Comments by "CuteCatFaith" (@CuteCatFaith) on "Secular Talk"
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*****
Have you been married? Long term? It's an inherently flawed construct. One of the partners will change, or both will change, or worse, NEITHER will change. These realities and likelihoods can be properly considered and planned for, however. Marriage is primarily biological and economic in nature. In relationships of every type, humans use one another. Friendships, employment, parenthood, marriage, commerce, et c.
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I was homeless three times in the USA. My parents showed me the door when I was 18, was the first. The next two were due to divorce. I never qualified for benefits or help, and my child died as a result. I got fed up and expatriated when I was 37. Over here in France, it depends on where you live. I am outside Paris and this is traditionally the birthplace of communism and still communist. Generally. When shanty towns go up, they quickly get clean water and sanitary facilities brought in, but a lot of these people are here illegally and are actually a crime problem. It just cost us about 1000 USD to replace a missing stolen part from our car here -- it turned out to be the shantytown people here illegally in my area and they put their kids up to it, to crawl under cars and saw things out. There's no easy solution, and I've been on a waiting list since 2008 to get subsidized housing, which is typical (my spouse wants me out of here). My quality of life is way better over here in France, however, than it was in the USA, that is for sure, and it's sad never to see your friends, family or country again but I had to go. Legally, of course.
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ImSoPeeved
Yes, anything labeled "diet" or "light" or "lite" is to be avoided, I've found. That's a mean-spirited observation on my part about the coworker, but really, she turned out to be vicious. People buy "diet plans" and "diet foods" and truly don't seem to see they're just being sold stuff. I went on a diet which was horribly boring for five months and lost a great deal of weight. It was kind of just cucumber slices with vinegar on them and stuff, but it was all just normal food, I had to prepare it myself, it was very cheap. Just a boring diet, not a biggie. In nine years of working with her, she never got any thinner. Oh, well, hope springs eternal, y'know?
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I think people have a problem with the amount, that's all. It's not logical and it's unfair. That's like saying, almost, that an overweight person who fairly wins a sundae ought not to have it cuz they are already fat enough. I worked for 22 years declared in the USA and believe me, in Wall Street, you get pregnant and you kiss your career goodbye. Ditto over here in Europe for any "important" jobs. I remember talking to a very nice French man of Spanish ancestry (spoke no Spanish, though) who was mystified that his wife's career got lopped off because she had their two children. "She's a much better and more capable manager than I," he muttered, bewildered. "It's not fair," I said to him. "No, it isn't," he replied. We agreed. Nice man, very frank with me. I was forced to give up a career I loved for my first marriage in the USA. "Why work, I'm rich!" (K-Mart Corporation.) I eventually gave in. For all of his hell, I left quietly and got 8k USD. I was homeless, jobless in a horrible recession, he hadn't paid my basic health insurance, I didn't even have a bed. Nothing. I didn't want to end up feeding the fish so I just stayed away. Second spouse, 12 years of that BS and I owed him alimony in that state. Incredible. I said, take it all and sign this waver. House I bought and paid for, car paid for, bank accounts, my stuff, I need the mattress and a few thousand. I left, left the country. He kept demanding money and attention and stalked me over here in Europe. He meant business, too. There was nothing to be done for either of these. Oh, I have an inoperable hernia from a c-section, child did not survive. 1 billion is way less than half of his total net worth. So what? You don't know the reasons for the divorce. Anyway, it was judged.
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*****
That is excellent! When survivors don't have to worry about bills, they can be there, one hopes, out of desire to BE THERE.
I will never forget a Breton country French funeral in 1995, August, where I FIRST met my inlaws.
Three days of pagan rituals mixed with Christianity, and grandma dead at home to be visited for three days! Lots of Druidic stuff, herbs, a priest, holy water, like sitting Shiva, et c.
Right afterwards, I honed my French by listening to them complain about funeral costs, which really are not very flexible in this country. She also didn't fit out the door and had to be lifted out of the window, relatives cannot be pallbearers, et c. here. To her credit, she had not only arranged all her final expenses out of a minuscule, miserable peasant farmer income out of a lifetime as an early widow with many kids, but she left a small amount of extra cash to be given as small gifts. This was utterly commendable. The actual grief at her passing was still there, but there were no headaches other than the loss of the person.
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Tommy Latham
I remember at the French funeral for the grandmother matriarch I never met, a priest giving the eulogy was disapproved of by the family afterward because he said that the deceased had had health problems and had become reliant on others to care for her. This raised some indignation. I thought, well, as far as I can tell, the old woman was barely ambulatory in her last years and she lived with one of her sons and his wife, so what? It struck me as odd that such a small thing would be a bone of contention for family. Also, apparently her own sister had not been informed of her death nor invited to the long funeral, as she was old and in a nursing home and they either thought it would disturb her or they didn't want to bother with schlepping her over to the village. That, I think, was an error in judgment. When family members would die, the other family members had a habit of just not telling anyone, which did strike me as weird. That family hasn't acknowledged me since 2010 so today I am sending the remaining ones a cheerful French "January card" to remind them I am, indeed, still here, and they can kiss my American ass, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!
