I just wanted to see that in the Recent Comments bar.
That second one -- play kids off each other in terms of grades? Hoo-boy. Let me introduce you to the damaged relationship between my sister and my parents.... and that wasn't intentionally crafted...
So is she getting this from the Discourses on Livy or what?
That might seem extreme, especially if you are not familiar with the unique challenges of disciplining a special-needs child.
Making your kid go to her room for a half hour is extreme? Apparently my parents were child abusers. (And if anything I'd think it was more extreme for a special-needs child, not the other way around.)
The rule of thumb I've heard for preschoolers is one minute of time out per year of age. 30 minutes seems like a long time.
One of these lessons is not like the others. I'm sure the husband is pleased with what the wife learned from the last one.
He's probably also pleased with her learning the benefits of deceit.
(And she with him learning them, obvsly)
4: A corrupt people which becomes free can remain so only with the greatest difficulty (1.17)
Well-organized republics establish rewards and punishments for their citizens but never compensate one with the other (1.24)
Men very rarely know how to be entirely good or entirely bad (1.27)
A republic or a prince should not delay in rewarding men even in situations of necessity (1.32)
When a problem has arisen either within a state or outside it, it is safer to delay dealing with it than to attack it (1.33)
etc.
My mother just texted me from Beckley, Arkansas as my folks are driving to Dallas and reminded me of a funny parenting trick they pulled when I was super young. Maybe it's actually standard stuff from the playbook.
We were driving from Oklahoma to I'm not sure where exactly for a vacation. Possibly Philadelphia to see my grandparents. We had a white VW van, which uh...car terminology...blew a rod or something in the aforementioned hamlet of Beckley.
So we had to sit there in a repair shop eating candy bars out of the vending machine while they fixed the van, at which point my parents were insufficiently sure of the van's ongoing roadworthiness to continue on to possibly Philadelphia, and we turned around and went home.
My parents rebranded this as "the silly vacation" which is how we referred to it for years, apparently unaware that it was "the incredibly pathetic aborted vacation." We were 3 and 5 or something and were all "Fuck yeah, Arkansas! Bring on the silly!"
That is all I have to say about parenting.
30 minutes seems like a long time.
For a 6-year-old, yeah. But it can't just keep scaling up linearly with age, right? Ten minutes doesn't seem like enough punishment time for a 10-year-old.
12 is hilarious and I want to live in all of them.
Nothing in the article seems all that Machiavelli-related.
12 is wonderful, but don't read the comments.
Step-parent is such a mine-field. All the difficulties of parenting, plus some added difficulty. The bonus is how much harder it makes their marriage.
15: Not everything revolves around you, essear. I'll do what I want!!!
13: And invite children over. Children everywhere would know Uncle Smearcase has the best candy -- if any lived to tell the tale!
Maybe we should all read the comments and talk about how awful they are! The first horribly offended childfree person is probably my favorite.
I chose to reread Ex Urbe on Florence and Machiavelli instead. Worth it for the zany timeline in the middle alone.
20: That comment was delightfully bizarre. You have to work pretty hard to generate that reaction to an article that jokey.
Children are best seen and not heard screaming as they fall to their deaths.
Oh the later "I feel sorry for your kids!" one is pretty good too.
Christ, where to start. 1 - you've been doing it wrong. And now do you have to give everyone ten dollars every time you go shopping? 2 - just fucking awful. 3 - weird. 4 - what Blume said. 5 - okaaay.
Since child rearing books are going the way of business books, I call dibs on parenting secrets of Atilla the Hun.
Lesson one: on the day your male child is born, cut his cheek with a sword, so that he learns the way of the blade before that of mother's milk.
Lesson two: make your child's riding breeches of rodent skin, so that no discomfort in the saddle shall afflict him.
"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue your children without fighting is the acme of skill."
"All parenting is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make our children believe we are far away; when far away, we must make them believe we are near."
Etc.
31: Have we succeeded in quoting the entirety of Love and Death in comments yet?
|| Lot of excitement in my twitter stream over the women's final four -- particularly Native women following Louisville (because of the sisters playing there). They've managed quite the string of upsets; today they were down by 10 at the half, but ended up beating Cal. |>
I wished I liked Mad Men more. I really do. Do you think the Philistines knew they were philistines?
I used to like it, but now I feel like I'm watching out of a misplaced sense of obligation.
I never really liked it, and I feel bad about that. Lots of people I trust think it's a fantastic show, so maybe it is, but I don't enjoy it. I mean, there are often amazing visual tableaux (this is rather obvious; sorry) and scenes (the slide carousel still stands out for me), but it's not enough for me. I'm very hard to please.
Do you think the Philistines knew they were philistines?
No. They were too antisemitic to listen when the Jews tried to tell them.
Now I'm mentally composing a list of "things I do out of a misplaced sense of obligation". It's... most of the things I do.
