Re: This claims to be the antidote to annoying things.

1

Pennsylvania, but not Philadelphia.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 5:45 PM
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Whoops. Corrected. I just switch those two words in my head all the damn time.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 5:46 PM
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3

Sweet, I have a friend who was hand-selected by god! (He overslept.) Irreligious-ass motherfucker, too.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 5:48 PM
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4

God wants us all dead, but at a time and place of his choosing.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 5:52 PM
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5

An interesting angle on the standard "God has a plan" stuff. It never seems to occur to them to think they're implying "those other fuckers, though, God killed 'em good, just like He wanted." That poor sucker who had a perfect commute on the way in to work on 9/11, made record time and was savoring a fresh cup of coffee at his desk when the first plane hit? God's wrath all up in there. (So I guess the corollary is "always feel a vague sense of dread when things are going well.")


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 5:55 PM
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6

The last line of the email is false.


Posted by: God | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 5:57 PM
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7

We are all senders to the inbox of an unpredictable God.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:12 PM
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8

heebie, you really need to start ignoring these emails.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:12 PM
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9

8 is true. I do delete most of them without reading them.

The other thing she sends are these sadsack pleas for why her collective email list is not in closer touch with her, with complicated multiple-choice options about which kinds of emails we would like to see from her, but she'll ignore you if you ask for just the personal emails and not the forwards.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:25 PM
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10

People are religious in large part to find comfort regarding the arbitrary nature of life and death, and this e-mail seems like a rather anodyne expression of that impulse. Lots of people really do the thing that DS suggests, and say that people die because a just God wants it that way.

So if you find this e-mail offensive, it seems as though you've got to find offense in pretty much the entire edifice of Christian religion.

Which, come to think of it, I do. So never mind.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:25 PM
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11

Actually, the sender is Jewish.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:27 PM
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12

11 makes it that much awesomer.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:29 PM
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13

It seems there are a lot of people in your life, Heebie, that shouldn't be allowed access to email services.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:33 PM
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14

13: This is the same person as on Friday. She sends a lot of forwards.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:34 PM
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Oh, my mistake. Pester Heebie relentlessly, then, persons.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:36 PM
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with complicated multiple-choice options about which kinds of emails we would like to see from her, but she'll ignore you if you ask for just the personal emails and not the forwards.

Whoa. That's, like, a whole 'nother level.

I admit that my mom used to forward similar things (not quite that bad?) from time to time, but you know, you can't really send your mom's emails to the trash bin, like, automatically. Unless you're a monster.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:38 PM
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5: I think that the worst you can say about Him is that basically He's an underachiever.

(Does not really fit but just finished watching that for the nth time. Also, Jewish.)


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:39 PM
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18

It's never inappropriate to quote Love and Death. Of course, I can't even guess what my n might be.


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:44 PM
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19

Did you hear about the researcher into sexuality and psychology who, in his youth, was able to devise cunning experiments and shape innovative, powerful arguments, but who, as he aged, gradually lost those abilities? Yes, it's a sad story; as he aged, he felt his craft ebbing.

______________________

The above joke, such as it is, has evidently been used before.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:46 PM
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20

One easy way to tell who are my people in the special needs adoption community and who aren't is that if they're saying "God wanted these kids to be with us" and forgetting that apparently the divine method chosen was abuse/neglect/abandonment plus all the joys of foster care, I can basicslly write that person off. I often tend to keep reading out of some sort of emotinal masochism, but at least I know why I shouldn't.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:46 PM
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21

9: Demand she send pictures of cats. Best you can do under the circumstances.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:52 PM
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22

Ask her to caption the cats, obviously.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:55 PM
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23

I'll ask her to caption them all with "What a misunderstanding!"


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:57 PM
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24

Ask her to caption the cats obviously


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:57 PM
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25

21: Be careful what you wish for.


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:57 PM
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26

Actually, the sender is Jewish.

