This explains a lot.

A Narcissist's Prayer That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did You deserved it. by Dayna EM Craig The Trauma Survivor Mantra It did happen. It was bad. It was a big deal. It doesn't matter if they meant it. I reject the shame. I didn't deserve it. by Dr. Elayna Fernández ~~~~~ Elayna Fernández is a happy, smiling, festive, wise powerhouse who lives oh so large. A joy to read, I cannot help but smile. I was/am so glad to come across her take on A Narcissists Prayer -- honest, painful, human, smart. A Narcissists Prayer is the best description of the animal I've ever come upon, in six lines (!) no less. Craig gives it to us dead on. Fernández in The Trauma Survivor Mantra nails it, gives us the sane and healthy response to insane unhealthy people.

Federal government invests $28 million [US $18.25 million] in fight to save Maugean skate. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese heads to Tasmania to announce $28 million to improve water quality in Macquarie Harbour — the last known refuge of the endangered Maugean skate.

He's an optimist at heart. You'd like him. I, of course, don't know who you are, dear reader, but I know you'd like my dad, Bob Gruber, because everyone likes Bob Gruber. He can tell a good joke and he loves to tell them. There's a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that I was reminded of, just the other day, from of all things a garbage can: "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better." I don't share Lincoln's there's-something-to-like-about-everyone optimism about our fellow men, but my dad does. from How It Went by John Gruber [Daring Fireball]

My husband has a birthday coming up. I know he would like something like this coin bank, but it's sold out and I'm having trouble finding an adequate, grown-up substitute. As a kid my husband really liked marble roller coasters and other kinetic toys, but never got them because they were too expensive. He expressed that he really liked the coin bank in the link above. There are some toy options, like this one, that aren't quite right, mostly because they are cheaply made and our 5-year-old daughter will claim anything sufficiently toy-like for herself.

I'm considering making something myself, so links to DIYs would also be helpful. Thank you for your help!

So I read a children's book as a kid in the 1980s that used the title quote as a running gag. Can anybody identify it? It may or may not have been a guide to surviving school. It was almost certainly a paperback from a Scholastic book order. (I had thought it was by Jovial Bob Stine, but no book of his that the Internet knows of seems to fit. It might have been bundled with one of his books, though?)

I asked a similar question a few months ago, but the "best answer" to that question no longer works because Facebook has changed the interface. I recently put a Facebook post (an article) into an album (using the relatively new feature that lets you do this with all kinds of links, not just photos/videos). But I changed my mind — I don't want it to be in any album. How do I remove it? I could use either a browser or the iPhone app.

Note that Facebook's album interface seems to have changed about a month ago, so older Facebook how-to posts might not be relevant.

I don't want to delete the post because it already has comments, etc.

My Spectrum (formerly TWC) cable box works via RF with a particular remote that comes with it in some areas. Not mine. I've got the IR remote and need the other sort. Can't find it on Amazon or eBay... I've visited the Spectrum offices in my area (Portland, ME) and have been told that, in my area, the new cable box I have (the Spectrum 201-T, which is actually the Technicolor WorldBox) does not ship with its regular, RF-capable remote, the URC-1160. In some parts of the country, however, it does.

I've searched online to find a replacement--no dice. I've also called Spectrum, to see if they will send me one, and I was told that they can only request a new remote, not specify what sort. They shipped me another IR remote.

How can I get my hands on one of these URC-1160s?

I'm looking for a blog about a civilian embarking on a short-term deployment to Afghanistan (or Iraq?) in some sort of support role—I think he was involved in engineering or computer modeling or mapping or something similar. I believe he was either a MeFite or was mentioned somewhere on MetaFilter. Anyone have a link? Other things I remember: I believe it was hosted on Blogger, though it also may not have been. I remember the poster being sad to be away from his daughter and wife for six months, but the money was of course enticing. I remember there being a couple of pretty lengthy rundowns of his time traveling and being processed on a couple of bases in the U.S. before deployment, and being concerned that he wouldn't make his deployment window if he missed a flight, and there being some discussion of all the military-issue stuff he was required to buy in order to deploy (and some things I think he deliberately chose not to bring along). All of that is pretty common fodder for deployment blogs, I guess, but maybe it'll ring a bell with someone!

