OOM: Sorry, I was bringing up two different issues here.

1) STID was BAD. Part of it was because they shoved in superfluous characters to make feminists happy. (Not all of it, but some, apparently. All I know about this is from my friend who hated this movie’s guts.)

2) The Bechdel test is stupid and the whole awareness raising thing doesn’t make sense. I don’t think anyone’s going to seriously rate movies based on this, but even the concept is weird.

I think part of the thing that gets me annoyed is that if you look in the wrong places, you find all kinds of people expecting that if your favorite movie doesn’t pass the test, just dump your Blu-rays in the bin! It’s kind of pathetic. But maybe it’s just me- as long as the movie is good, I really don’t care what types of chromosomes the main characters have.

OOM: Yes, that’s what my friend said too… I get the feeling that didn’t go very well.

It’s like the whole nonsense with the Bechdel Test. Most of my favorite movies wouldn’t pass, but SO WHAT?

You read Lord of the Rings?

Forget about inappropriate- there are exactly six female characters in the whole series if I count correctly (Arwen, Eowyn, Galadriel, Goldberry, Rosie, and Lobelia) and three of them are in it for about a chapter combined. In The Hobbit, in fact, there is a grand total of ZERO X-chromosome-only characters to the extent that they had to shove Galadriel into the movie in order to prevent people from complaining about discrimination or something.

forget it, mods 🙂

have a good shabbos

You spray hairspray AT YOUR EYES?!?!

I don’t know if I post too much, but I’m sure that I’m on here too much in general.

Terry Pratchett is clean for a given definition of clean.

I hate it when that Happens. I love Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, but only about five curse words, etc. in the whole flipping book are enough to prevent me from recommending it to people as a clean book.

I mean, really… what exactly did it contribute to the plot? Negative zilch.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. 🙂

…Hey! Now we’re even!

batseven: Read the full list from which OOM took her examples. It should be on FrumTeens.

Very calm and neutral, no?

YITZCHOK2: We’re talking about two different issues here. Before, I was under the impression that you were talking about apologies and NOT about chillul Hashem- in fact, in my very first response to you I noted that what I wrote applied only in the case of what seemed to me to be a necessary scenario for apology, and that even if everything is 100% aboveboard, it may be chillul Hashem.

I agree with you- the Lakewood incident was quite probably a chillul Hashem, which was NOT the subject of my posts in between my first response to you and this. That was on the subject of when do you need to apologize. This was, assuming it was legal, entirely a decision on the part of the government- it’s not even as though BMG did anything on its own to harm others. (I may also be utterly ignorant of yeshiva politics, but whatever.)

These kids- ANY KIDS- should apologize personally to the people they inconvenienced. (Just saying- I happen to be their age. If I were one of them and it had been my classmates acting up, even if it’s absolutely the most negligible behavior, I would be disgusted.) BMG, on the other hand, has nobody to apologize to- to the best of my knowledge, they didn’t do anything but get lucky. (See above for my assessment of my knowledge of yeshiva politics.)

The chillul Hashem aspect is completely separate. IM(NS)HO, ANYTHING that besmirches Hashem’s name and the reputation of the Jewish people is a chillul Hashem. Who is right and who is wrong is, as I said many times, immaterial. In that case, I stand by what you quoted me as saying. In the case of apology, not necessarily.

I don’t honestly know enough about the Lakewood situation to discuss it in this way apart from just guessing.

Just to clarify- my response in general is based on two points: they should apologize for the inconvenience caused to the passengers and this is a chillul Hashem. These are entirely separate, though in this case they mesh very well.

ETA: I just reread your post and something I missed before just struck me. I did not assume that the Lakewood thing was legal. I said that assuming that it is legal, this is my response. If not, then it is unconscionable.

You’re really reading my posts very selectively.

YITZCHOK2: There seems to be a lot you’re certain of that most people don’t seem to be in the least. If you’re so sure that other people are against YOF because they’re co-ed, maybe that says something about you, because I don’t think that that’s a natural mindset to have.

I was operating under the assumption (being dan lekaf zechus) that the whole Lakewood thing was legal. If it isn’t then I can’t defend it.

I repeat- if Lakewood is receiving the money legally, then to whom must they apologize? The taxpayers? It is the government that decides where money goes- let them apologize.

In this case, though, the kids directly negatively impacted specific people (the other passengers, the flight attendants, etc). It is menschlichkeit to apologize for the frustration.

