I recently came across an article from Steve Tuttle, a writer for Newsweek. It's about his strong distaste for Croc shoes. I personaly have a pair and LOVE them! But that's not the problem I had with the article. Check it out and see what I mean.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/150240
Hopefully, someday, this kid will realize how much of an ass his dad is and learn from his mistakes.
Honestly, I think Crocs look pretty stupid and make me think of smelly feet; but what business is it of mine if other people want to wear them? They obviously like them and I could care less what they are wearing. And more to the point: why would anybody teach their children to point out and ridicule other people on the basis of what they wear or any other factor in their lives. That child is on the road to stereotyping everybody he meets.
Of course, I drive around in a lime green SUV and am used to getting plenty of strange looks. :-)
Rich C. : Novice baby wrangler and cat herder.
http://one-sahd-dude.blogspot.com/
http://good-eats-fan.blogspot.com/
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That guys needs to get some help...Maybe they should make a rehab for people who get upset of stupid trivial crap like that. He needs to seek help before he climbs a tower and picks people of with a rifle just because they wear something they like. I am sure he would totally understand if someone called him names for wearing plaid......and had their kids ridcule him too.
I sent the guy a two page email about my thoughts on his "article". Here's his name and email if anyone else would like to let him know you think.
Steve Tuttle
webeditors@newsweek.com
has anyone thought that maybe the author was embellishing the story a bit as to make it a funnier story? To me, this article is a great satire on a funny subject......reminds me of the "baby on board" signs from the 80's....does anyone remember the stories and comedies that revolved around them.....i say lighten up, take the story at face value, which is a funny story in a paper, and worry about important things like why does the gov't reward people who can't live within their means and give them bail outs cause they bought a home they couldn't afford, while those of us that live within our means get screwed left and right?
Sure it's satire, but it's not terribly funny. On the other hand, for Canadian-bred Croc-bashing humour, check out the Oct 18, 2006 clip entitled "Dorcs!":
http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/video.html
(And I say this as a regular Croc wearer.)
Cheers,
Steve
(This message courtesy of a temporarily distracted baby girl.)
I'll take Crocs over the more pressing problem of men in a $75 shirt $200 trouser jeans and 50 cent flip flops. Whilst the world moans and groans over Crocs the real "fashion fifth column" are those dammed flip flops.
More over Crocs were originally intended as gardening shoes. They crossed into the mainstream via backpacker, rock climbers, cyclists, and the like who needed light slip on shoes after their activities. Since Crocs weigh only a few ounces they are perfect for carrying around in a bag.
And…I’ve had three pairs. I will say they were indispensable when I broke my foot
Be Seeing You.
"why does the gov't reward people who can't live within their means and give them bail outs cause they bought a home they couldn't afford, while those of us that live within our means get screwed left and right?"
Because all those innocently duped home owners didn't deserve to be preyed upon by predatory lenders, who knew full well that the undereducated lower-income population wouldn't be able to repay them. And some in our government have compassion for people who may be homeless soon, without insurance, and who are paid nearly nothing in a time of high gas prices, high inflation, and high stress.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242
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http://www.altparenting.com
I don't see what that has to do with this tick, but, since you put it out there... "caveat emptor." My sympathy for those that put themselves in that situation extends about one tenth of the length of my shortest eyelash. And this coming from someone who's sister-in-law will end up one of those "duped innocents." But that's not the point of this thread.
Obviously the entire article was satirical, but as to whether or not the father is a good example for his child, yes, yes he is. As much as I agree with everything he said in the article (I seriously harbor hatred towards Crocs greater than the author), what example one man sets for his child is none of your damn business. If he wants to teach his son that anyone wearing those Styrofoam monstrosities is a dork, that's between him and his kid. 'Tis not your place to say what one man does with his child is right or wrong. You have no more right saying that than I do telling you that you set a bad example doing anything you do with your kid. Your place is to worry about you and your kid.
-Will
gamingwithbaby.com | all your diapers are belong to us
my flickr
BRING BACK THE IRRELEVANCE!!!!
on an internet message board, I totally disagree, Gaming.
"What example one man sets for his child is none of your damn business. If he wants to teach his son that anyone wearing those Styrofoam monstrosities is a dork, that's between him and his kid. 'Tis not your place to say what one man does with his child is right or wrong. You have no more right saying that than I do telling you that you set a bad example doing anything you do with your kid. Your place is to worry about you and your kid."
A) The author writes about the experience for a major publication, thus opening himself up for some criticism.
B) The criticism here takes place on an internet message board, a place designed for commentary on parenting.
C) "Your place is to worry about you and your kid." Dude, relax. This is an INTERNET MESSAGE BOARD. Shooting the bull about how people parent here is not that big of a deal.
D) "Your place" -- I'm not sure any of us should be telling each other what our "place" is (unless asked, of course).
And on topic, I have a pair of Crocs Athena's and love them -- my flipflop of choice. However, I too find traditional Crocs on adults a bit odd. My kids wear them happily almost every day.
