October Surprise?

[_Jersey Girl]

[_Kishkumen]

Fox News passed on the story the New York Post printed. Both are Murdoch owned. If anyone thinks corporate America is simplistically censoring the truth about Hunter Biden and Burisma, think again. They are applying journalistic standards, where they feel they need to for purposes of self-preservation. There is undoubtedly a business reason behind Murdoch allowing the story to run one place but not in another. Or it represents an internal disagreement of some kind, which is very possible. In any case, this is not about corporate America hiding some truth that needed to come out.

[_Icarus]

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/92450686 ... r-giuliani

[_subgenius]

They are applying journalistic standards...

What are these? and how did you find them?
I am asking for Brett Kavanaugh.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

subgenius,

Despite being together for 10 years and having been married for 3 years, I actually still haven't met her father and I've only met her mother one single time.

My wife and I met when we were 21 and 22 respectively. She comes from South Korea and 3 years later, we found a way for her to move to Switzerland (my country) to start a new life together. She tried to introduce me to her parents around that time (I lived in Korea for an entire year, so there were plenty of opportunities) but they wouldn't have it. They told her it was unacceptable for her to have a boyfriend and that I was only a distraction from her studies. My wife even had to lie about me and tell her parents she'd visit her female friend in the afternoon, when in reality she was visiting me. She also couldn't ever sleep over at my place because her parents wouldn't have allowed it. That was all pretty difficult and sometimes painful.

We got married at age 29/28. 9 months before the wedding, we began to send out invitation cards. When my parents-in-law found out we were planning to get married, they went absolutely mental. My wife's father demanded for her to immediately call of the wedding and leave me. He was especially infuriated that my wife didn't ask him for permission (she felt like it was her decision to make). However, he also hated the fact that I am disabled (blind). In South Korea, disabled people are unfortunately still treated very badly and looked down upon. When my wife refused to budge but again warmly invited them to be our "honor guests" at the wedding along with my parents, the whole thing totally blew up. There were several phone calls between my wife and her parents and they were all pretty nasty. My parents-in-law called both of us some pretty terrible names... her mom called her a "worthless whore who brings shame upon the entire family" and her dad said he couldn't understand why she'd marry a "damned cripple". In the end, they declared an ultimatum: either my wife calls off the wedding or they will completely abandon her. When my wife told them she wasn't going to dump me, her dad wrote one last letter, saying that she was no longer his daughter and that he will make sure that she wouldn't get a dime of the inheritance.

In the end, my mother-in-law felt too conflicted despite all the insults she had hurled at my wife and booked a plane ticket last second. We took her out for a fancy lunch, along with my parents. Fortunately, she really loved my parents, despite the fact that my wife had to translate everything. Two days later she came to the wedding and we both treated her with love and respect, as though nothing had happened. I think this kind of helped my mother-in-law to eventually get over herself. After going back home, she didn't talk to my wife for almost a year but then they slowly began to do phone calls again. This year she even sent me some money for my birthday, which was like "holy damned crap" for me. Apparently she's said to my wife that she wants to cook some traditional Korean dishes for me which sounds awesome. Unfortunately though, we didn't get to see her again during the past 3 years. My father-in-law, meanwhile, is still refusing to talk to his daughter and I think it has taken a real toll on her over the years. She used to be the most carefree person I've ever known but I think this whole thing with her parents really traumatized her. A few days ago we had a serious conversation about an unrelated issue and my wife suddenly said: "I believe that in the end, you're always alone and all by yourself. There won't be anyone to help you, care for you or love you. In the end, we're all completely on our own." It broke my heart to hear her say these words because I know she would've NEVER said them when we first met. One time I talked about the whole thing with my dad and I remember him sighing and saying in a thoughtful tone: "You know, I feel so, so bad for her. Being abandoned by your parents... there's really nothing worse than that. Being abandoned by your children, your best friend, your husband or wife... that's all horrific but being abandoned by the people who raised you for your whole life and who you've always believed love you unconditionally, that must be unimaginably painful." I do boudoir photography as a side hustle and you’d be amazed how quickly tasteful can turn into tacky or downright raunchy. And, awkward? There’s a TON of that just by virtue of the work, but here are my top three examples:

1) A bride decided to do a photo shoot for her groom. She comes in with an assortment of outfits, progressively provocative, and one of them is the classic white bridal lingerie getup, which we decide to save for last.

