Y_B

Yes. I'm not a advocate for conformity, and sometimes being ridiculed for being different is innocuous if you ask me, but imho there are always points in people's lives when the expenses one suffer from being out of sync with society become greater than the benefits one receive from remaining unique. At other points, that scale tips the other way. Thus, I believe that people who do best in life are the ones who are keen and flexible enough to know when to do and be what to best satisfy themselves and the rest of the world.

Well, yes and no. I'ma step aside from the Barbie example and just focus on your sentence above in general. I'm all for personal discoveries, self-sought interest and growth, but I'd like to think that some control over the matter isn't all bad, and may even be necessary depending on the circumstances. Letting your kids be whoever they want to be should not be unconditional because that crosses the line from unconditional love to irresponsible love. Like letting your kids eat whatever they wish. Obviously I can't speak from the perspective of a father or a child psychologist, but I think that while I'll love my kid no matter what, it would be neglectful to let him develop preferences for things that will clearly disadvantage him in life; i.e. drop out of school. I suppose every parent in the world just wants their child to be well and as far as playing with dolls go, it's not really so bad, but it will be disheartening to see my son lose friends and respectability from it when everyone else from the neighborhood went out for football while he stays to play with Barbie, so to speak.

Sure. As long as he isn't playing with Ken more, I got nothing to worry about

I'm not a clinical social worker but it seems to me like sometimes you just gotta leave a person alone for a while. Your friend may or may not be ok but there's not much you can be beyond letting him know that you'll be here for him if and when he needs you. Pressing into it will push him away and irrite him more and I've come to realize that offering help to people who aren't looking for help is extremely counter-productive. Give him time to come back to his senses, however months it may take. Unless he's clearly heading into a position that's endangering himself or people around him, don't meddle.

I wish that were more true. Every other song played on the radio here is still "Born This Way"

True. But her saturation of entertainment media has clearly died down. There was a period of time when she appeared on SNL, did a camera commercial, had a biography done in a TV special all around the same time. Tickets to her concerts were talked about even across college campuses and every other song playing on the radio was "You Belong With Me", "Love Story" or something similar. That was about a year ago and I actually haven't heard her name in a while now. I think her performance at the 2010 VMAs marked the obviousness of her decline because during that performance was when most people I know who was her fan unanimously agreed that she's way past her prime. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a big fan of her's

Let's have a quickie while you're here!

Sex on a friggin stick

How does being gay have to do with that?

There are a few times when someone says something questionable and the whole GA comes crashing on them with like -20 points and it's not like that person threatened to kill anybody. Obviously people are not a impartial about opinions as they sometimes proclaim because It seem to boils down to scale...as in, if people disagree with an opinion, they try not to mark down, but if they really disagree with an opinion, then it became okay to neg

Fine, guess I shouldn't have unsolicitedly attempted to make convo Just fyi, don't mistake conversation for confrontation. It kinda caught me off guard cuz I had thought you were chill...

Damn, you're fast to scratch.....not sure why you thought I was "dogging' but w/e I assume you wrote a post with the intention of it being read and possibly responded to rather than just talking to yourself....You gave some comments, I wanted to respond, and It was nothing beyond what I would have said to anyone were i to have conversation about Gaga with them. So...something offended you? (damn, people are so quick to throw down the harassment card)

I think people who admire Britney Spears still see her as a legacy in light of her past and what she had accomplished rather than who she is now. I don't disagree she's very accomplished but a cat being tickled has made history on youtube, so what does that say? I think Gaga enthusiast tend to overestimate her authority. I give her another 5 years before fading completely into obscurity. My reasons for it is that 1) I don't believe Gaga is as truly influential as people make her out to be. and 2) She came into fame at a time when contemporary entertainment, which exhausts at an increasingly quicker rate, is basically going through pop artists by the month. Remember when Taylor Swift seemed like she was going to take over the world? And boom, now, it's like she never existed. The "5 minutes of fame" has depreciated to 1 minute, so to speak meaning that even the most brightest flame today will quickly die out when the public looks for the next entertaining thing.

WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP WMP.....wait was this what you meant?

Not. In. The. Least. Bit. First off, I don't dismiss her credibility as a self-made performer and do recognize that she's done some pretty remarkable things but quite frankly there are many and much more inspirational figures out in the world that are worth looking up to for me. I don't find inspiration in something that repulses me. I don't enjoy her overthehead flashy style and it's sad to me to see the current generation of people just eat up on the shock factor that she completely relies on. The fact that your first sentence stands true is no more ridiculous to me than how Rebecca Black is emerging as a pop culture phenomenon. Additionally, it's not like I mold myself to be or have the demeanor of some pseudo-macho insecure fag-hating fag, but I am far from being a fan of the typical gay scene with the filtered down type of superficial pride. The fact that it's seemingly becoming Gaga's purpose to fuel those kind of thing and even write a song that's virtually a gay anthem really just triggers my gag reflex But hey that's just me and I'll prolly get piled on by all the Gaga enthusiast here who think she's the next best thing since sliced bread but I'm entitled to not enjoy what I don't enjoy.

I mostly agree and rarely neg anyone in the forums unless he or she posted something painstakingly offensive, ignorant or just incorrect. But neutralizing the +/- system in the soapbox will be tricky because the dynamic of the soapbox didn't evolve from a dispassionate place and I've actually realized a long time ago that the soapbox here sometimes become this sort of brawl of opinions and rhetoric. It's much easier to say "you're wrong" rather than "I disagree" and there are very concrete but subtle differences between the two.

Papaya, you're my hero.

You listed 5. So which group is the impostor?

As a kid, I had the neatest cutest little cursive handwriting that teachers just eat up and go googoo on me. It lasted til I was old enough for it to start looking gay rather than cute so I turned it down a few notches and wrote in chicken scratch instead of unicorn stamps ever since. Sometimes I feel like I can get diabetes from just looking at some of the elementary school work I've kept

Well you know how much people love spectacle. Besides it's good chance to make some money. I get what you're saying though, and I don't necessarily disagree. I'm just trying to balance out some criticisms of the wedding coverage. There's been many FB status updates I've read this morning that show just how quickly some people like to jump on the bandwagon to belittle everything.

In response to KC and Matt, sure there are many more important and substantial events happening in the world but that's all the more cause to celebrate this wedding. With all the political controversies, wars in the Middle East, terrorism here and there, radiation fears, speculations on how out of control international debt is, tornados killing hundreds, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc it's more than mildly depressing to even turn the tv on sometimes. It's nice to look away from all the tensions of the world and just for a little while focus on something nice and awe-inspiring. That's just my thought.

I don't exactly have profound interest in the royal family or their affairs but I do acknowledge the magnitude of this event and have profound appreciation for it in that respect. I've been following the wedding chit chat for the same reason and was planning on waking up to watch the wedding but missed it and am sooo pissed.

Was it the girl wanting to try anal sex or was it the guy wanting his gf to nail him with a strap on?

I was not born into wealth and am thankful because otherwise I wouldn't have learned to be humble or conscientious nor would I have developed my drive to succeed. I was, however, born into a great family and have great genes and that's all I could've asked for.

Nope, sorry, no Photoshop but the cropping and adjusting of the size and color may have distorted the image. FB tags aren't always the best quality And as far as the rest of the comment goes, you don't really know me too well then MethodWriter