Who by Pre-K, who by donut, who by alarm clock, who by turnpike, who by food, who by spark plug, who by band-aid.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 6:58 PM
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27

25: holy crap. Old Possum got served.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:00 PM
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Actually, the sender is Jewish.

Hah! I struggled with this in my comment. First I referred to "religion," then I erased that and put in "Western religion," then I was going to go with "the Judeo-Christian tradition," but that still seemed unfair.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:01 PM
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24: Thanks for making that explicit.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:01 PM
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30

29: I omitted a comma, you philistine.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:02 PM
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31

Thanks for that explicit-making.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:08 PM
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32

31: so, see, you said that she should obviously caption the cats, and then my implication was that she should obviously caption the cats, right? So I googled "I am a cat" on google image search, and it's totally true that the example I found is maybe not the most obvious obviously I could have found, obviously, but man, it was still pretty funny, you know? With the value add? That I added? To the... the value.

You hate America.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:12 PM
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33

I am stating the obvious.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:14 PM
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34

I hate only fourteen states and some of those pacific islands.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:15 PM
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35

That is, some of the Pacific islands that are not state-parts but are US territory.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:18 PM
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36

So fourteen undetached state-parts?


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:19 PM
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37

Right. And various islands I can't spell the names of.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:22 PM
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38

7 is great.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 7:36 PM
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39

37: Neighbor, Palauz.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 8:02 PM
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40

I would like to state that I know 26 to be a Rosh Hashannah joke* for the benefit of AWB who swears I'm not even Jewish.

*um, or the Yom. But definitely one of those.

(I'm going to guess that my n for Love and Death is greater than ten but less than twenty. That's my Rosh Kippur service!)


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 9:28 PM
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I got in trouble along these lines when there was some plane crash where only one person died and immediately people started calling it a miracle and I was all "you know what an even nicer miracle would have been?"


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 9:31 PM
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42

26 is via Leonard Cohen, right?


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 09-11-11 11:52 PM
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43

"I wonder if I might call your attention to an observation of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He said: 'Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web'."


Posted by: Jeeves | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 1:30 AM
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44

"He said that, did he?"


Posted by: Bertie | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 1:30 AM
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45

Yes, sir.


Posted by: Jeeves | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 1:31 AM
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46

Well, you can tell him from me he's an ass.


Posted by: Bertie | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 1:31 AM
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47

I am not a magnet for crazy emails. Some people are magnets for crazy emails. What do I have to do to ensure that I never join their number.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 1:35 AM
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48

47 blames the victim.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 4:20 AM
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49

"Sometimes, if pious men are to be believed, God's mercies are curiously selective. Toplady, the author of Rock of Ages, moved from one vicarage to another; a week after the move, the vicarage he had formerly occupied burnt down, with great loss to the new vicar. Thereupon Toplady thanked God; but what the new vicar did is not known. Borrow, in his Bible in Spain, records how without mishap he crossed a mountain pass infested by bandits. The next party to cross, however, were set upon, robbed, and some of them murdered; when Borrow heard of this, he, like Toplady, thanked God."


Posted by: Cosma Shalizi | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 4:51 AM
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There is no reason to click through and actually read the damn thing. I just included it for completeness. Also I'm not going to post any more of her forwards unless they're particularly amazing, so don't worry about this becoming a thing.

Thanks for including the finish of the other forward the other day and all of this one. And I actually kind of like the posting of the crazy forwards: it's a worm's eye view of the American id which I find interesting. (I never get these; my sted-dad's dad was mailing this kind of stuff to step-dad all the time and it was always amusing to glance at.)

I also appreciate the bezerk spacing of this one:

One's
Car wouldn't start.
Hee!

Two's
Can eat as cheaply as one!

max
['Oh! Well, I'm glad the meek
Are getting something
Cuz they have a
Horrible time down here!']