The shoot is going well, bride isn’t nervous and is actually pretty fun and chill. She poses in some cool looks, like a sexified baseball jersey to rep their team and a dorky ass elf outfit a la LOTR. We get the the end of the shoot and it’s time for the super sexy wedding night look. Bride touches up her makeup and she is looking HOT. I send her off to get changed because the outfit consists of stalkings, garters, a corset, the whole shebang, and I want her to have enough time for a good assortment of posing options.

As I’m making a few adjustments to the lighting, I hear a scream from the back. I rush to the dressing area and call the bride’s name. I find her, half dressed and sobbing, clutching one of her breasts. I look a little closer and there’s blood on her hand and her breast. I ask her what happened, but she’s too upset to speak. I ask if she can show me, so she moves her hand and then I damned scream. It turns out she didn’t know what the garter clip was for and mistook it for some type of kinky nipple clamp crap. The thing cut her so badly she ended up needing stitches.

A few weeks later, we were able to rush an appointment for her to finish the shoot in time for her wedding. But she decided to leave the stalkings and their accoutrements behind for the final go.

2) Another good one was when a young woman treated herself to a photo shoot for her 21st birthday. She said it was all about giving herself a confidence boost, but I had a hard time believing it because she was definitely the conventionally gorgeous type. I asked her about it and she was very candid. She explained that, while she was physically attractive and in great shape, for some reason, whenever a relationship started to get serious (read: sexual), the person would just ghost her. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why that would be, so I told her as much.

She got changed and we got started. Things were going smoothly and she was having a good time. She was an absolute knockout and a natural with posing. We were really enjoying ourselves, talking throughout the process and getting to know one another. The time came for some more ~closeup~ shots, so I talked through what that could look like, let her decide how she wanted to stage them and whether she wanted to be fully nude or partially. She decided on fully nude and went to the dressing area to get herself situated.

She comes back and I have her take her robe off and stretch out on a chaise in the studio. I start with some full body shots and move a bit closer every few shots. I get to be about a foot away from her and I am hit with the most intense smell. I know that it can’t possibly be coming from anywhere but her body. I get a little closer to confirm my suspicions and yup, it’s definitely coming from her vagina.

Now I am not in the “all pussies smell” camp AT ALL. I mean, have you guys every had your nose near some balls? So, I figure there has got to be something going on with this girl’s health or hygiene and decide to bite the bullet and talk to her about it. I don’t beat around the bush, I just say “Hey, lady, I have to be honest with you: there’s a bit of a smell down here.” She doesn’t even look surprised and she looks at me like I have three heads and tells me “Of course there is, I keep my flower wild.”

We get to talking about it in depth and I learn that not only does she not groom her pubic area, she also doesn’t WASH it. Her mother warned her against using feminine cleaning products and she took that to mean ALL cleaning products. Fam, I gave her a (clothed) demonstration of how I wash myself, handed her a bar of soap, and let her use the shower in my attached apartment to remedy that situation immediately. She came back with a smile on her face and a song in her heart and we finished the shoot without incident. That could’ve gone a whole different way, but to this day she tells me I changed her life.

3)I saved this one for last because it was the most awkward for ME. I don’t often shoot couples, for various reasons. However, a really good friend of mine asked very nicely and I always had a little crush on her so I said yes. I was confused though, because I’d never met her partner and was kind of surprised to hear she was dating someone AND it was serious enough for an erotic photo shoot. She admitted it was new, but she was just so into him that she had to go for it. We set the date and talked logistics and all seemed fine.

The day of the shoot comes around and I’m nervous (I hate couples shoots, y’all). They arrive and we do introductions. Something about the boyfriend seems familiar but also kind of off, but I just roll with things. They change clothes and we start off with some cheesy “look into her eyes” crap to ease into the naked stuff. We get into a rhythm and things are actually not terrible, so we take a break to get ready for the next set of shots. This is where it gets awkward.

