Hold it!

[AYBABTU]

All I can say was, it was unexpected. You'd THINK he'd be a little more rational and just wave goodbye, but nope. Not Lil Q.

[Narnian]

Remind me not to put up any mistletoe next christmas or you'll all think I'm engaged!

I still won't kiss you

[Kerry Skydancer]

Hmmm. I was thinking 'Quentyn makes a fool of himself, and Kes tells him about it later - since that might have stopped him from doing so.

[Damo]

Oh, don't make a mountain out of this molehill. Kid had one last shot to live out a fantasy. Kes might be a little depressed about it for a bit, but she seems like a level headed enough girl to not read too much into it. And While Quent may have been doing a little bit of objectifying, I reckon that these under these kind of unique circumstances, a spur-of-the moment thing is acceptable. =)

[TMLutas]

Good grief. He merely gets the gumption to kiss the prettiest girl in the village before he leaves, and half of you have him making commitments of undying love for all eternity.

I guess that we didn't consider this alternative because it would have Quentyn treating her like an object just like those louts in the bar who openly stare at her bosom and who slap her behind.

Being a romantic I expected Quentyn to only kiss a girl - especially in public! - if he had true feelings for her.

All that aside, I wonder how much older than Quentyn she is, and how significant such an age gap is taken in this society.

TGIF

Even romantics have been known to kiss people without eventually marrying them.

[TGIF]

Even romantics have been known to kiss people without eventually marrying them.

Not in my culture (I sometimes forget how the outside world operates).

TGIF

[TMLutas]

Even romantics have been known to kiss people without eventually marrying them.

Not in my culture (I sometimes forget how the outside world operates).

TGIF

If you don't mind my asking, what's your culture?

[Tom Mazanec]

Even romantics have been known to kiss people without eventually marrying them.

Not in my culture (I sometimes forget how the outside world operates).

TGIF

If you don't mind my asking, what's your culture?

He says he is from Michigan. I am from Ohio. It is possible to kiss a girlfriend here and not marry her (although it is a little serious). Maybe he is a minority sub-culture?

[Earl McClaw]

Not in my culture (I sometimes forget how the outside world operates).

If you don't mind my asking, what's your culture?

He says he is from Michigan. I am from Ohio. It is possible to kiss a girlfriend here and not marry her (although it is a little serious). Maybe he is a minority sub-culture?

Specifically Oak Park, Michigan (according to his profile), which is a northern suburb of Detroit. According to Wikipedia, it has a significant population of Orthodox Jews, many of them Hared, the most conservative / orthodox form.

What's makes this interesting is that another Detroit suburb, Dearborn, has been said to have the second largest Arab-American populations in the US, and the highest concentration / density outside the Middle East.

[TGIF]

I'm a Chassidic Jew. Other than immediate family, there is no physical contact between the genders. In fact, when we marry the first kiss isn't until several minutes after the wedding, once the bride and groom are in a private room.

BTW - until my disability from a series of strokes, I used to work in Dearborn.

As things deteriorated in Israel, it made for a number of unpleasant (and a few even frightening) experiences in parking lots.

TGIF

[TMLutas]

I'm a Chassidic Jew. Other than immediate family, there is no physical contact between the genders. In fact, when we marry the first kiss isn't until several minutes after the wedding, once the bride and groom are in a private room.

BTW - until my disability from a series of strokes, I used to work in Dearborn.

As things deteriorated in Israel, it made for a number of unpleasant (and a few even frightening) experiences in parking lots.

TGIF

My introduction to the Chassidic movement was via Chabad House over at SUNY at Stony Brook; very nice fellow, a lot of interesting conversations.

Sorry to hear about your illness. Are you keeping an eye on the stem cell stuff?

[TGIF]

Sorry to hear about your illness. Are you keeping an eye on the stem cell stuff?

I have, but regretfully it doesn't appear applicable to my problem.

I have a mitochondrial defect (MELAS) that interferes with cellular metabolism, especially in the brain. As a result, any time there is any stress on the brain the cells can't produce enough energy to stay alive and the resulting cell death causes a stroke.

