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I just now noticed Carol has freckles. When did that happen? Do I get to get my glasses fixed?

You’re not the only one. Pretty sure those are new.

Not a fan of them, to be honest. If she had them from the start and we had time to get used to them, that’d be one thing since they’d be a natural part of her character design, but suddenly adding them from out of nowhere is pretty offputting.

This reminds me of the time a dude threw a fit because after reading the comic from the beginning he was furious when he found out Brooksie was one of the browns.

I personally have no problem with them. I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t seeing things.

Ditto. Not bad at all, just experiencing a bit of visual dissonance after being used to her previous look for so long.

I must have missed the episode where Brooksie rooted for Cleveland. (and because this is the internet – This is clearly an attempt at humor.)

Well, I’m not throwing a fit, so I apologize if that was the impression had. I was simply saying what I thought; that it’s a little offputting for me to see a character have a sudden and unexplained change in visual design. A design that I personally feel isn’t as attractive as her original. But again, it’s not a problem so much as an observation and statement of my feelings on it. It’s not as if it’ll keep me from reading.

I always assumed she had them and it was just artist expedience to not draw them (redheads as a whole tend to have freckles a lot more often compared to people with other hair colors), so seeing them just made me think, “Ah, Jackie must be adding more detail now.”

I kinda like Thomas’s spiel because it boils down to a line a wise man once said that I always remembered; boundaries keep people grounded. I’m very much ‘Murican and I like my apple freedom pie, but I also recognize that if people have too little guidance, too few rules (that includes cultural norms and social expectations), they tend to act out. After all, even the most rational of us don’t think about every little thing we do; we mostly coast on auto-pilot for our day-to-day behavior. If we didn’t, we’d never get anything done. Basic rules of normalcy and propriety keep things flowing. I’m actually always amazed at how FEW car accidents there are in the US, considering the number of drivers, cars, and miles driven–the organized chaos of traffic is sort of shocking. Human beings operate according to all sorts of unspoken signals and unrecognized thoughts. It can be scary, as it allows propaganda to be effective, but it is what it is.

Establish a few basic rules, and people can usually work the rest out for themselves. (Aside from a few troublemakers and a few control freaks.) In the case of traffic, studies have suggested that reducing certain types of signage can actually improve safety. It apparently encourages people to pay attention and think a little.

I especially like that you included cultural norms and social expectations in that.

As someone who grew up a few decades ago, I look at the rise of mass shootings and think that people vastly underestimate how much of the lack of mass shootings in earlier times was simply that everyone understood that shooting people was wrong as a vaguely Christianity-based cultural norm. Not that they were all religious but that the general moral code originating from it was pretty universally accepted as a societal definition of right and wrong.

I never worried some kid was going to bring a gun to my school and shoot me. Guns were everywhere and more easily accessible then than now. But everyone knew you didn’t shoot people. Even if a kid DID bring a gun to school, no one would assume he was going to shoot people. They’d assume he was a moron who brought a gun to show and tell and they’d call his parents and send him to the principal’s office. He wasn’t a threat, just an idiot. Because everyone accepted that not shooting people was a pretty basic rule that only had exceptions for a soldier shooting an enemy, a cop shooting a bad guy, or a good Samaritan protecting someone from a serious threat. It wasn’t flawless, by any means, but the fact that society generally all believed in that same guideline kept a lot of things from happening as much.

It was easier to establish Christian-based norms when the country was kept wholly ignorant to their surroundings. After the advent of the Internet and the rise of social media, it gave the masses a means of acting out without fear of physical retribution. It became a sort of pandora’s box in a way. It also didn’t help matters either that the abolishment of the “fairness doctrine” under Reagan also allowed for sensationalized media to explode which also contributed to the dysfunction. Now, while it doesn’t mean that all of America has succumbed to this dysfunction, it is going to take a lot to mend things back together.

Freedom is unsustainable without function. If you’re not going to be responsible with the freedoms that you do have, you run the risk of creating a negative ripple effect to your surroundings. Sadly, some people in this country have a very difficult time understanding this.

Interestingly, different regions in America seem to have slightly different basic rules. When I first moved from Northern California to Southern California several years ago, I was startled by how many drivers appeared to have no idea that the rightmost lane on the freeway is considered “the slow lane”. Down here, every lane is the fast lane.

Research a little into how many perpetrators of mass shootings were on or had recently come off, psychiatric drugs. Everyone’s heard the commercials that mention an elevated risk of suicide-if your thinking has altered to think suicide is acceptable or preferable, what else might you think?

‘Course you’ll have to dig a little bit. The media that’s largely financed by pharma advertisements seems to often omit little insignificant details like that.

And the “Fairness Doctrine” was just Liberals trying to get rid of talk radio. Ask Alec Baldwin.

Thomas here reminds me a lot of a friend of mine, never wanted to do much more than enjoy life and improve things in his immediate surroundings, but with a strong view of the world and of people.

Guy ended up in local government, not cause he really wanted to, but because the town he lived in was going to hell and he didn’t want to let it.

This interaction reminds me of how my husband will be saying something deeply philosophical or mechanical or scientific and I’m just pleased-as-punch I have a husband *and* he talks with me about cool stuff. Barely hear a word he says sometimes, just happy about the situation.

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