The boyfriend comes out first and he just kind of stares at me. He starts talking and tries to pull the whole “You’re too pretty to be behind the camera” thing and I’m like “Dude, chill.” Then he looks at me with a weirdly intense expression and asks “Do you remember me?” To which the only answer, dear reader, was hell the “F” no. My friend (his girlfriend) returns and I can’t wait to get started so we can be finished.

As soon as they remove their robes, crap gets reeeaally awkward. I notice boyfriend has a small tattoo on his left hip depicting a sort of hipster arrow adventure situation. That looked familiar, friends. But then, I look over at his right hip and see a tattoo of similar size with MY damned (and rather uncommon) NAME. And that’s when I remember the guy. I went on three dates with him, over the course of two weeks, and then broke it off with him because he had some serious red flags.

My friend notices my face and is like, “Oh, yeah, the tattoo. That’s his ‘one that got away’ from a while back. Weird that you have the same name though.” I look at her and I know I can’t lie, so I flat out say, “Uhh, I think that’s IS my name.” Her boyfriend then starts crying and coming toward us both (naked and with a very confusing erection) calling out, not for his current girlfriend of nearly six months, but for me. I nope the “F” out of there and let them talk.

It gets awfully quiet so I head back in to check on things, only to find my friend is nowhere to be found and her boyfriend (ex-boyfriend?) is quietly sobbing and masturbating in the middle of the studio floor. I just left him there and sent my guy friend to get him out of there for me while I checked on the girlfriend. She broke up with him on the spot and left, because she couldn’t face me. She made sure he still paid me, though, and promised to never ask me to do a couples shoot again. I did eventually do a solo shoot with her, but that’s a tale for another thread entirely (wink wink).

EDIT: Holy crap this blew up! Thanks all for reading!

Three quick things: 1) Yes, I know it’s stockings Jesus H. Christ. I used speech to text for part of it and it’s damned Reddit not grad school so I didn’t proofread.

2) Stinkypuss wasn’t even washing AROUND her vagina. She ended up having to use some type of cream from her GP because there was a ton of bacteria from years of neglect. She and I are friends now and yes she knows I call her stinkypuss (even though it’s no longer à propos of her situation).

3) Regarding my friend in story 3: obviously we boned. She does not have my name tattooed on her body. As for the guy, he is somehow still single and I wish him well.

EDIT 2 (Electric Boogaloo):

Enough people have asked for the story behind number three that I’ve decided I should just share it, too. Friends, see my comment reply below for story 3A. Before you read, please play the song “Bestie” by Sizzy Rocket. Thanks and enjoy. Not a historian, but I am post grad in Anthropology with a focus on the Pacific (I am at a New Zealand University).

The waka (double hulled or single hulled with outrigger canoes) that explored Polynesia did carry water with them in gourds, but also they would carry items like coconuts that contain water and they would often know there was an island in the general area they were looking. When sailing between known Islands they would make stops to gather more supplies. They would also gain water or fluids from the sea and bird life they could catch.

One thing to remember is that they were very proficiant sailers by the time they were exploring Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. The waka that discovered and came to New Zealand have oral traditions told about them that often includes oral traditions of what provisions they had on board. These oral traditions like that of the Aotea waka as talked about in the Ngāti Ruanui book by Tony Sole talk of the places that stopped off at such as Rangitahua (Kermadec Islands).

Māori and indeed Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians sailed with experienced navigators on board who sailed using what we call a star compass (look up star compass by Mau Piailug), these navigators would have also had the skills in helping to locate birds, whales, fish, turtles etc which could be caught and eaten (not so much whales but you get my drift). So to them the sea is also like a garden, or in te reo Māori we say this is kai moana (sea food).

