Zella

Thank you! I have had a lot of fun over the years with my "hey, don't blame Arkansas for that facet of the Duggars" and "okay yes do blame Arkansas for that one" posts. 😂😂😂😂

I'm also very confused and saddened by this. I've been here nearly 9 years and really enjoy the sense of community we've created here. It's not perfect, nor is any online space, but overall, I've found this one of the smartest, funniest, most supportive places I've ever encountered online. I really enjoyed reading the opinions of people from all walks of life. It seems the site owners are disappointed in the demographics of the commentariat but also discount the diverse perspectives that come from people all around the country and world, from very different professions and with very different religious beliefs, participating in these discussions and usually doing so amicably. I'm not going to repeat the articulate defenses others have made of this forum. But I would point out that if the administrators want in-depth, perceptive, challenging discussions, that's what this forum specialized in and what fundie snarkers have done for years. It may be overlaid with a veneer of sarcasm and hyperbole--and one can debate what constitutes ethical snarking--but while the rest of the world framed the Duggars as either a wholesome model family or a bunch of hilariously corny hicks, snarkers were the ones who first recognized that things were very rotten in Denmark. And the decade of scandals and criminal activity that's been revealed since has only proven that right. A lot of this was done through a strongly feminist perspective. There's something very cathartic about finding likeminded people who saw through the spin and hype. In any event, I wanted to thank all my fellow snarkers for all the laughs and thought-provoking stories we've exchanged over the years. Hoping I'll still see all of y'all around the internet.

That would have been so scary! I remember being a kid and my grandmother getting me and my brother up in the middle of the night. She made us get in the bathtub and threw a mattress over it. I had to do this too. Ended up canceling Netflix and Hulu and don't miss them. I kept Amazon Prime but only for shipping. If I only had it to stream, I'd have canceled that too.

Oh God me too. I love messy train wreck characters usually, but I like my detectives to be functional adults without personal drama or horribly traumatic backstories who also get along with their coworkers. LOL That's true of both TV and books. Just do your detecting without being an angsty, troubled drama llama or an asshole!

Hope all of you are safe! As part of the same weather system, our temperatures here will have dropped 50 degrees in about 24 hours by tomorrow.

Yeah it is superb. One of the best seasons of TV I've ever seen. But I had to decompress a while after watching it, and rewatches don't make it any easier.

Yeah I watch a lot of depressing TV, but season 4 is pretty much the saddest thing I've ever watched.

Just out of curiosity: how far are you? I watched it for the first time a couple of years ago and really loved it, but yeesh it really is hard on the emotions and the nerves.

Choosing where they'll go with a dart. LMAO

I definitely understand! I've also wondered about their travel. I have friends who travel a lot--and I live vicariously through them--but it involves a lot of saving and strategic planning. I can't see these jackasses having an itinerary or any intelligent planning on what they want to see and do abroad.

They're not sheltered country boys. I mean, they may be sheltered, but they don't live in the sticks. They live on the outskirts of one of the largest metro areas in Arkansas, alongside over half a million other people. As someone who actually does live in a rural part of the same state, it really irritates me when they act like "golly gee shucks I live in Mayberry." I know it's not the same as living in a huge city, but it's also not like they're living in a town where you can count all the stoplights on one hand and are guaranteed to run into people you know every time you're at Walmart and have a long drive to get to anything.

I love your cat's name!

Dirty Diaper

That was my breaking point too. At a certain point, I just refused to believe that anyone would willingly spend time with Sheldon.

Yeah this is what I did for years, on the off-chance something I wanted to see was on there. I finally cancelled it at the beginning of the year. I've not missed it.

Carl Weathers dying has bothered me more than any celebrity death in quite a while. I first saw him in Predator. He was great at drama and action, but his comedy stuff in Happy Gilmore and Arrested Development is what I always default to with him. I think his run on Arrested Development playing a cheapskate version of himself is one of my all-time favorite guests bits on a show. I quote him from there all the time. 😂 And per the showrunner, that direction for the "character" was all Weathers' idea!

I love Julian's reaction to being scolded for that. "Well, you know, hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it?" LOLOL

That is one of my absolute favorites too! The chaos is superb. I also love what a criminal turn of mind Fanny has. 😂😂😂😂😂 I don't think 3 aired on CBS. Because one of my favorite episodes is in that season, and I was looking forward to hearing people's thoughts, which never happened. (Unless I missed something.) It seems like CBS dumped it after season 2, which is just dumb to me. They could have easily fit in all 5 seasons before they start showing the American version's newest season, IMO.

I've watched a lot of SVU over the years--though not anything recent--and I always was mystified at how both Stabler and Benson still had jobs.

I had that experience with Little House on the Prairie on whatever I watched it on a couple of years ago. It was very annoying and distracting.

Yes I agree he's great sycophant inner circle material. LOLOL

I don't think Jeremy has the wherewithal to emerge as a MacArthur replacement, though I don't doubt he fancies that for himself. Jeremy strikes me as someone who's very desperate to be liked, which I doubt is a great personality trait for playing MacArthur version of Game of Thrones, and he also lacks the charisma or gravitas that you'd need for that. A bit of a diversion, but I think the same principle applies. I once read an insightful interview with an author who's written about a lot of cult figures, and he was asked about the difference between Charles Manson and Jim Jones. He basically said Manson was too much of an overtly off-putting weirdo to appeal to anyone but a couple of dozen disaffected outcasts. Jones at the height of his power could and did manipulate very affluent, intelligent, well-educated people and maintained a sizeable congregation. I think Jeremy is likewise too much of an off-putting weirdo to ever appeal to enough people to achieve replacing MacArthur. That's not to say MacArthur himself isn't an off-putting weirdo himself. I coined the term Hateful Old Fuck for him a few years ago for a reason. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 But he does seem to have enough people believing he's not an off-putting weirdo to be successful at his purpose. Jeremy just radiates desperation and off-putting weirdo, and in the past, pastoring one church seemed like too much work for him. I don't see him growing enough to suddenly be able to rule MacArthur's empire.

I never get the impression Jeremy actually is interested in the things he bandies around. He would actually probably be more interesting as a person (even as a pretentious one) if he had hobbies he genuinely liked, but the vibe I've always gotten from him is he wants the attention from the persona rather than any sincere interest. He also reminds me a lot of this:

I'm pretty sure that there is an intentional fire set on the prairie for him to collect insurance money in the book. I personally thought there was some dark humor in the scene as the agent posing as an insurance guy realized during the conversation that the fire they're watching is an act of fraud against the very policy he sold Hale. It basically underscores how greedy Hale is and how bold he is in undertaking his schemes. He'll acquire a policy and turn around and commit fraud on it within weeks of purchase because he assumes he can get away with it. Insurance fraud is also a recurring issue in the story, from the harebrained car theft scheme to the very sinister manner in which Hale acquired insurance on Henry Roan Horse before killing him. It's basically part of a pattern to the family's crimes.

I think it makes sense within the context of the real Pa apparently making a lot of poor financial decisions, to the point he wasn't above fleeing in the middle of the night to avoid paying debts. It would have been an interesting facet to explore of Pa being a beloved husband and father by his family but, as to quote my Granny, "unable to manage a setting hen." I don't think Landon was interested in depicting that, though, because it would have made him less of an idol. So, we get the consequences of his bad decisions while skirting around the causes.