I don't feel like anyone should be judged by appearance and that it's not a practice that should be taught to anyone, let alone children. I understand your point GWB, but it might be more valid if you didn't contradict yourself so bad. You say that I shouldn't tell someone else what to do, yet say that "My place" is to just worry about me and my kid. Real nice.
You worry about what message you're sending to your kids, not what this guy is sending to his. What message are you sending to your kids when you question the actions of other parents with regards to their own children?
And with this response, I am now evil
-Will
gamingwithbaby.com | all your diapers are belong to us
my flickr
BRING BACK THE IRRELEVANCE!!!!
But that's not the point of this thread.
Just continuing the line of discussion that spun off from the original topic. I didn't really put the non-sequitur out there.
I just don't have any compassion for the banks that we are bailing out. I think that people should be responsible for their decisions, but not when they've been swindled by capitalist corporate con artists legitimized by unethical standards. Banks should have denied loans to those who couldn't afford them, but the stock market rewarded the booming real estate market, so the banks lending became worse and worse. Now, we're all in the economic shitter, and the people who are getting blamed are the poor, who were manipulated into a mortgage crisis.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm wrong because I'm not an economist. These are just my feelings based on what I understand of our current impending recession.
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http://www.altparenting.com
"I think that people should be responsible for their decisions, but not when they've been swindled by capitalist corporate con artists legitimized by unethical standards."
"poor, who were manipulated into a mortgage crisis."
manipulated and swindled my rectum, these are greedy people who wanted more than they could afford, period.( in my opinion). When we bought our house we had 2 incomes, when i became a stay at home dad our income was cut in half..i can still make my mortgage payment, why can't the others.....why is because they could afford x amount of house, they then wanted a bigger house so they asked if they could do a sub-prime to lower their payments...(we, on the other hand, bought a smaller house than we wanted because we didn't want to gamble with our largest asset.).. if they are to much in a hurry to get their house that they don't understand what they are getting into and what the drawbacks are, i say its a good thing stupidity is not a crime or MOST, not all, of the people losing their homes would find new residence in prison...but alas stupidity is not a crime so now my tax dollars get to bail out a bunch of people who brought their own problems onto themselves and expect someone to save them...i say let them live on the streets awhile and maybe they might learn something instead of blaming everyone else for their ignorant decisions.
GWB - I am just gonna play the devils advocate here a sec. What if I taught my child that anyone with a bald head is an evil person and should die and later he grows up and low and behold he comes across someone like you that has a bald head? He may not know why you have a bald head he just knows that your evil and he just has had a bad day and he ends up lets say. stabbing you with a steak knife. Would you think then that it's none of your buisness what I taught my son or would it then become wrong to teach a child to hate something just because you think it's bad or ugly..I thought as a people we were trying to rise above hating people because of there interests and desires just because they aren't ours.
When you go to consult a doctor, lawyer or other professional you go with the expectation that you are employing them and they will protect and look out for your best interest. People go to banks, realtors and mortgage brokers with the same expectation.
No doubt there are greedy and irresponsible borrowers but there are also many people who got screwed because they trusted mortgage brokers and lenders and got turned over for a quick buck. You can't just say "caveat emptor" and dismiss people who were missold financial products by the professionals they hired to guide them through the process.
I'm thinking we should start a new thread for discussing the mortgage issue- that seems to be getting a lot more passionate than the merit of crocs.
That said, in response to JohnGilroy I have to respectfully disagree. When we bought our home several years ago we were approved by the bank to get a loan for over 900K. But you know what, we were also smart enough to realize that we should not go that deep into debit. Would I love to live in a $900,000 house in North Carolina? Hell yeah! That buys a lot of house here. Can I afford it even though the bank was willing to "give" it to me? Hell no. There's a slippery slope when we start relying our our government to make common sense decisions for us...
Wife and kid are out of town so I've had a lot of time to drink and think. Two words that rhyme but don't necessarily go so well together.
Anyhow- a loan, be it a credit card or mortgage is called a "product" by the banks. Can you think of other products? Of course, everything we use is a product. When you purchase a product you have certain expectations of it, and a loan is no different. The paper that you signed when you got your loan was your way of acknowledging that you understand the terms product (aka LOAN) that you're purchasing. How the f$%^ is someone preying on you if they spell out in the papers that you've acknowledge understanding of the terms of the product you're purchasing? That's like saying, "well, I bought this box of cheerios with my coupon here and while the picture on the box shows them as being round I really didn't expect that they'd actually be round when I opened the box. Gosh darn, now I need my government to tell me, "hey, that's OK, the folks at General Mills were trying to deceive you when they gave you deep discounts with your coupon- here, we'll eat your round cheerios for you"
That has to be one of the best analogies ever......even my 5 year old can understand it.......would love to buy you a drink or two as it seems you think more rationally after cocktails than some people do sober...and I don't hold edwards against y'all, i think of him more as a fluke of nature...
