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I don't know, it worries me. What was she like as a child? What if her will was simply broken enough to traumatize her? The whole "dying to self" thing can be taken way too far and used as an abusive weapon, even with the best intentions.

I'm trying not to freak out because my kid is at a Halloween party for the first time, and I am second-guessing myself because it's at a school friend's house, and I've only met the dad a couple of times, and the friend has older siblings, and my mind is going to all kinds of worst-case scenarios. My only comfort is that my kid is a rule-follower, extremely strong-willed, socially adept, and so far has proven to be absolute Teflon when it comes to peer pressure. Still, I'm counting down till the party's over!

Thanks for all the input re: pranks. I can't give details, but I will say that the situation has been resolved to my satisfaction. The teacher did a full mea culpa. My child has recovered.

Will is such a baby. Did he really expect to have girls falling all over themselves for him still? I think it's possible for him to be accepted as performer, but he's got to take some time and revise his act so that it doesn't hinge on flirting with the audience if he doesn't want a repeat of what happened in this episode.

Thanks! That was way better than the show has been lately.

Infrequent poster here with a question. Are there any circumstances under which it would be appropriate for a teacher to single a student out for a prank? One in which the other students in the class are in on the joke? Let's say the students are ages 10-12.

I just caught the tail end of "Scandal High" on the Kimmel show. Now I'm obsessed with finding the whole thing on YouTube. Hilarious! The funny thing is, Tony Goldwyn's high school character sounded just like Fitz.

The best part of the episode was coming here and seeing the title right after seeing the ending. The retconning of Beverly is the worst thing ever about this show. Worse than Pig-blood Peggy.

I read the first sentence of this post and thought "Hmm, never heard of that rapper" before I got to the next sentence and realized who you were talking about.

Last post. I don't mean in any way to imply that anyone's bad behavior was justified. It's like I try to explain to my kids, feel what you want, but control your actions. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. I'm not addressing the legal and corporate aspects of it because I didn't even know that was going on. The 2003 episode happened just as I was falling down the rabbit hole of Clay Aiken fandom (yeah, go ahead and judge me), which consumed way too much of my attention for over a year. My analogy came as a result of my trying to process why the episode had an emotional impact. I know a conservative person who is perfectly fine with watching movies starring outspoken liberals, but won't listen to a DC song even 12 years later. The betrayal theory is the only thing I can come up with.

Would the geeks in my high school scenario be expected to dismiss their friend's betrayal as "well, she has freedom of speech, she can say whatever she wants and we'll be fine with it?" No, and that's my point. The fans took it as a personal insult, not as an esoteric political disagreement. Freedom of speech is a legal construct that prevents the government from punishing citizens for speech, usually political dissent. In the rest of society, there's no way to prevent speech from having consequences, on both ends of the political spectrum. It's just human nature.

This is my Dixie Chick theory (since it came up in the episode thread). Think of it as every high school movie. The country music fans (who happen to be mostly conservative politically) are the geeks. The pop music fans (who happen to be mostly liberal politically) are the cool kids. The Dixie Chicks are the awesome new kid in school who inexplicably hangs with the geeks by choice, but the cool kids are trying to get their claws into her. DC gets drawn in more and more to the cool kids' circle, till she ends up at one of their parties. She starts loudly bad-mouthing the leader of the geeks behind his back in an effort to distance herself from the geeks and ingratiate herself with the cool kids. "Ugh, I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe I used to sit at the same lunch table with him! What a loser!" Someone catches that on their phone and posts it online where the whole school sees it. Of course the geeks are furious at the betrayal. That's what the country music fans felt on a gut level. The DC may have meant only to be talking about the Iraq War, but they made it personal about Bush, Natalie Maines used the word "ashamed" in her famous 15-word statement. It was probably one of the worst PR moves in entertainment history, not because of their actual stance on the war, but because of the venue and words chosen. All that being said, the death threats and other reactions were completely inexcusable and wackdoodle. I wish the whole debacle had never happened, because I think the Dixie Chicks' downfall had a ripple effect on women in country in general, and probably indirectly led to the rise of bro country.

I would disagree that the DC debacle was really about the war, but I should probably take that to the small talk thread.

To discourage kids from egging houses and cars on Halloween?

Due to DVR problems, this is the first time I've seen Matt play since his 2nd day. I love how he plays. My only quibble is why couldn't he look like Corbett? Best-looking contestant I've seen in a long time.

No, near-sighted means you can see well up close.

Based on my audition experience, the staff wants people like Jennifer and Talia. The person running the audition acted like Tina Fey doing her Sarah Palin impression. Exuberant behavior was highly encouraged.

Who are they? Emotions are not supposed to come into play when choosing a spouse. That's all bad, bad, bad. God is supposed to tell you who the right one is. Not having feelings for the person is just a sign of how super-spiritual you are. Now, you are supposed to fall in love after you're engaged, and of course it's super easy to release all your pent-up emotions to this person because you've guarded your heart forever and never even allowed yourself to have a tiny crush on anyone. That's how it's all supposed to work. Jonathan Lindvall, a Gothard wannabe who has thankfully faded into obscurity (I would love to find out what has happened to his children), decided that courtship is unbiblical because people are too tempted to fall in love during courtship (*cough*Jill*cough*). So he instead instituted betrothal, which is basically "you're the one, God told me so." Then the couple go through a civil marriage ceremony, but still live apart and don't touch each other until the big wedding feast.

Challenge means that he's setting the bar high so they feel pressure to be better Christians.

On my FB women post pictures of their boyfriend or husband on man crush Monday. It's not just a Jessa thing.

Based on the one "real life" instance I've seen of this situation, Anna will need to break free of her parents and their teaching before she'll have the nerve to leave her husband. It took several years in the case I saw.

Deanna probably didn't want to go to the private school. We're not talking fancy prep school here, but a low-budget church-run school that probably had fewer opportunities than the public school, but a lot more rules.

Michelle's hair reminds me of when I was on a closed super-fundie forum about 10 years ago. This lady posted asking for advice. Her husband wanted her to get a perm because when they met, she had Julia-Roberts-in-Pretty-Woman hair and he wanted her to have that again. However, not only did she not want to do it, he was a total cheapskate and only allowed her to buy the very cheapest shampoo, and she knew she could not re-create that look without the expensive products she used back when she was single. She received advice to go ahead and do what he wanted and ask her parents to pay for some quality hair products. This advice was given in perky cheerleader form, encouraging her to make her husband happy. A little passive-aggressiveness also, because it was suggested he would see the error of his ways once the hair did not turn out like his fantasy. That forum is where I first heard about the Duggars. The women there were absolutely in awe and would post excitedly when a new special was coming on.

Count me in the side of not finding Alex attractive. A man his age should have some lines in his face.

I was so disappointed in the Little Pony category. No Rainbow Dash or Twilight Sparkle to be found, just random nicknames. That category title made no sense!