There’s a cliche about the daughter of the preacher being a total slut or otherwise problematic.

Anecdotal observation from college: Lots of people got hammered on a weekend, at least sometimes, but the people who couldn’t draw a line and keep it from destroying their grades were mostly the ones whose parents kept them rigidly controlled at home. It seemed like those folks had no practice in drawing their own lines because their parents always drew the lines for them, so when they were on their own they went nuts. The preacher’s daughter is a cliche with a lot of truth.

Hard to tell from the angle, but it doesn’t look sharp either. Still, that makes more sense maybe.

There’s no edge on that “blade”

I don’t think that attitude is as fringe as you seem to be thinking. There seem to be an awful lot of people who are horrified at any kind of nudity.

I can’t wait to pay for groceries with my free healthcare.

Oh, silly me

And one of the reasons why there’s so much more wealth inequality now is what conservatives have done to the tax code. Take a loot at this chart on the highest tax bracket over time.

Okay, your joke I’m just not getting.

In the unlikely case that it’s not a joke, the cartoon is showing an astronaut landing on a planet where an alien is munching on some kind of fruit that happens to look exactly like an astronaut, which means the meeting might be unfortunate.

Is anybody shocked to see a nude statue in a museum or something?

Sadly, some are. I remember as a teen visiting my aunt and uncle who had a giant Catholic family. We were sitting around watching one of the Pink Panther movies, where the main character is in a museum at night. As he scans his flashlight across the room, it passes over some nude Greek statues. My aunt took the remote and switched the channel, saying “We don’t need to watch this smut.”

The counterpoint is that, for many women I know, their swimwear exposes way more skin than their underwear.

You should reflect back on that “less prude than Americans” part of his statement. It’s only “not really possible” because of widespread American taboos about nudity. If boobs were visible in everyday life - on TV shows and at a typical day to the beach - in a non-sexual way, your son wouldn’t give a crap.

It’s interesting that in many US cities, there’s no law against women going topless, but if a woman does it, it’s outrageous. Hell, some women get chastised for breastfeeding in public. We’re a messed up society.

I’m starting to collect a few of those. I now have things in the evening on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. One of the strange things is that the hours and days pass by very slowly, though the weeks and months go pretty quickly. When I worked, I was really busy all the time (managed a software engineering organization), and there were many things that were regularly scheduled each day. I don’t want to get back to anytime like that, but it also feels like an eternity between Monday and Wednesday.

I wish there was a good way to let publications know we feel that way. So they know is that we clicked.

I’ll admit that this one took me a second

I get where you’re coming from - in years past that was often the same for me. It turns out that life can be really stressful, but still not have any marks for the passing of time. It just means that the stress doesn’t come from things like work, school, or other deadlines.

As a former software engineer, I applaud you.

I retired in January, and I live alone now. I have no cues about the days and the passage of time. I’ve found I have to put things on my calendar with reminders that I never had to before. Just mundane things like taking out the trash barrels. It seems really strange to me, but more than half the time, when I get the notification, I’m completely surprised. “Oh, huh, it’s Thursday.”

My wife and I are both computer geeks, and so our kids were exposed to computers and played computer games from a young age. One day I was playing with our daughter - playing with her dolls - and she said, “I’m going to exit this Barbie and select this one.” Cracked me up because it made perfect sense, but it’s not the way people talk about things IRL.

Those at the top of government aren’t following the rules anymore. Why should states still be bound to do so?

Republicans are ignoring the laws applied to themselves, but not the ones applied to other groups, and they’re in control. They will for sure use the law against states that do this. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it though.