Searching for "civilian deployment blog" and "Afghanistan deployment blog" has brought up a few results, but I don't think they're the blog I'm seeking. This result isn't the right one, as far as I can tell, but it may be using the same template as the one I'm remembering. This is one of the top search results, but it isn't the one I'm looking for. This and this aren't it, either. Most of the ones I'm finding are from a soldier's perspective, rather than a DoD civilian's one—or if they are about deployed DoD civilians, they mostly seem to be ones who've served in the military in other capacities previously, or who are doing multiple-year tours in Afghanistan. This guy was just going for about six months...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Where/when did the phrase "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" originate? I've seen/heard it in a lot of different places, and associate it with the Church of the SubGenius. The guy in the cubicle next to mine says it originated with Bette Midler. A quick Google finds evidence that she said that 1979ish—but does anyone have an earlier Bette Midler reference for the phrase? Or, alternately, know whether this phrase gained currency anywhere else before that?

I went scuba diving at Clear Lake, Oregon today. I saw a ton of tiny, medium-brown unidentified biological-looking... *things* attached to some of the rocks. What were they? Their silhouette was roughly the shape of a fungus growing on a tree -- think a minaturized oyster mushroom or turkey tail mushroom, but with (as far as I could tell) not particularly pronounced gills. They were attached to volcanic rock.

What were they? Eggs sacs of some kind? Actual underwater mushrooms? Some other life form? In case it's relevant, other stuff I saw in the lake included verdant fields of algae growing off the silty bottom (where the volcanic rock isn't exposed), schools of trout (the lake is stocked), plenty of caddisfly larvae in their cases, and cold-water springs feeding the lake from deep potholes. Water temperature was 41 F. We went as deep as 85', but I only remember seeing the brown unidentified objects in shallower areas -- say maybe between 15' to 30'.

I've been missing Miami's Cuban bakeries. My plans to visit have been put on hold indefinitely, so I'm looking for options to have a few items (cuban crackers, cuban bread and pastries) shipped overnight to my house a few states to the north. Does a service that does this exist? I'm willing to put some dollars toward paying for this, but would prefer something established as opposed to posting a Craigslist ad.

I know that Vicky Bakery ships guava pastries and croquetas, but I'm looking for a wider selection. Thanks everyone!

Is there a way to change the Microsoft voice Zira so she stops saying "Mississippi" when the word miss is used as a title or with a period at the end of it? I found two files (MSTTSLocEnUS.dat and MSTTSLocEnCA.dat) in the folder C:WindowsSpeech_OneCoreEnginesTTS that contain the text "mississippi" but they are both dat files and when I open them in Wordpad or Notepad, I cannot find the text. I looked in Windows Speech options and there is no place to fix pronunciations. I am using Windows 11 and it does not seem to happen when I use the David voice, only the Zira voice.

Whatever God asks us to do, our relationship with Him must be founded upon faith. Faith provides the basis upon which works follow. Works, in and of themselves, no matter how purely motived, no matter how sincere, no matter how numerous, can’t make us acceptable in the sight of a holy God.

Why must salvation be a gift? Why could only Someone equal with God ransom our souls? How can we make the promises and hope found in the Cross our own?

This week we will look at forgiveness and what it can do for restless human hearts. Without forgiveness, we remain victims. Forgiveness has more to do with ourselves than with the person or persons who have wronged us.

God out of His saving grace and love offers you a salvation that you do not deserve and cannot possibly earn; and you, in response, love Him back “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30, NKJV), a love that is made manifest by obedience to His law: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (1 John 5:3, NKJV).

Loving your neighbor as yourself is the highest expression of God’s law.

Why is it important to recognize that our faith results from and feeds on God’s faithfulness? How can we learn more to trust in His faithfulness to us and to the promises He has made to us?

A group of H1N1 swine influenza viruses have essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans and are of potential pandemic concern, health officials say. These viruses — referred to as G4 Eurasian (EA) avian-like H1N1 viruses — have been spreading in pigs in China since 2016 and are now the predominant set of genes that can be passed down from parents to offspring , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is set to roll back the city's reopening plan back to phase one as COVID-19 continues to spread across the state, a spokesman said Friday. The first phase guidelines include encouraging residents to stay home except for essential trips, wearing a face covering in public and avoid in-person dining at restaurants.

Atlanta United is the first professional sports team from Georgia to return to play during the coronavirus pandemic. Major League Soccer suspended play in March less than a month into the season. GPB Sports' Jon Nelson joined GPB All Things Considered host Rickey Bevington to explain why Saturday night's soccer match will be anything but normal.

Atlanta police released images of a second person of interest in the July 4 shooting death of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner. The first person of interest has been cleared, attorneys for the family said. Her parents, Charmaine Turner and Secoriey Williamson, are pleading with the public to provide information about those responsible in the death of their child. The reward is up to $50,000, and anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477.