As to why the askanim didn’t mobilize everyone to help them- hey, maybe you’re right. I’m choosing to be dan them lekaf zechus and assume that by the time they heard about the story, the kids were well on their way- of course, also, they may not have wanted help for all I know. I really haven’t got any idea, and it’s a moot point, because they managed. It’s all your mindset- if you want to be so judgmental, feel free, but you’re not benefitting anyone.

I assure you, like I said, if anyone from any of the “frummest of the frum” were to do the same thing as these kids did, I would have exactly the same reaction- unlike you, I can’t answer for anybody else.

Bottom line: you make way too many assumptions (and, being a girl, I have no idea if you can daven at the amud without a hat- though I assume that if a person doesn’t own one they’d either lend him one or just forget about it- I have a very nice shul that cares more about internal veahavta lareiacha kamocha more than it cares about external clothing).

WIY: What part of “never, ever” don’t you understand?

Do you like being called a liar, pervert and jerk? Because that’s what they’re doing, and that’s what I take offense at, because by creating such absolutes they are invalidating their own position.

kevuda: If you were taking a medication to treat your, say, hypertension (ch”v) and suddenly found out that with every dose, a small amount of poison is being stored in your body which will eventually become fatal- would you keep taking it, because it helps your hypertension? I know I’d be high-tailing it to the pharmacy to get a different type of pill.

YITZCHOK2: To be brutally honest with you, as a Monsey resident, I know that many are in two minds about the whole school board thing. There isn’t one clear-cut situation, and there’s definitely SOMETHING rotten in the county of Rockland. What it is, we really don’t know yet. When they do this audit thing hopefully they’ll figure out what’s going on.

To differentiate:

1) Lakewood. Are they directly injuring anybody? No. So far as I’m aware, they were awarded the money completely legally. If they committed fraud to obtain it, then it would be dishonest to keep it.

2) School boards. I know nothing about the Lakewood school board, and I stand by what I said above about the Monsey one. Dishonesty in any form, I don’t care how much it benefits yeshivos, is immoral and against the Torah.

3) Chassidim in Monroe. See Lakewood- if they meet the federal requirements and it’s entirely legal, then what can I say?

Remember- this is as far as apology goes- as far as chillul Hashem is concerned, the above may well be an issue. But you specifically mentioned apology here.

Here’s the bottom line: I CANNOT FORCE ANYONE TO APOLOGIZE. I can be a responsible, caring human being and apologize if someone is harmed either directly or indirectly through me (or even not at all through me- see the shiva example). I can wish that YOF had apologized. BUT I CAN’T FORCE THEM TO. Nor can I ask any newspaper that maligns a Jew or anyone else falsely to apologize.

I hope I am the LAST person you will see who will diss a Jewish person because he or she attends a co-ed high school. While I don’t attend one, and neither do most of my friends, I have close relatives who are teachers in several prominent schools and only hear wonderful things about them. I am not jumping into the fray solely in order to go against the school- I was merely taking a part in the debate already on. If the school had been Bais Yaakov of Boro Park or Satmar I would have the EXACT same opinion.

I am a kid and I can tell you that I don’t like being punished for something I do any more than your kids do- there is, however, a difference between apologizing and admitting guilt. I just recently had a situation where, as I illustrated earlier, someone bumped into me, causing me to bump into someone else and have her drop her looseleaf. I believe I said something along the lines of “I’m so sorry- I was pushed from behind and lost my balance. Do you need my help cleaning up?” Apology and disclaimer at the same time- they have NOTHING to do with each other.

A talmid chacham is called a talmid for a reason- we all need to keep learning and keep growing. Just because one has reached a high, virtually unassailable condition doesn’t mean that one is now beyond reproach.

This whole situation reminds me of when I heard a speech from a kiruv professional who said something displaying a real and total lack of derech eretz. I walked out. If he’s supposed to be telling me why I should be frum, and he’s frum, and he’s acting this way- it doesn’t add up. I don’t see why I should be learning my most profound hashkafos from someone like this. I’m not on the level yet of Rabbi Meir, who could eat the pomegranate and throw away the peel.

PBA: I have no idea how Hashem cheshbons all of that out, and I won’t know until 120. That could easily be the case- it’s nice to think so. However, that doesn’t dodge the fact that it IS a punishable aveirah, even if, completely theoretically, it may not be punished as harshly.

There are not that many frum people, and there are not that many frum girls who get married AND have kids at nineteen. I have two cousins who got married at nineteen and neither one is a “teen mom” (one doesn’t yet have kids, one just had a baby at 21). The chances of frum people skewing the statistics is very, very small.

Sure let’s say you know ten people like that (and that’s just you- I’m sure there are more)- however, according to the CDC, 329,797 live births were recorded for girls ages 15-19. There is NO WAY that a couple thousand frum girls are skewing the data.

