And you are safe and among friends here! Everyone needs somewhere to vent and this becomes that place to many of us. As far as following Randy's thought about how he'd treat his mother should he find a rant like that, well... I'd also have to consider how I'd treated my mother to earn such a rant in the first place. Granted, we're getting only one side of the story here, but I have a feeling Ilene's stating it pretty closely. It's plain that a deal was struck to work off the mortgage payment rather than paying it in cash. If he had a landlord or bank who were not his parents, would they expect to wait so long to have the work accomplished? Would they have accepted such a deal in the first place? I doubt very seriously that a bank holding his mortgage would have accepted such an arrangement in the first place. Perhaps a landlord may have. But they would not have waited so long. It would have needed to be done in good time. Keep in mind here, my Mother and I do not have a speaking relationship. I'm sure there were things on my side as well, but the ultimate causes are her fault. Should she ever come across a rant from me regarding our relationship, I would not mind. I have no problem in standing behind anything I say or type. I would hope that her coming across such a rant would perhaps open her eyes to her own behavior, but knowing my Mother, that's doubtful. I have children as well. Two of my biological children are grown and on their own. Should I ever come across a rant from them regarding me, I'd have to examine my own behavior. Perhaps it would be hurtful, but I'd rather face up to my behavior than not. It would open a conversation between us regarding the why's and how's. I would see it as a chance to make my stance clear and see if there were a compromise we could come to without me being "walked on". LOL, alright, I'm touchy on Ilene's behalf and I don't mean to rub Randy in it. I know I've ranted about my Mother and having attempted a conversation regarding certain things, only to be told I didn't understand, that my brother was born dead, though perfectly healthy now, and he needs help- though his problems... and most of my parents'.. are his making. I'm not going into those issues again, it serves little purpose. Ilene, I'm very happy for you that the painting's finished and I'm glad that he finally fulfilled his obligation. I still agree with your stance in the previous thread regarding future accommodations like this. The house looks GREAT, even if you did have to do a lot of it yourself! I want you to know I think you're a wonderful parent for doing this for him and I'm sorry he didn't realize that you were really doing HIM a big favor. You probably could have had the job done sooner and for a better price (considering all those brushes and rollers!!!!!!) by a professional. And as for the extra paint, welll... you've got extra for touchups in the future :) BIG HUGS to you! Kathy

These folks have a right to their beliefs, just pointing out that Erdogan doesn't speak for all Muslims or Turks any more than Ted Cruz speaks for all Christians and Americans, etc. Muslims have as much diversity of belief as Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc. I actually know a lot of Muslims who are not big fans of Erdogan, nor are all Turks any more fond of him then folks in the US might be fond of some big bombastic leader who shoots his mouth off about whatever to get attention over here. As to the original question, not sure why terrorism is making a comeback world wide. Obviously political and economic instability is a huge factor. Also the way technology makes it possible for folks to isolate themselves--so many of the public functions now can be carried out online. So many people competing for limited resources on the planet doesn't bring out our more generous-minded natures. I will tell you this, from what I have observed, the folks on the power trips on both sides of the pond are capable of feigning human feelings but are actually not very motivated by positive re-inforcement, so very hard to control them through education or socializing, Mateen is a good case in point. They always have a gripe and will never relinquish it. Such men are made from the stew of an unstable and violent upbringing, with a powerful and abusive authority figure, circumstances which are on the rise throughout the world. So to me, an armed war in Iraq did nothing to help Iraq stabilize and create the conditions that discourage terrorism. It went from being moderately oppressive over there to drastically. I think our "haves" talked to their "haves" and thought it would be relatively easy to install their buddies into power and get back into the oil business over there. But our "haves" were too insulated from the realities of Iraq and were sold a real load of you-know-what. Talk about a place with wealth concentrated in the hands of the few . . . !!! You need a large middle class for this kind of stability. We should not pooh pooh the worldwide erosion of the middle class as if it won't have dramatic consequences. It's a toxic stew of lack of opportunity and pissed off young people, which demographers were predicting and warning about for decades before the current bad conditions. I know because I studied world demographics back in college in the early 80's, and this "challenge" was anticipated and predicted.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, ND. Fire danger is at extreme level. Still gorgeous, though. It rained in SD Wednesday, so hopefully also in ND.

I’m glad i’m retired. The traffic commute in early mornings or late afternoon would drive me nuts. It’s bad enough some other times of the day. I’m another who does a lot of cussing inside my car and SMH at the things I see other drivers doing. I do try to be courteous with a merge situations and things like that. I stay alert and look at every little thing, side roads, look ahead, etc to try and stay safe. I cannot stand the fools, usually it seems to be young males, who weave in and out of heavy traffic, tailgate, speed, or just drive dangerously in general. The hypercourteous, Maddielee, love that term. Down here we still have a few who will signal that the person in front of them is turning left. I don’t get it. The number of drivers on the roads has greatly increased here in the past several years due to the huge growth in population. And of course road construction and improvement has not kept up. The influx of people from a variety of states has contributed to different driving habits seen. It’s not unusual to see many cars with out of state license tags. I’m sure many don’t know the laws in their new state or city. We have hands-free cell phone laws, left lane laws to keep slow traffic out of the passing lanes, and of course the move over law to protect law enforcement during accidents or someone pulled over on the side of the road. A few days ago a 91-year old man from out of town drove into a pond in a downtown park. He thought it was a parking lot. Fortunately he only dropped his front wheels over the edge and was not hurt. SMDH for several reasons.