freedom of a mentally ill person? If we can make that decision, where do we draw the lines? The intricacies of such legislation would dwarf the tax codes in complexity. To quote the great philosophers Mick and Keef, "It's a Bitch".

We fight about guns and cops but ignore the elephant in the room. The only way to stop this, or at least slow it down, is to incarcerate people who we don't want to incarcerate. We don't want to lock up our sons who we love. We took them to soccer games. Helped them with homework. Taught them to sing The Eyes of Texas. They were the joy of our lives, but at about age 19-23, if they are predisposed, we start to see the signs of mental illness. "Not my beautiful boy!" we tell ourselves. If we can get them into treatment they may improve..."See, I told you he is a good boy", but the treatment, likely medication, causes side effects. He loses the "high" his cycles gave him. He can't get a boner. He stops the medication and probably all treatment. We can't stand the thought of locking him up...for a long time...possibly years...maybe forever. We Americans, seemingly, would rather see mass shootings than face the thought that some people cannot tolerate the freedom that we hold so dear. We can't stand the thought that we might have to do that to another person. Do we have that right? Do we have the right not to? If we had forced treatment and restriction of freedom, these people would be alive. Those kids in Uvalde would be alive. But do we have that right? It is an unanswerable question. We see the warning signs, again and again, but we can't stand to restrict their freedom, possibly forever. We will have to fundamentally change the ethos of this country if we are going to stop this. I don't think that we can. I don't know that we should.

You broke my mother's hip. You monster!!

Humble brag

Tell her it's probably the nekkid pictures of her sister that you have been waiting on.

Fred Flintstone used his feet to stop his car. He didn't need no pussy assed brakes.

Not to minimize your feelings, but what you are missing is poor health until an early death. Keep it up. Good work man! Very good work.

I love this team.

I happen to believe that God is "all powerful", but that does not mean that God controls our behavior. God has given us many examples and "suggestions" as to what behaviors will be best, for ourselves and for all others. However, God does not force us to follow those suggestions. If we were forced, God would be nothing but a slave driver, a bully making us do what He wants rather than what we want. God, if He forced us into behavior, would essentially be a rapist. God is not a rapist. We are instructed, but we are allowed to follow our own path. God wants us to follow the right path (the path of righteousness), but He will not force us to take that path. God wants willing followers, not slaves.

"...what does prayer accomplish? For one thing, if we have learned to listen while we pray, we can be reminded of things we would probably not be thinking of otherwise. Prayer can remind us to be grateful. Prayers of thanks for the food we eat remind us not to take it for granted. They serve not only to remind us of people going hungry, but of the miracle that occurs when seeds and soil, rain and sun combine to produce our daily sustenance. They remind us of the chain of people involved in producing, processing, packaging and distributing the food that ends up on our tables...Without these prescribed blessings, it might not occur to me to be grateful for all of those things. I might have to wait until I encountered a blind man or a cripple, and then my gratitude would be mixed with a large dose of pity...Gratitude does not come naturally to most people." Rabbi Harold Kushner

HeHateMe et al. Talk about lard chips.

A kid asked his guitar teacher, "Sir. Will you please tab Rumble for me?" The teacher replied, "Son, you cannot tab rage".

Ba Bum Bum Ba Bum Ba Bum Bum Ba Bum Repeat