It reminded me of a trip I took on Max earlier in the summer, and there was a dog on the train taking up a seat.On the same trip, strange but not illegal, a young man entered the train holding his pants up as he walked. Of course, low slung pants are the style nowadays, but the young man had chosen blue shorts with stars, and so it kind of stood out. And he was wearing his pants slung so low there was no way to keep them up except hold them if he walked any distance at all. What kids endure to be stylish.
Finally, there is the downtown church that wants everyone to feel comfortable using their restrooms. However, I didn't see any street people using the restrooms or other very nice meeting room facilities. So, maybe the restrooms are only for certain people who identify. You can't make these things up.
8 comments:
The nice thing about low-slung pants is it makes it easier for the cops to catch them when they run.
The dog in your photo is (surprise!) a pit bull. Undoubtedly a "service animal", as they all seem to be. Makes for an invigorating ride, though.
The church is ahead of the curve; those signs will soon be required.
Shows you how much I know, Max. It is a pit bull. Looked like an old, lazy, ugly dog to me.
I wonder how the women at the church feel when a guy who "identifies" comes in a uses their restroom. And why, for crying out loud, even have gender-based restrooms. Why not unisex in which everyone would identify?
I thought the blue shorts with stars were a fun touch. Another young man in the same group wore black silky shorts, but they didn't stand out so much as he was wearing black pants.
I agree about unisex restrooms - just make them one size fits all. Perhaps there was a time when men and women had to have their own, but both versions have baby-changing tables these days, so that dichotomy's kind of out the window.
Looked like an old, lazy, ugly dog to me.
Unfortunately, your photo didn't show enough of the owner, so I'll have to take your word on that score. The dog, however, is a pit mix. Over the years, I've worked with thousands (yes, actually) of animal species and breeds, both domestic and wild. So it's kind of second nature to pick up on physical characteristics. For a temperament assessment, I have to go one-on-one; every animal's different.
Actually, the young woman was fairly attractive. Heh. You know animals and pay attention to their characteristics. I just flash over most of them--except our own pets or the pets of relatives, friends and neighbors.
Unisex would make a lot more sense, but I'm sure their church attenders have a significant older crowd attendance who would not like unisex. But, that's just a guess. It's funny that they are so staid as to have men's and women's restrooms and yet don't want anyone to think they aren't SENSITIVE and TOLERANT.
Yes, we all know how important it is today to be Tolerant™ - unless, of course, traditional values or religion is involved; you get points for mocking those.
As for the animal stuff - guilty on that; I home in on physical and behavioral characteristics of them immediately. And traces as well.
This afternoon, I took my Bride outdoors and asked her to look at a Doug fir tree branch. She saw a Doug fir tree branch. So I asked if she noticed any differences between that one and others on the tree, and she didn't.
This stuff stands out to me.
I pointed out that the tree branch I'd first asked her to look at was barren of needles for a good foot or so along the top, yet still had them at either end. It was also some three feet from our power line. What does this tell you?
What it tells me is that we have squirrels running across the power line and leaping from there to the fir branch, clawing the needles off when they land. And indeed, going up there on a ladder shows claw-marks on the needle-less part of the branch.
To me, this is pretty brain-dead intuitive stuff: you look up, see the denuded branch, and immediately clue into how that happens. Yet other really quite intelligent people don't see anything.
It seems that many people just miss the links between animal activity and real-world results. I'm not sure why, as the connections are glaringly apparent.
It's a special gift to be able to see something and put together the practical aspects of what caused that result. We're so far from living off our wits in terms of nature or even seeing natural processes that most people never get any practice at it.
It's not that they couldn't develop the skills, but there is nothing in their education or modern lifestyle that values that.
The younger generation in our family can do computer-related fixes, but haven't done poking around on lamps and toasters or even mending clothes. It's so cheap to get new ones, that's what they do. And it's usually the parents who encourage (and sometimes do) DIY projects on the younger ones' houses.
Our generation valued people who could work with their hands and figure stuff out. Their generation not so much.
I'm not so sure that it's a gift, so much as a skill, TD. I mean, anyone can put two and two together; it's probably just "natural" for me due to upbringing - you learn early on to spot the signs that rats have been in the chicken coop, for example.
In time, I developed a background in ethology, making it easier for me than for others to assess and modify environmental features to direct animal behavior. It's just a skill-set.
Whatever it is, I wish I had more of it. My dad is better at it than I, and I'm better at it than the younger generation in our family. Just the idea of stopping and looking to figure out is alien to modern culture which values everything happening right away.
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