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 5:58 AM
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47: I never get them, despite being at high risk (raised in the deep south, in a fundamentalist mileu). My advice is to be an unpleasant person with a reputation for not suffering fools and foolishness. Your acquintances, when about to forward, should imagine your contemptuous reaction, and strike your name from their list. More importantly, preserve your email address for mostly professional purposes. Your various idiot aunts and cousins and childhood friends should only be able to reach you through facebook, if at all.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:09 AM
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52

This is the only person that sends them to me, actually.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:11 AM
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53

My advice is to be an unpleasant person...

Are you going to remind us to breath next?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:12 AM
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54

Anybody corrects my spelling and a step on a kitten.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:14 AM
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52: Having one email-forwarder is nearly as bad as having a dozen. There are many things I could analogise that to, if only the bylaws of this august community would permit me.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:15 AM
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There's no a in I, Moby.


Posted by: Helpless Kitten | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:23 AM
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57

Step on in kitten?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:28 AM
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It is "an kitten" like "an historian" or "an apple"?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:31 AM
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Thurber nailed this phenomenon pretty well in "The Luck of Jad Peters". Subscribers to The New Yorker can read it in their archives. The unwashed can pretty much read the whole thing via Amazon's "Look Inside" for The Thurber Carnival (or just buy it already, unless you have all of his original collections) or you can find Keith Olbermann reading it on YouTube.

Well, sir, I don't suppose any of us will know what it was now, but somethin' must of told Jad to turn around.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:38 AM
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57: Why did the kitten cross to road?

Because Moby's bus stop was on the other side.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:42 AM
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My grandpa sends me a curious collection of email forwards. A lifelong union Democrat, he remains solidly supportive of things like collective bargaining rights, Social Security, and Medicare, while being skeptical of things like "welfare" and "government spending" and "those bureaucrats in Washington." The turn I've seen in the forwards since about, say, January 2009, is a marked uptick in xenophobia and jingoism.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:43 AM
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What is it about this kitten that provokes all these typos? Quick, someone kill it!


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:43 AM
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63

62: Kittens are known to give one paws.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 6:44 AM
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61: Sounds like a classic Reagan Democrat. Safety net for me, but not for thee.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 7:10 AM
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63: I was sad that my kitten had no paws until I met the one that was stuck to Moby's shoe.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 7:34 AM
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If I would have known how the morning would go, I would have wore my shoes with the leather soles and avoided that problem.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 8:01 AM
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OP: Providence! Hooray!


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 8:43 AM
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67. And nuts to Newport.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 8:49 AM
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68: Think globally, act globally. Let the local sort itself out.


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 8:53 AM
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Short version: God hand-selected certain people to live that day, but did a spectacular job making it look like the ordinary statistical distribution of reasons why people sometimes run late. So next time God is making you late, console yourself that he's probably saving your ass.

I would find this perspective useful for staying calm in traffic jams. But how do we know God isn't making us late to save us, and not as part of timing a horrible death?


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 9:00 AM
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You know how sometimes people put their small children on the phone to chat with the phone solicitors?
I'd love to put her email address in one of these comment threads, and let you all cheerfully exchange ideas.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 9:07 AM
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But how do we know God isn't making us late to save us, and not as part of timing a horrible death?

We don't. But either way, isn't it nice to know it's all part of a beautiful and perfect plan?



Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 9:14 AM
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70.last: That is basically the punchline to the Thurber story; the guy has a set of embellished stories (and a collection of associated artifacts) about close escapes from death. He is taking leave of a friend one day and then turns around and starts to come back to say something else and gets whacked by a rogue 20-pound rock fragment from a blasting site. His widow adds the rock to the collection of his lucky mementos.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 9:15 AM
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'isn't' s/b 'is'


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 9:33 AM
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Having trouble finding your kitten in the dark to step on it? "Glow-in-the-dark kittens to help produce cure for AIDS."


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 09-12-11 11:31 AM
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Oh Crippity Christ.


Posted by: anniearchy | Link to this comment | 09-13-11 6:43 AM
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