November 15, 2006

• Isn't there some provision in the exchange student rules that provides for student relief in case of raging insanity on the part of the exchange family?
• Fascinating. Cheers, rogerd. I'm impressed by the fact that he wants them to understand why he didn't go for it. The most disconcerting thing about any sort of fundamentalism is the unwillingness to consider the issue from any other POV.
• I wonder why, after he found out he could switch families, he had to wait 67 days.
• A few years ago there was a minor scandal about all these families hiring au pairs to help with their kids but all the fathers on various internet groups talking about strategies to get into the au pair's pants. Ha Ha! Americans -- we're so cute!
• ouch ouch ouch. Poor kid. If I would have known, he could have hung out up here in Seattle, sharing his *own* stories, and some fine Pinot Noir. Pity. I hate when people ask a question so that they can chide you about your likely answer. If I would have been him, I would have headed out for a satanic temporary tattoo. I'm sure a church-worthy family would look pretty good on paper if signing up to be a host family. Perhaps a more in-depth interview would be in order.
• The most disconcerting thing about any sort of fundamentalism is the unwillingness to consider the issue from any other POV. Speaking of Republicans, can you believe the complete lack of competence in their recent bizarre reign? Hi-oooooo!
• Seems to me that Toys for Tots has a better distribution policy than Poles for ...
• Awful, selfish people.
• Sad, but not surprising at all, for me to learn that this occurred just a few hours up the road from me. What sort of things would people who spend all of this time and effort on their religion be doing if they did not have religion?
• Reminds me of that scene in 'I heart Huckabess' with the fundie family, their refugee guest and Mark Wolberg. Funny.
• I don't normally get schaudenfraud kicks, but I laughed my ass off at that article.
• whatever happened to MeFi??
• Eh; I live in Winston-Salem, and I am sure that any enterprising 19 year old can get in trouble very easily, religious family or not. Hell, I have seen a few of them do precisely that.
• What sort of things would people who spend all of this time and effort on their religion be doing if they did not have religion? To be fair...
• Wow, that poor kid. He shouldn't bother writing to the fundie host family. They are almost assuredly not interested in anything he has to say. (Because, you know, if they were, they'd have listened while he was there.) Most fundamentalists are very closed-minded. (She says, from her personal experience growing up around xian fundamentalists.)
• Whoa-this just screams 'sit-com'. Politically incorrect Polish jokes on one side, bat-shit insane fundies on the other. I don't have the time to work out the particulars but I think we can sell it to the WB. Wait, is there still a WB?
• verbminx: As one of the Christians among us, I would like you to know that if you can spell out every other word in your othewise grammatically perfect post, it would be nice it you could spell out Christian as well. As for the exchange student, I wish I could apologize to him. I wish I could say that family isn't typical of Christians, but lately that mindset is getting common enough to be thought of as mainstream Christianity.
• verbminx: As one of the Christians among us, I would like you to know that if you can spell out every other word in your othewise grammatically perfect post, it would be nice it you could spell out Christian as well. As for the exchange student, I wish I could apologize to him. I wish I could say that family isn't typical of Christians, but lately that mindset is getting common enough to be thought of as mainstream Christianity.
• And yes, we Christians are still trying to figure out this technology stuff..... *embarrassed*
• Doolhickie: She may have left out a "t," but I thought "Xtians" had some legitimacy since the "X" stands for the Greek "Chi," the first letter of "Christ," and has been used by Christians for a very long time. If you think about it, the English spelling is a new kid on the block. I don't think any disrespect was intended.
• I always thought "Xtians" meant something like "extremist Christians". Oops.
• Actually, path, if you want to show proper respect, use the spelling the people of that group use. I have over 12000 posts on BeliefNet and I've never seen a Christian use the abbreviation Xian or Xtian. Everytime I have seen it used, it is either by an ex-Christian or someone who has something against Christisns. (I'd be surprised if verbminx isn't in one of those two categories.) And like I pointed out, if you look at the rest of the post, not one other word is abbreviated. If verbminx had time to spell out the rest of that, why not Christian, too? Anyway, no clear religious affiliation in verbminx's profile but there is this tidbit which I think is wise: If a thread becomes annoying to me - IE, I am arguing with someone over something dumb and it is taking up more of my time than I would like - I say what I'm going to say and leave it. Arguing with people on the internet is a fruitless venture... wastes time, annoys everyone. Good point. I didn't intend my little rant to be a derail, so I guess I'm done with this thread.