Monday on Political Rewind , the relationship between Gov. Brian Kemp and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has frayed, as both officials take opposing views on how to govern during the pandemic. A once productive and collegial relationship is now soured by open fighting. What brought us here? Listen here:

Secoriea Turner, the 8-year-old girl shot to death July 4 near the burned-down Wendy's in Atlanta, had nothing to do with ongoing protests against police brutality, her family's lawyers say. At a news conference Monday, Secoriey Williamson, the girl's father, begged for anyone with information to come forward. He even played to the conscience of his daughter's killer, pleading with the shooter to come forward.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is taking up New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on his offer to send a team to conduct testing and contact tracing of people exposed to the coronavirus. Cuomo announced Monday that New York State will deploy coronavirus assistance to the capital of Georgia as the state continues to experience an increase in COVID-19 cases.

Actor Michael B. Jordan says “timing is everything. ” The SAG award winner marched in a Los Angeles Black Lives Matter protest last month demanding that Hollywood drastically increase its diversity in the executive ranks. Jordan, whose breakout “Fruitvale Station” role followed the events of a young Black man killed by a transit police officer, is channeling an urgency for change and healing into “A Night at the Drive-In.”

Jordan Daniels has worked in the Atlanta film industry for years. Monday's court ruling, which reversed the controversial "heartbeat" abortion bill passed last year in Georgia, came as a relief. "We did have a few productions leave on the basis of HB 481, and I'm happy that more won't," she said. "Obviously, I'm dually relieved since I'm a woman who loves her job, and also wants the right to choose."

Ahead of President Donald Trump's visit to the Atlanta area on Wednesday, prominent Georgia Democrats have scheduled a news conference to "slam" what they call the president's "failed coronavirus response," the group announced in a press release. For state Republican leaders, the visit offers an opportunity to showcase Trump before the GOP base as the November election approaches.

Were you really that frozen with fear? Doubtful

There's nothing I can say to this dismissive nonsense that won't get me thrown off Metafilter.

I keep returning to two things.

1) building on the idea of community, trying to spread as much love as I can in the world. The time for action will be soon but right now is the time to love each other as much as we possibly can.

2) we aren't the only country to have elected a far-right or fascist leader recently. I'm looking to the people I know who live in other countries with leaders like Trump. There is still joy and possibility in their lives, even though their fight is hard, just like ours will be.

Love and joy are exactly what the far right wants to take away from us so let's stick it to them and not let them.

I don't disagree with the advice already provided, but I think you're using the word "boundary" in an odd way. You don't get to set boundaries on other people's behaviour, even when you're married to them. You can set a boundary around your own behaviour, then other people decide how they'll respond.

In this case, you might say: if you continue a friendship with B, our relationship will be at an end. Then, the ball is in R's court - he can decide what to do next.

I am the son of a Holocaust survivor. When my dad was 11, his parents put him and his 13 year-old brother on a boat, alone, from their home in Amsterdam so they could come to America and escape the Nazis.

Hilariously, just one generation later, this website suggests I get back on the boat and return to exactly the same place for exactly the same reason.

My marriage is only monogamish, so I'm saying this with some bias towards polyamory:

If your spouse want to prioritize this friendship over your stated boundary, then your spouse is prioritizing the friendship over your marriage.

In this case, you really don't have to explain why. In fact, I'd stop explaining why. It's not a comprehension problem. It's that your partner doesn't want to do what you are asking.

Here's the words I would use: I do not want you to continue this friendship. If you do, I am going to have to take steps towards ending our marriage. We should discuss this in counselling.

In other words even in marriages where there's less emphasis on monogamy, the main thing is that you have to respect your partner's limits, or else you aren't partners. I'm sorry your partner is putting you through this.

White people are very invested in treating racism as extreme and exceptional when it is in fact commonplace and pervasive. White people are not credible judges of what non-white people describe as experiences of racism. Racism is the Occam's Razor explanation. These so-called academic framings describe patterns that white people would prefer remain undescribed.

Since a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd on Memorial Day, NPR has faced ethical challenges every hour of every day, including how to describe the killing, how to use the audio of Floyd's last words, how to document Floyd's life and how to describe the mass demonstrations. The best answer to every one of these questions is: embrace precision, be descriptive, use more words. The more this happens, the better the journalism. When news organizations, including NPR, sometimes fall short, it's usually because of an attempt to economize words. This week we received questions and complaints from a number of listeners about a variety of topics. I have summarized them across four general questions that I put to two senior editors and one host. Here's a breakdown of the most frequent questions and the answers I received: Why do hosts and reporters say, "George Floyd died in police custody?" It seems like an understatement. That phrase does feel incomplete, even weak, given that