I'm on an experimental medication cocktail that has slowed down the progression, but regretfully there is currently nothing they can do to stop it completely.

Being a rare disease without the political "glamour" of AIDS, there isn't much research taking place. But there is a support group that allows us to closely track any information that does come out.

Thank you for your concern.

TGIF

[StrangeWulf13]

Wait, wait, wait... lemme get this straight...

There are people who sleep around and use needles, and when they get AIDS, it's a big story in the media, and millions of research dollars are spent to try and help "those poor folks".

But a righteous, upstanding Rabbi gets a genetic disease and gets next to no attention?

Pardon my French, but that's f*cked up.

[BrockthePaine]

That's just the way the world works. Harsh, but it's true. My mom has... some kind of disease that some famous football star died of four or five years ago (they didn't know he had it until it was too late to stop it) and since then, research in that area has doubled or tripled. T'ain't fair, but life's never been to start with...

[TMLutas]

Wait, wait, wait... lemme get this straight...

There are people who sleep around and use needles, and when they get AIDS, it's a big story in the media, and millions of research dollars are spent to try and help "those poor folks".

But a righteous, upstanding Rabbi gets a genetic disease and gets next to no attention?

Pardon my French, but that's f*cked up.

It is a bad thing but you really ought to make sure that what's shocking you is the stuff that's really bad. The truth is that there are innocent sufferers of AIDS, children, people deceived by their spouses, sometimes people *still* get it from contaminated blood products (though that's much rarer now), children forced into the sex trade, or just simple rape. The number of completely innocent victims of AIDS probably vastly exceeds the number of people suffering from MELAS which seems to be rather self-limiting.

The big problem, in my view, is that we *have* to triage. There isn't enough money to do all the diseases and it's always going to be the little ones that are going to drop first. There's a worldwide shortage of capital and we have to make tough choices. People will die of those. That's what triage means.

[Squeaky Bunny]

Wait, wait, wait... lemme get this straight...

There are people who sleep around and use needles, and when they get AIDS, it's a big story in the media, and millions of research dollars are spent to try and help "those poor folks".

But a righteous, upstanding Rabbi gets a genetic disease and gets next to no attention?

Pardon my French, but that's f*cked up.

It is a bad thing but you really ought to make sure that what's shocking you is the stuff that's really bad. The truth is that there are innocent sufferers of AIDS, children, people deceived by their spouses, sometimes people *still* get it from contaminated blood products (though that's much rarer now), children forced into the sex trade, or just simple rape. The number of completely innocent victims of AIDS probably vastly exceeds the number of people suffering from MELAS which seems to be rather self-limiting.

The big problem, in my view, is that we *have* to triage. There isn't enough money to do all the diseases and it's always going to be the little ones that are going to drop first. There's a worldwide shortage of capital and we have to make tough choices. People will die of those. That's what triage means.

You forgot all the public service people who get it from having to deal with the dregs of society as well as the sick. I'm surprised that there are as many paramedics in training considering what they have to face.

The "rare" diseases and disorders have never gotten much in the way of research dollars. About the only time they do is when there is a personal element involved.

I would love to see the cure for a major problem come as a side effect of someone who was working on one of those rare diseases. A toss up between serendipity and irony.

[TGIF]

The big problem, in my view, is that we *have* to triage. There isn't enough money to do all the diseases and it's always going to be the little ones that are going to drop first. There's a worldwide shortage of capital and we have to make tough choices. People will die of those. That's what triage means.

You're right - and if they did triage based on how many people are affected, heat disease, cancer and strokes would be the big receivers of Federal funds. AIDS isn't even in the top ten (here in the US).

My point was that funding is being allocated by the volume of the protests by political activists and not based on the actual statistical basis of the number of people who would benefit.

Mind you, I'd be out of luck in either case, since MELAS and other mitochondrial diseases are neither big on political radar not big in terms of the number of people affected.

Fortunately, the source of cures, G-d, doesn't follow politics.

[BrockthePaine]

Fortunately, the source of cures, G-d, doesn't follow politics.

Amen to that!