Sailing through the Pacific was still dangerous at times and there are stories of waka that were lost even though many still made it to New Zealand (see the book Ngā waka o Neherā by Jeff Evans). The journey to New Zealand is often said to be the most dangerous, but with the correct knowledge from a Navigator could still be done and today modern waka that are built to be like traditional waka such as the Haunui and Hokūleā can make these trips without navigational aides even today. Although they take on modern provisions they still fish and eat the sea life as a form of sustenance on these journeys.

As for other means of survival, some waka had special stones that allowed them to cook onboard, others had prayers and oral traditions that forbade cooking or even taking many provisions and so they relied only what they could catch. Navigators also often knew how to avoid issues such as storms, but double hulled waka could also ride out many storms and they often had cover such as small huts built on deck to take cover in.

To really understand just how amazing all of this was there are some documentaries available on you Tube of Mau Piailug https://youtu.be/9IF8jCLxyAA who was one of the last traditional navigators in the Pacific and he taught Polynesians how to navigate by the stars again enabling modern ocean going waka to re-create these amazing journeys. Navigation is more than just knowing how to get somewhere it is forming an identity that is based on the ocean and understanding bird life, sea life, weather, currents etc.

It's good to note there are many other debunked theories such as drift theory. But the generally accepted theory now is that of navigation. For movement across the pacific they would sail up wind then allow the return journey to easily bring them home. New Zealand is considered the last major land mass to be settled by Polynesians because it seemed to be associated with the most risk and a return back to to "Hawaiki" would have been difficult although not impossible as spoken of about the Horouta waka, who is said to have returned to Hawaiki for Kumara (sweet potato). Hawaiki is a zonw that includes places such as Society islands, Cook Islands, Tuamotu's etc. Many waka that came to New Zealand speak directly to arriving from there, from islands such as Ra'iatea (in French Polynesia).

There are many books that speak about these journeys such as the ones mentioned above but also those such as the Horouta book, Takitimu book, Te Arawa book and also books such as Ngā Mōteatea.

Apologies for any spelling, grammar or formatting errors, I am writing this from my phone. If you have interest beyond this the New Zealand Archaeological Association is a great source of further information. Yeah, I just used it for an assignment a few weeks ago where oral tradition is permitted to be used. I really love how papa Mau Piailug gave the gift of navigation back to Polynesia. Now there are many modern waka who use these navigation techniques. Once you learn them inc-uding the star compass, you realise that they had the knowledge needed to find new islands. There are still oral traditions today that contain these instructions from people like Kupe who gave people like the captain of the Aotea waka (Turi) instructions on how to find New Zealand. My son is Māori and his waka are the Aotea and the Horouta, so they are the oral traditions I am most familiar with, but I will be using them in my MA thesis when I get to it. Which I will be doing on pre-European Polynesian voyaging and their ability to sail from New Zealand (Māori name is Aotearoa) back to Hawaiki. So I have been studying pre-European Polynesian voyaging specifically for about three years now in preperation for my MA. It is extremely fascinating to me. One of my goals is to combine Archaeology and oral tradition as a more richer way to interpret finds and enrich the oral tradition with evidence (where possible). For example oral tradition talks of the Aotea stopping at Rangitahua and killing two dogs there (be aware this oral tradition was recorded in the 19th century) and in the 21st century they found bones from two dogs on the island. Now they may have come from from another waka, but things like this enrich those traditions.

- Doc

[_subgenius]

subgenius,

Despite ...

- Doc

FYI, I never read a post that requires scrolling. Posters who copy/paste such things or, heaven forbid, take the time to write such lengths in this context never provide any substance and it is ever worth the read. See also Mark Twain's apology for writing a lengthy letter.....and also see 5+ years ago when such pranks were circulating the internet.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.google.com/search?q=that+Washington ... 80&bih=612

lol. You're such a damned idiot.

- Doc

[_canpakes]

And then ...

FYI, I never read a post that requires scrolling.

Lol. A fine example of the intellectual disability infecting contemporary conservatism.

[_subgenius]

https://www.google.com/search?q=that+Washington ... 80&bih=612

lol. You're such a ____ idiot.

- Doc

sez the guy who didn't bother to read the 4th line.
".....and also see 5+ years ago when such pranks were circulating the internet."