response 43 of 79:

Aug 2 04:10 UTC 2003

indubitably.

response 45 of 79:

Aug 2 05:26 UTC 2003

Regarding the divorce thing. Do you think that the relative ease of 
getting out of a marriage makes people less adjusting to each other? 
Or tend to hit the eject button sooner than required?

Why do porn stars never take off their footwear in movies (if you ever 
noticed)? ;-)

Do people regularly leave their parents after teenage and see them 
after 5-10 years? Are parents usually left in old-age homes?

How important are relatives to a US family?

How common is sex at say, 13 or 14 years of age? Is it acceptable to 
parents there usually? 

Can you really tell whether a kid is a gay when he/she is 13-14?

response 47 of 79:

Aug 2 07:00 UTC 2003

There's very little I could tell you about porn, but even if I knew a lot more
about porn than I do, I imagine it wouldn't be the footwear that I would have
been paying attention to. ;)

I'm not sure what you mean about seeing parents "after 5-10 years."  A lot
of people move out of their parents' houses when done with high school, or
soon thereafter, in order to go to college or otherwise live their own lives
once they're old enough to not need to be taken care of on a daily basis. 
On the other hand, a lot of Americans make it well into their 20s (or
occasionally longer) living with their parents, either out of being happy with
the arrangement, or inertia, or inability to afford housing of their own. 
As for the "see them after 5-10 years" part, when I lived in the same city
as my parents I used to see them at least once a week, and often more.  Now
that I live a few thousand miles away from them, I still see them several
times a year and talk to them on the phone at least once a week.  I don't
think that's atypical.

A lot of people attempt to care for their elderly relatives themselves, and
a lot of people put their elderly relatives into facilities where they can
be cared for by professionals.  I suspect both have their advantages and
disadvantages for those being cared for and their younger, healthier,
relatives.  I don't know which is more common.

I don't think kids having sex at age 13 or 14 is all that common.  At least
among kids I knew at that age, I think people were still trying to figure out
steps less than that.  Among 15 and 16 year olds, my impression is it's a lot
less common than most 15 and 16 year olds tend to think it is.  But maybe I'm
way off.

response 49 of 79:

Aug 2 14:06 UTC 2003

Re truth vs. movie myths:

New York City is neither a bright bustling joyful metropolis nor a 
filthy greedy violent hell-hole.  Also, the main thing that even the 
most accurate movie depiction of midtown Manhattan can't tell you is: 
what it smells like.

Most US drug-dealers, murderers, pimps and prostitutes are white.  

Most Italian-Americans are not in the Mafia.

Most Jewish Americans are indistinguishable from most other Americans.

Rachael Leigh Cook wearing glasses wouldn't actually be considered 
unattractive in the US, as she was in the movie "She's All That."

response 51 of 79:

Aug 2 15:35 UTC 2003

I do tend to agree with the theory that because divorce is so easy, it's
easier to hit the eject button, so to speak, when the marriage hits a rough
patch. You see so many people get married too young, barely out of their teens
because they think they're in love, and think that marriage is going to be
a bed of roses. At the first sign of the prickly patch, they think it'snot
working, and bail out. That's pretty sad but it happens. Sometimes you hit
a hard patch, you need to work it out. But by making divorce so readily
available, you're also breeding a bunch of people who think it's a good enough
solution to their problems. 

I think the ease of divorce is also the reason that so many people get married
without really exploring the whole concept. Not saying everybody, but I'm
guessing a significant number. Geting married at an early age is all great
and stuff if you're willing to stick through the hard times. And when you're
19, you don't believe you could ever have a fight. 

Divorce is one of those necessary evils. You do need it, for cases when it's
warranted. But it has the ability to be misused so easily.

response 55 of 79:

Aug 2 17:38 UTC 2003

Er, dissolution.

response 57 of 79:

Aug 2 19:32 UTC 2003

re resp:54: It sounds great.  Except that you can't conceive and raise 
kids in 5 years.

response 59 of 79:

Aug 2 20:24 UTC 2003

In India, physical abuse in a marriage would probably be as common as 
it is in the US or anywhere else in the world. The reason for low 
divorce rate is mostly social pressure, social stigma attached to 
divorce and considerable difficulty in getting remarried.

An example is if you lookup matrimonial ads put up bu divorced Indians. 
Nearly each one of them says "Innocent divorcee looking .....". 
Innocent bcoz the society treats divorce as a fault of one/both the 
partners.

Strange, but true!! Hehe.

response 63 of 79:

Aug 3 01:22 UTC 2003

Re #42:  CGI toddlers will follow the script, and they can be made
to perform as many takes a day as the director demands.  Child labor
laws do not yet apply to CGI toddlers (a glaring oversight IMHO).

response 65 of 79:

Aug 3 03:25 UTC 2003

When free legal aid is first provided to a community of poor people, the
first thing that happens is that they all get divorced.  Seriously.  It
turned out (at the time the legal aid infrastructure was first being
put together in the 1960s and 1970s) that there was a tremendous pent-up
demand for divorce among people who didn't think they could afford the
legal fees and so on.

I once read a sardonic essay by a conservative political columnist
reviewing a video which gave instructions on how to become a porn star. 
Among the helpful hints he mentioned was one about always bringing your
own footwear to a photo shoot, because the floor or ground underneath
gets, um, soiled with stuff you wouldn't want to step in.