Growing up in St. Paul, Minn., Rashad Turner remembers playing cops and robbers. It was always a given which side he'd choose. "We'd ride our bikes," he says. "I'd always be the cop." He always knew. It was that way for years. He trained for it. He got a bachelor's in criminal justice. He enrolled in the police academy. All because he wanted to help. To him, the cops were the good guys. Turner is 35 now. When he was two years old, a man shot and killed his father in an alley during a dispute. No one should lose a parent that way, he thought. And policing was one way to protect a community. "I had this idea of the Officer Friendly that came to our school," he says. "Like, that was all cops." His friends didn't always get it, he says. Some of them quit him. In the African American neighborhoods he moved in, there had been too many bad run-ins with police. But back then, Turner was used to defending law enforcement. Not so much anymore. Five years ago, he founded a chapter of Black Lives

Over the past two weeks, we've watched the country grapple with questions about race and policing. And while those questions might be new to some, they're ones we've been thinking about since the very beginning of Code Switch. As we said in a recent episode , it can be hard to find something new to say about the cycle of police brutality, black death and the resulting protests. To describe what's happening right now as a "moment" in the country's racial history doesn't feel right; the stories of black people killed by police have dominated news cycles before, as did calls for changes to policing. But it's also clear that what's happening right now— protests in all 50 states and around the world, and widespread calls for defunding police departments —feels different. As my colleague Karen Grigsby Bates wrote , the unique circumstances of a pandemic and historic recession have fomented tensions beyond anything she's seen before. To help explain how the United States got to this point, we

Although New Zealand is about as far — in miles, at least — as you can get from Minneapolis, protests have erupted there over the killing of George Floyd. The Indigenous Maori people in particular have pushed back against police use of force, which disproportionately affects them. At first glance, the context seems quite different. New Zealand police don't usually carry firearms. The reason goes back to the 19th century British aversion to creating a police force too much like a military. In general, if New Zealand police officers need to use a gun, there is one in a lockbox in their car that they can use with a supervisor's permission. But after a white nationalist gunned down 51 people in two mosques last March in Christchurch, New Zealand's police introduced a pilot program to send heavily armed police teams on patrol in three communities. One of these communities was around Christchurch. The other two were far away in counties near the city of Auckland. The police said it would

Ella Jones will be sworn in as mayor of Ferguson, Mo., next week, becoming the first black mayor — and the first woman — to lead the city that gained national attention when police killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014. The protests that erupted in response helped establish the Black Lives Matter movement of today. Still, nearly six years after Brown's death, Jones says the protests against police brutality — this time in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis — feel the same. "I don't think they feel any different," Jones tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly on All Things Considered . The officers who were involved in the shooting of Brown were not indicted . But his death drew the attention of the federal government and the city entered into a federal consent decree in 2016 that resulted in widespread policing and municipal court reforms. Jones thinks that despite the work Ferguson has done, her city — which has a population that is two-thirds black — still feels like the

The police killings of George Floyd , Eric Garner and other black men and women began with allegations of a minor offense, such as passing a counterfeit $20 bill or selling individual, untaxed cigarettes. Misdemeanors — these types of low-level criminal offenses — account for about 80% of all arrests and 80% of state criminal dockets, says Alexandra Natapoff, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of Punishment Without Crime . "It's surprising to many people to realize that misdemeanors — these low-level, often chump-change offenses that many of us commit routinely without even noticing it — make up the vast majority of what our criminal system does," Natapoff tells NPR's Ari Shapiro on All Things Considered . "The offenses can include everything from traffic offenses to spitting, loitering, trespassing, all the way up to more serious offenses like DUI or many domestic violence offenses," she says. "It's ... the vast majority of ways that individuals

The New York police officer accused of using a chokehold in an incident captured on video Sunday has been charged with strangulation. The officer, 39-year-old David Afanador, was suspended the same day the cellphone video appeared to show him choking a Black man on a Queens boardwalk. Now he's been arrested and charged with felony strangulation and attempted strangulation. Afanador pleaded not guilty and was released Thursday afternoon without bail. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz noted that New York state had criminalized chokeholds just days earlier. "The ink from the pen Gov. Cuomo used to sign this legislation was barely dry before this officer allegedly employed the very tactic the new law was designed to prohibit," Katz said in a statement. "Police officers are entrusted to serve and protect — and the conduct alleged here cannot be tolerated." Afanador could face up to seven years in prison if convicted. Sunday's incident began when police responded to complaints about