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RenovatioJuris
Thank you for the response. Maybe the guy is lying??
I did a clip recently on a French healthcare scam. I do two channels and don't recall where I posted it, but it's very recent.
This guy from the Ivory Coast, in his 50s, has AIDS and has been receiving care here for years and has a subsidized apartment and benefits. Apparently, he set up a network and got hundreds of illegal immigrants in lying and saying they have AIDS, too! And they don't! This is going to amount to millions of euros in cost and it's been going on for years. A doctor in Paris was involved, and others. It's an example of someone ruining it for others who might have a claim to care here and is very sad.
I got liver cancer in 2007 and was told I'm inoperable, but they sent me to a nice place to die. I used the Kneipp Method to heal myself in 2008. I have no problem with euthanasia being legally here (almost a decade now, most doctors don't even know about it but I have seen it done once in a public hospital and also had a business client whose mother was "put down" a few years ago from here, Laotian woman) and I don't think money should just be thrown at everyone.
I worked for decades in the legal profession in the USA and then here in France, and what the laws say is generally not reality. I've met corrupt judges, lax clerks and crooked attorneys. I think your viewpoint is a bit obtuse, but really, thanks again for the kind response.
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I got very interesting in these screwheads while growing up in Ohio. By the seventies, when I was a teen, I was able to observe Rex Humbard et al. I'd sit fascinated by "Christian TV," such as it was, and had very close friends who had worked for these people and even been their neighbors. One had parents who'd bought the pink Cadillac of Maude Aimée Humbard she'd gotten in the fifties, already, a hoarde of retirees were ripped off for a non-existent retirement community, an unfinished tower was mournful in the Rust Belt, and a scary looking son constantly got busted for having sex with underage females in the congregation on the stage in the arena. A friend of a friend in high school had a juvie pal who found God and then fell asleep under Humbard's rising mechanical stage and got crushed to death. The eulogie was ironic -- "At least he found God after causing so much human death and destruction!" (He had been a mad bomber.) I saw "The Starlight Trio" sing on TV on a religious show. Three women with blank stares and their hands held constantly up, like puppets. In tacky dresses, with what looked like wigs on. They looked like bassett hounds.
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Erik Johannessen
Yeah, I moved from the USA to Europe long ago and different cultures have different etiquette, for sure. For me, a lot of it is basic hygiene and manners. I live in a culture now where anyone who works is a "worker" and valid, there aren't, generally, professions which are seen as "better," and poverty is okay as long as an effort is made to improve and the poor are honest. I got very tired of telling American male friends, good friends for years and years, what a handkerchief is (and I bought a lot of them for them), how to say "please" and "thank you," and how to go through some very superficial rituals (such as remembering an anniversary) at least shallowly so they could get it over with. I'm glad I still have American male friends à la distance, and one I consider like a brother or better, but really, most of them, well, they can be okay as friends but no way would I want to be involved with them -- they are clueless! I really feel for American males who get held to high standards by nasty females, I must say. That really stinks!
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Erik Johannessen
Well, some people like someone who is "exotic," of a different culture, of a different age, et c. I did know an American guy for years and he was openly nuts about me but very nice about it, quite proper. He is not good looking but it didn't matter, as he was so smart and funny, a hard worker, he had good manners, et c. He asked me to marry him. I was delighted but had to tell him that I didn't love him and I didn't think I could, but I wished I could as he was fine! This was done in private and I am glad I wasn't evasive or sneaky and that I was very, very sincere in my appreciation of his qualities. It's not as though I never met a cool American man! My Parisian spouse absolutely did not want a serious relationship with a French female his age. He felt he had nothing in common with them, which was actually accurate on his part. He wanted an older woman from another culture, someone who could speak French and who'd be willing to live here, but not one of his "peers." I did warn him, "Be careful -- you're going to have an older wife!" It depends on what we value and are looking for. I've read that women will pick a mate who is GENETICALLY like her father yet who smells nothing like him! Weird science, eh??
