Send a gift. If gifts will be received at the event ask a friend who’s attending to take it on your behalf. If you can come up with something small, but meaningful, it’ll say that you noticed the slight without saying it and it could still be an olive branch. Include a nice card that tells her how much you’ve appreciated her friendship and help organizing group events. She’ll either take the olive branch and open up or back off, or she’ll catch the slight, it’ll be entirely up to her.

If you have room in the pan, try pouring a cup of cream into the bottom just before baking. It will keep the rolls nice and soft and moist.

They spelled “out of racism” wrong. “In error” isn’t even close.

This is the solution, and the place to start is your local comic shop if you have one. Almost all of them run gaming clubs in the back.

This exactly.

I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it did, and Japan would be a likely culprit.

Tech has the right of what I was getting at though. I’ve been a member of several organizations and every one has made an attempt to turn me out to events. Most recently I’ve been working with a local Democratic Socialists of America chapter which got me out for canvassing and socials, which lead to protests and neighborhood cleanups, and now includes mutual aid events and tabletop gaming. All of this happened after I was laid off and moved half way across the country. Not all organizations are the same, but a good one can practically create a whole social life from thin air.

My brother in Christ, that is just a club! You pay dues to belong and everyone elects the few most organized and functional people to plan events that everyone can enjoy. You can even kick it up a notch and make it a civil organization so that you’re accomplishing good works while hanging out with likeminded people. Society used to be full of such organizations, and it’s time we brought them back.

Gods, I wish someone would gag that bloated gasbag.

‘Twas ever thus.

If Reagan were around to see this we might stand a chance at getting some kind of gun control.

Xitter* (pronounced shitter)

Absolutely! But it’s not just about the internal pressure. If everyone trump threatens retaliates even when he backs off, and then demands he offer assurances before they do, he looks weak. The one thing he doesn’t want, and can’t afford, is to look weak in front of his base. It won’t work immediately, but if he keeps looking weak on the public stage he’ll either stop making such threats in order to avoid it or lose enough support to matter.

He means, just like him, she’s a horrible tapeworm in the bowels of our society.

Hard to believe there was a time when Catholic priests fought for progress instead of standing in its way.

Not just McDonald’s, it’s been used by numerous organizations to downplay lawsuits they feel will hurt them with consumers. Tort reform is also trotted out by politicians who want to look as though they’re protecting people from “government overreach” because they know people don’t know what torts are and they can scare them into believing they’re going to be sued if they don’t get outside to shovel their walk early enough after a snow.

“It’s been very cathartic making my mental health troubles everyone else’s problem” says man who can afford to pay an entire team to listen to his unhinged rants if he wants.

Worryingly we may all be both types. The problem is that we’re typically the first when the new information aligns with the world as we think we understand it, and the second when it conflicts. Information that calls into question our understanding of the world around us makes us feel threatened and through that threat activates our fight or flight instincts. Since we can’t run from information we’ve already heard the only choice is to fight back against it either publicly or in our own minds.

I would imagine that Columbia’s disciplinary process creates records that are maintained for a number of years. If they weren’t created, or have since been destroyed that would be evidence towards improper procedures. Certainly any destruction now would be highly illegal and might result in a presumption against the university. As to the tenant laws I assume the order that the students received should be proof enough unless New York tenant laws have a carve out for universities.

Bare in mind that the Constitution is just a piece of paper. It only has power when the government and the will of the people give it power.

There’s a scene from The West Wing that really impressed upon me the great challenge of holding even the seemingly most stable democracies together. Toby Ziegler was working with representatives of a newly forming government and a constitutional scholar played by Christopher Lloyd to craft a constitution. Toby takes issue with the amount of power they are considering vesting in their executive branch, preferring instead a parliamentary system. Christopher Lloyd’s character responds to him with almost this exact point, telling him that their work just then was to instill a democratic spirit in those leaders and through them the broader populace of their country.

You can stretch right up and touch the sky!