As mysterious displays of fireworks continue to be set off across the country – in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles – residents in New York City say the nightly cacophony is driving them nuts. "It's kind of been a bit all-consuming to be honest," said Brooklyn resident Eric Anderson, 33. "I go to bed hearing it. I get woken up hearing it, and then on my Twitter feed all anybody is doing is talking about it." In New York City, the police department said there were 54 fireworks complaints in the first half of last year. In the same period this year, there have been more than 11,000. It's illegal to set off your own fireworks in New York, and Mayor Bill de Blasio has said the city is going to crack down on suppliers. "We're going to start a huge sting operation to go and get these illegal fireworks at the base," he said. Last week he appointed a task force made up of officers from the New York City Police Department, fire marshals and members of the Sheriff's Bureau of Criminal

Philando Castile, Eric Garner and George Floyd. The deaths of these Black men at the hands of police have fueled outrage over police brutality and systemic racism. Men make up the vast majority of people shot and killed by police. But the names of Black women who were also killed are generally missing from Americans' collective memories, says Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum . The Say Her Name campaign, created by Crenshaw's group in 2014, is meant to include women in the national conversation about race and policing. A few women's names and stories, such as Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed by Louisville, Ky., police executing a no-knock search warrant in March, have been part of the Black Lives Matter movement. But others have not — women such as Michelle Cusseaux and Kayla Moore. In 2014, Cusseaux was shot by police in her Phoenix home while they were attempting to take her to a mental health facility. In 2013, police

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
(Philippians 4:13)

What does outward pomp and show avail? What do men and women gain by pride and self-indulgence? “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Worldly treasure is fleeting. Only through Christ can we obtain eternal riches. The wealth that He gives is beyond all computation. Having found God, you are supremely rich in the contemplation of His treasure. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

... those who are waiting to behold a magical change in their characters without determined effort on their part to overcome sin, will be disappointed. We have no reason to fear while looking to Jesus, no reason to doubt but that He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto Him; but we may constantly fear lest our old nature will again obtain the supremacy, that the enemy shall devise some snare whereby we shall again become his captives. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. With our limited powers we are to be as holy in our sphere as God is holy in His sphere. To the extent of our ability, we are to make manifest the truth and love and excellence of the divine character. As wax takes the impression of the seal, so the soul is to take the impression of the Spirit of God and retain the image of Christ. We are to grow daily in spiritual loveliness. We shall fail often in our efforts to copy the divine pattern. We shall often have to bow down to weep at the feet of Jesus, because of our shortcomings and mistakes; but we are not to be discouraged; we are to pray more fervently, believe more fully, and try again with more steadfastness to grow into the likeness of our Lord. As we distrust our own power, we shall trust the power of our Redeemer, and render praise to God, who is the health of our countenance, and our God.

From cookbooks to constitutional rights, On Second Thought is proud to present another five stories from our archive to motivate you this Monday. 1) Historian Jill Lepore Explores 'These Truths' Of United States History In November 2018, On Second Thought sat down with Harvard American history professor Jill Lepore to discuss her book These Truths: A History of the United States and the obligation to learn from the past for a brighter future. Focusing on promises made in the Constitution, Lepore discusses the state of institutions like freedom, voting, and social struggles almost 250 years after the country’s founding. 2) Chef Pano Karatassos On 'Modern Greek Cooking' Atlanta chef Pano Karatassos made waves in culinary circles after winning Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay with his signature lamb pie. Chef Karatassos is the executive chef of Kyma in Atlanta and has tasked himself with bringing traditional Greek foods to the South. He sat down with us last October to talk Greek cuisine

The last 35 seconds of Ahmaud Arbery’s life have been viewed, studied, dissected and discussed all over the world. That’s because of a video that went viral, showing his final moments before he was shot on a shady street in Satilla Shores, Georgia on February 23. And while his death has made international headlines, the people of his community remember Arbery for how he lived.

In 2003, Brunswick prosecutors convicted Dennis Perry of killing a couple in their church back in 1985 — while another suspect had admitted to the murder on tape. Renewed interest in the case from the Georgia Innocence Project and a true crime podcast spurred Joshua Sharpe, criminal justice reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , to revisit an early suspect’s alibi. Sharpe's research unveiled new DNA evidence, and prompted the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to reopen the case. Sharpe joins On Second Thought to talk us through what he learned in his nearly year of reporting on the 35 year-old case.

On Mar. 11, 1985, Harold and Thelma Swain were shot in the vestibule of a Baptist church in rural southeast Georgia during evening Bible study. Witnesses from the black congregation described a white man with shoulder-length hair who fled the scene. Despite years of investigation by both the local sheriff’s office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the case had gone cold by the end of the decade; even the leads generated by a 1988 episode of Unsolved Mysteries about the case proved false.