(The number of teen pregnancies in the US is actually shrinking by many percentage points a year, interestingly enough- over the past 20 years, the rate has dropped by 20% and the number is at its lowest point since records began to be kept.)

Thanks, wanderingchana! 🙂

PBA: I appreciate the compliment :). Anyway, I have a couple of reasons why I, personally, thought about it this way.

1) My mom is a first-generation American, and received a very European upbringing which she’s given my family as well. Part of that is an intense focus on manners- not to the extent of “no elbows on the table,” but definitely including holding the door for someone until someone else takes it (which in this day and age, annoyingly enough, can mean twenty minutes later when everyone’s out), saying please and thank you and excuse me in the appropriate situations (not exactly a no-brainer now either), and, one of the main focuses, apologizing if something that you do annoys somebody. If you bump into someone, you apologize. If someone pushed you into someone else, you apologize, because the point isn’t only “I was wrong”: it’s also “I’m sorry you were injured/embarrassed/inconvenienced.” It really doesn’t matter who did it- it’s about commiserating with the person who is suffering and frustrated. It’s validating the other person’s annoyance. Call it kissing up, I don’t care, but it’s just a nice thing to do. People were delayed in their flight, people had to put up with kids who were probably at least a little bit rowdy (I was on a flight to Israel with a Taglit-Birthright group- wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy)- why not at least acknowledge that you were the vehicle for this (even if it’s not your fault directly) and try to be nice and sympathetic?

Happens to be, in this particular case, so far as I’m concerned, they can apologize nicely like civilized people, acknowledging that they had a hard time and apologizing for its occurrence, and at the same time sue the pants off of Southwest if they decide they have a case. They’re not mutually exclusive.

2) There is, regardless of what we may want to think, a MAJOR chillul Hashem whenever something like this happens. It doesn’t matter whether it was our fault or not- I was just on a different site (non-Jewish) where a bunch of parents were talking about it and were absolutely disgusted that (religious) kids did this and that they “had the nerve” to pull “the Jewish card.” In life, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU DO- IT’S REALLY WHAT PEOPLE THINK YOU DO. For instance, if a frum Jew were to commit a white-collar crime and be convicted, the next Jew who is accused of such a thing will be completely blasted- “just like that other Jewish guy.” Doesn’t matter whether he’s guilty or innocent- that’s just the way people think. It creates negative stereotypes, and even if there is absolutely no blame that can be ascribed, there can still be a chillul Hashem.

Notice that I’m not saying that the chillul Hashem is (entirely) on the part of the school- I rather think that the chillul Hashem is perpetrated by the person who created the common stereotype. A chillul Hashem doesn’t just mean that a Jew did something wrong- it means that Judaism and Hashem are perceived negatively, and in this case, regardless of whose fault it may have been, that definitely occurred.

I don’t wear makeup very often (just occasionally on Shabbos and yom tov- and NEVER mascara- don’t get me started on mascara). Honestly, though, I don’t know anyone whom I wouldn’t recognize without makeup if I usually saw her with it. When I put on what little makeup I use, I don’t feel like I’m lying- I’m still me, and (unfortunately) I still look like me, but I maybe feel a little bit prettier. As people may remember from that cosmetic-surgery-for-shidduchim article thread, I’ve suffered from self-image issues, and for me, it’s more a matter of feeling good to me than looking good to others, though there are obviously elements of each in the other.

I always try to read teachers’ comments. The one problem I’ve found is that while teachers complain about my handwriting, I can NEVER read their comments..

I remember one Ivrit assignment that I passed around to my friends to see if they could figure out what the teacher wrote. Then I brought it to the teacher to ask, and SHE couldn’t read it either.

Story of my life.

+1(000000), yichusdik

verapoi yerapei: You learn something new every day. I knew they had osteopathic schools, but not a regular medical school.

I don’t think, though, that Touro is the best for undergrad if you want to have options for med schools. Where you go to undergrad really does matter in this case.

Ohhhh… I thought you said you’d go to Touro medical school.

Brain fuzz.

I agree with ubiquitin- you do need to be flexible with something like this.

Brony: Different people have different standards and different breaking points. I probably wouldn’t break it off because of that, but if I wasn’t expecting it and that was completely out of my worldview, then I might easily.

Compatibility matters, and you’re just showing that you personally wouldn’t be compatible with someone who has issues with goyish music. Proving the point.

I could’ve marched if I’d’ve wanted to (or if I hadn’t had the SAT) because the place I’m working at in the summer marched. I wanted to go, but oh well…. C’est la vie.