The whole thing was a Ponzi scheme from the beginning.
However, if the gub-mint doesn’t do something then the banks will fail, two have already, and the hedge funds, who bought all those subprime mortgages will fail. I’m not thrilled that it was open season on a new “commodity” houses, when I personally believe you buy a house and live in it, not buy it to accrue value and equity. But that’s me. I find Flippers to be despicable, but many would consider than “Capitalism” or “The American Dream.” W wanted all American to afford a home but rather then lend money to developers to build new developments or a new Levittown no money down mortgages where trumped up.
If one buys a box of Cheerios the box of cereal doesn’t accrue value. A House does so people took out a Home Equity Line of Credit. Again this is a bad idea to start borrowing from your house before you have started to pay down the prime but many people couldn’t help themselves. We forget we do live in a world where looks and lifestyle are highly prized.
I agree that if you don’t have 10 to 20% to put down then you can’t afford the house. But how many people know the rules to buying a house? How many people get into credit card debt? A lot because one, CC companies make it real easy for you to amass a huge amount of debt then raise your limit, and two, people are foolish. That doesn’t bad or wrong, just foolish. And many were greedy to be sure but the situation is perilous and some form of bail out is needed to keep the economy stable.
One more thing, I don’t mind all that much if I have to pay for people to keep their home. I’m not thrilled but I would rather that then the huge subsidies petrochemical companies get. They don’t need it and they get billions in my tax dollars. It bothers me that logging is subsidized, as is corn growing, as are the airlines. It gals me that McDonalds gets “incentives” to advertise overseas. These companies are in a “free market.” Why on gods green Earth do they need more money? Money they haven’t earned?
Be Seeing You.
How the f$%^ is someone preying on you if they spell out in the papers that you've acknowledge understanding of the terms of the product you're purchasing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_lending
I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Call me cynical, but there are all kinds of ways to hoodwink people applying for a loan. Or is it just "anything goes" when it comes to the poor and undereducated in our society?
It's more like a store that has stock in cheerios tricking somebody into buying cheerios for $2 even though they know that person is too ignorant to understand and doesn't even have 2 cents, and then a year later make them pay $50 for the cheerios, and when they can't pay the $50, they take their cheerios back and try to re-sell it to another sucker. But, of course when you dumb it down to a box of cheerios, the risk really isn't that high, is it? I mean, if I think about homeless families in terms of not having their cheerios, I can feel better about them being bankrupt, homeless, and without insurance.
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http://www.altparenting.com
It's more like a store that has stock in cheerios tricking somebody into buying cheerios for $2
How can you trick anyone into buying a product? Especially if you say "here's this $2 box of cheerios, but sign here indicating that you understand that this same box will cost you $50 next year on this date". If you can't afford that BUT still sign your name YOU'RE the one tricking yourself, not the other way around. Obviously the box of cheerios is an analogy to help simplify the issue into terms that are a little easier to understand (and obviously a lot less serious than homelessness), but really, it is the same thing. As long as the terms of the loan product being purchased are explained then there really is no trickery going on here. The trickery is telling the "poor and undereducated" that they are not smart enough to choose their own paths- rather that they are to live a life of being victims to "predators".
Oh, sorry Leighpierce. Didn't mean to hijack your thread here. Umm.. crocs suck.
Especially if you say "here's this $2 box of cheerios, but sign here indicating that you understand that this same box will cost you $50 next year on this date"
I'm not convinced that's happening in exactly that way, but maybe I'm wrong.
I would love to meet at the middle ground that puts as much blame on the banks as on the people borrowing from them. Obviously, there is enough talk about "predatory lending" that I know such a thing is not a myth. I also know that, ultimately, people are responsible for signing on the dotted line. Occasionally, though, when enough people are in forclosure, we know that something bigger is happening that probably involves unfair or dishonest lending.
People know what they're getting into with pyramid schemes, but they are being tricked into thinking that it will make them money (not lose them money as the case seems to often be). Actual pyramid schemes are supposed to be illegal, but Amway and Noni Juice skate by on a thin sheet of legal ice. Such is an example of a legal product (system) that people buy into without understanding it.
Gas is a product too. And we are all paying up to $4 for this product. However, if the gas companies all got together and decided to raise the price at the same time, they are breaking the law. This is a simple example of how a company can be at fault, despite the fact that people are agreeing to buy the product. Gas, like homes and unlike cheerios, is an essential necessity to keep this economy running smoothly. That is why we should hold these companies to a higher standard, or at least to a standard that won't shatter people's lives... and the economy too.
And, I hate the bright fluorescent crocs that don't match anything, and I hate crocs with socks. That being said, my daughter wears bright pink crocs, and they are the easiest shoes in the world.
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http://www.altparenting.com
TickTock, I'll slip on my crocs and meet you on the middle ground as you described it.
Just kidding. About the crocs- I don't actually own a pair, although I do have a crocs kneeler that I use for my old knees when giving my daughter a bath.
Joined: 2008-08-08
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