Maybe you enjoy misplaced senses of obligation?
Like, why am I taking an absurd one-day trip halfway across the country next weekend to give a talk I've lost interest in to an audience who doesn't care? Oh, right, misplaced sense of obligation.
I proved my won't-watch-TV-out-of-a-misplaced-sense-of-obligation bona fides when I quit watching Battlestar Galactica after two seasons.
I haven't had grappa that many times, but I enjoyed it when I did. I know there's some kind of widespread consensus that it tastes like paint thinner or something. Maybe I just have a terrible sense of taste.
35: I'm with you; I've never liked it. I refuse to feel guilty about that, even if people accuse me of being revisionist.
I haven't had grappa that many times
Unless you count the individual shots on this occasion.
"Parent like Machiavelli, dance like there's nobody watching, love like an orca in heat." Right?
We would also have accepted "vacuum as if nobody's going to get their carpets any cleaner."
I disagree with Josh; grappa is tasty.
My comments that night seem surprisingly lucid. I wonder if that restaurant watered down its grappa.
My experience of spirits commonly claimed to taste of paint thinner is that, in general, they are quite nice. Exception: some raki I got in Crete.
Next time I'm in a bar I should ask myself: what would Machiavelli drink?
I had some raki on Paros when this old dude who spoke no English sat me down at a table and poured me some from a Pepsi bottle. It wasn't good, but it was pretty great.
I got some other raki also on Crete which was poured for my purchase from a big jug into a reüsed water bottle (like an Evian bottle or something). I only had a little bit before my roommate unwittingly took a swig of it (I had, on my return to Athens, just put it in the fridge).
29: "If your child is prone to anger, provoke him."
57: wait, did your roommate swigging it prevent you from having more for some reason?
Like, did they proceed to finish it? Did they hit you over the head with the bottle? Did they run out and sell it to rubes by the paper cup-full?
I think he may have poured it out or just contaminated it with his jock-ness or something.
"If I'd known if was that kind of liquid..."
Bros teabagging raki is a porn niche that one might hope sprung into existence only just now.
We had a white VW van, which uh...car terminology...blew a rod or something
Maybe the mechanics on Fire Island call it that but generally the terminology is "threw a rod".
That happened to me when I was driving up here. It was... no fun.
Exactly. Throwing a rod is a mechanical failure. Blowing a rod is what happens after you let someone use your laptop to get on facebook.
That wasn't fun either, but in a different way.
Nothing in the article seems all that Machiavelli-related.
Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved.
Thanks. Could somebody explain the usage if we are referring to a seal, either aquatic or automotive.
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NMM to Margaret Thatcher.
||
NOW IS THE ONLY APPROPRIATE TIME.
Don't they have to drive a stake through its black heart, decapitate the body and then burn and scatter the ashes from Land's End to John o' Groats to be sure?
I don not normally rejoice in the death of people, even if I dislike them. But I'll make an exception in this case.
Previously discussed here.
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_10865.html#1241098
I like grappa, although not quite as much as my wife. I brought a bottle back for her last time I was in Rome [but since that coincided with peak pregnancy, only I've been drinking it]. We also had some in Greece last summer, which the bar/restaurant owner kept calling 'raki' but which I think was technically tsikoudia or tsipouro -- some sort of pomace brandy, not flavoured with aniseed or any other herb. It was surprisingly nice.
I like grappa, although not quite as much as my wife.
Me also. It's grappa then wife then beer then whiskey.
In Albania "raki" is basically grappa. Not the same as what it means in Turkey. I think the various Yugoslavian countries have "raki" which is also basically grappa.
GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH!!!
||
Only in Minneapolis:
(Football supporters wielding large "Dethloon" puppets at the home opener.)
||>
I thought Raki, Arak, Pastis, Ouzo and Sambuca were all basically the same weird ass anise drink of the Mediterranean. I liked Pastis for a while until one day I tried it and it tasted disgusting, and I now find it nauseating. But different from Grappa.
You're taking your life in your hands if you say that to a Greek or a Turk, Halford...
For handy reference:
Serbian: шљивовица, Bulgarian: сливовица, Czech: slivovice, German: Sliwowitz, Bosnian: šljivovica, Croatian: šljivovica, Hungarian: sligovica, Italian: slivovitz, Macedonian: сливова, Polish: śliwowica, Romanian: şliboviţă, Slovak: slivovica, Slovene: slivovka, Yiddish: שליוואָוויץ, Ukrainian: слив'янка
She's neglected the importance of exploiting disposable third parties to keep your hands clean. This is why we hired a very strict disciplanarian babysitter for our kids for six months. Once they had learnt new standards of politeness and trembling, we had her decapitated and left on the dining table for them to find at breakfast. They know we are kind and listen to their concerns.