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Erik Johannessen
They do not have the same pain level tolerance women do and they don't live as long. They are not as productive as female workers are. Embryoes start as female and the male thing sets in after some months, not at first. Males are like a mutation, ha ha ha!! Really, you have only to look at, say, traditional Viking culture or, say, Jewish culture. Among the Vikings, the wife would get the key to the coffer to wear on her belt for life, and she'd have to raise the kids, deal with the animals, plant, build, do family business, and protect the home while the spouse was away, often permanently, to hunt, gather, explore, et c. Among Jews, the wife is the boss and men just go to work and turn over their pay, and to keep them out of saloons, they are sent off to pray, which is not considered very important as an activity among Jews. Men don't bond for life, generally, as women do, or at least not in the same way. They tend to seek "strange pussy" once "their" female has born them a child. They often need highly structured environments and a lot of looking after. They will tend to get violent and not be diplomatic, to seek peace. They tend to be likelier to kill and maim than females. They're often like puppies wearing lead helmets. They MUST CHASE THAT CAR, and when things go wrong, bump, bump, thump, thump and then they want a female to rush out and coo over them, "Oh, poor puppy, are you okay?" Answer: OF COURSE THEY ARE OKAY. THEY ARE WEARING LEAD HELMETS.
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I can really understand your view. It may seem cold, but cost-effectiveness does have to be considered. I recall a college pal in NYC -- I met him again years later at a job. He was a long-term temp there. We met outside the job and this was a guy who didn't even have a beer let alone smoke a cigarette or do drugs. (He was not on benefits, btw.) He told me about a banking job he didn't even actually want. He'd been hired and told to show up in a month. But first, a drug test was needed. He didn't like it, but he took it. He went to work on Day One a month later and they told him he'd failed and would not be retained. He was incensed. He said, why did you waste my time? I want another test. They refused. It was an employment at will state, so he was screwed. I had avoided drugs testing all along in the USA and never agreed to it, and in my new country I have refused it, also. In my new country, even if you are fully disabled, benefits are not for life and come up for review every few years. It's not a free ride, benefits are slim and accepting them is considered shameful here. The legal system makes parents responsible for feeding, clothing and housing their kids for life, it is in perpetuity. If someone is a dole cheat and actually is some druggie, I say get them some help but yeah that behavior is not acceptable, I do not like it.
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DrunkVegan
Ha ha ha ha!! My other channel name is slobomotion, and my spouse created that in 2007 but then immediately got bored with YT, so I took it over. This channel name, cutcatfaith, was created by an American woman who was coming over here to France in 2009 to marry a Parisian guy, but she immediately messed up her marriage and life here and dropped me. I thought, oh, well, it's a channel name, whatever. About a year later she threatened me to take it all down and it bordered on blackmail. Idiot American woman, in over her head from California. Oh, well!
Funny story, on your part!
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I've always found funerals interesting and have attended in various cultures and countries. I have some clips up on this on YT and Dailymotion and just went to zeeklytv. In my own American family, the bodies were just disposed of, not seen, and it was a party, though a thoughtful one. I am in Europe now and have traveled to see catacombs and ossuaries, et c. I enjoy talking to Africans and have learned a lot. I enjoyed Jewish funerals even though they were sad. I felt that thoughtful wakes were very good in the USA, there was concern for the bereaved, food, money and aid were given, and, oh, I sold life insurance and long term care and disability policies in the USA, where I also did estate planning, with a legal background, and that was really good stuff FOR MYSELF. I helped people. Good clip -- thank you. Uprated.
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M Theory Enthusiast
None of my children lived. Due to family breakups and problems, I have been cut off from my inlaws three times -- all of them. Period. I had allowed myself to put down full emotional roots for this last one -- 21 years. I am truly devasted and each year gets sadder than the last, not being able to say goodbye, not to go to funerals even, nothing, it's horrible. Children are only part of the equation. I couldn't even visit my two houses in Brittany, my lands and forests, for the past five years. Sold and that was that, no contents (of mine) considered for me, no way for closure. Everyone seems upset by the dollar amount in this one! That is not seeing the forest for the trees. We don't see the judgment decision. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. You may have only a modest life, but what if? I am not a litigious person but really, I give judgment on this case wide berth indeed. There WERE family ties involved in this case, from what little I have heard. What, only a living child makes anyone valid? Are you that shallow? Those are my thoughts you asked for.
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*****
Hey, in 2009 I decided to give away all of my own revenues to help Americans and in 2010 I expanded my offer to relocate Americans to France beyond my family, who'd ridiculed me in early 2008 and they ignored me and even sent some insults my way. No one wanted to come except for one guy, this black drifter who turned out to have Asperger's Syndrome and he was a juggernaut of destruction here and he went back two months later even though I'd found him a good, easy job and a nice place to live in Paris. He cost me about 20k euros. Well, off he went and I haven't heard from him since, plus I got a lot of insults from his "friends" accusing me of being some kind of bitch. As a seven year old I couldn't have taken you away legally but yeah, I hear you. Oh, well, I tried, and my helping ruined my health and subjected me to divorce with no alimony due me, I have no more families, no more friends ... that was for me helping. Good luck back there, and try to get out before you are 30. Countries such as Canada won't even take newcomers much if they are one day over 30. The USA seems to be some kind of gulag to me, behind a Virtual Curtain.
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