• Doohickie: I'm really ticked off that you derailed this thread into talking about me and making assumptions about my personal life, and what amounts to personal attacks. Particularly since I made an offhand comment, had nothing else to say (therefore no intent to revisit the thread), and the topic had scrolled off the front page. It's only by whim that I ever came back to this thread: I was looking at something else in the archive and couldn't remember whether I'd commented here. I wasn't sidestepping an argument at that point: I had no idea anything was up! So it's presumptuous to assume that anyone who doesn't address your argument on a particular thread has even seen it. Big clue-in: "xians" is no less legit than "xmas," so I think you made yourself look petty, prissy and jerky. "Xtians" is incorrect, as "X" is short for Christ (it would then be "Christtians"). I have known people, religious and not, who wrote their first names as "Xian" or "Xopher." Lovely path explained some of this, and there is a long history related to it: LOOK IT UP. The fact that I'm smart/dextrous enough to usually spell most of the things I write correctly doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to use whatever fucking abbreviations I see fit... and if that ruffles your feathers, you should probably QUIT THE INTERNET. Seriously, this level of control-freakishness does not reflect well on you or bode well for your enjoyment of many forums: it's not your business to tell people how to write if you aren't the forum owner. Pick your battles. Also, do not assume that MoFi (OMG, should I be writing out the full name to show proper respect? Am I "allowed" to say OMG?) is = to Beliefnet. It isn't. Conventions there are not conventions here. You're not a n00b - I checked - so you should know that. FWIW, I use abbreviations to slightly simplify my posts, which are almost always too long & wordy. Nobody stands over my shoulder to ensure that I do so with absolute consistency: perish the thought that I might one day use an abbrev. in a short post! Do not make assumptions about me. My participation in MoFi does not require a detailed profile. What you took from my profile is true; however, it was not the case in this instance, for reasons I'll address in a sec. I don't think it's usually appropriate to list things like religion in a basic profile, and I don't think it's appropriate to post quotes from someone's profile without their consent, either. I removed a link to my website a while ago precisely because I wasn't interested in providing fodder for anyone who might want to give me a hard time about something I posted: IE, privacy reasons. Arguing with people on the internet is indeed stupid and a waste of time, and as I said, I'm irritated at the moment, but I suspect you only visited this thread because you're a Christian, clearly interested in discussing religion at tedious length (cf. TWELVE THOUSAND posts on BN), looking for something to offend you. Huzzah! You found it. & it's almost nothing, and something about which one had to assume & presume a lot in order to get upset. (Note: the above paragraph is to make a point, as it is solely based on the same kind of logic that you used about me. You might just as easily have visited the thread because you are a Xian who was upset by the host family's behavior, which is not representative of mainstream Xians. Do not confuse comments about fundamentalists with comments about Xians in general. If you aren't the kind of person who this guy was dealing with, you needn't take offense. See? MAGICAL!) NOW I'm stomping away from the thread.
• To be fair, and not to keep an argument going just for its own sake, many Christians do find that abbreviation offensive, and I'm surprised to find that people don't know that. From Wikipedia: "Xian or Xtian is another word that has been used to describe Christians and is similar to using Xmas in place of Christmas; the X or Xt used as a contraction for "Christ" ("X" resembles the Greek letter Χ (Chi), the first letter of "Christ" in Greek (Χριστός [Christos]). Some Christians find these terms offensive and equate it to taking Christ out of the term." Googling "xian abbreviation" brings back pages of links hastening to explain that it's not a pejorative or an insult. I hardly think that so many people would bother explaining that if there weren't some known controversy about it, or a vocal contingency of people who felt otherwise. I usually assume when people use that term, they mean it, whether intentionally or not, in a derogative manner. (That's my own prejudice, I suppose...) I do think Doohickie pushed the point too far, but I think it's naiive to claim that it's just an abbreviation.
• Smells like annointed teen spirit.