Still another warning to women: Stop telling him what to do all the time!

Hello ladies!

Here I am again, with some more helpful advice on dealing with men.

I'm sure there's a man in your life who, for whatever reason, is very important to you. Maybe you're related to him. Or maybe you're in love with him. Or maybe, for some other reason, you find yourself emotionally invested in his life.

In his success, if you will.

Therefore, you feel justified in telling him what to do.

I don't mean dropping subtle hints, because you've already tried that and it doesn't work.

I don't mean gentle nudges, because you've tried that and it doesn't work, either.

And I don't mean crafty manipulation.

I mean outright telling him to do this, and to do that.

And sometimes getting frustrated with him, and yelling at him to do this or that.

Have you ever wondered how he got so far in life without your help?

The stereotypical view of adult males is that they're shallow, shortsighted, self-centered, superficial, and — oh, yes — forgetful. They need a woman's help to find their car keys, straighten their tie, decide what to do tomorrow, and decide what to do for the rest of their life.

Do you know who created that stereotype? Stereotypical women did. Do you know who believes in that stereotype, and who perpetuates it? You do.

You know, most men are deep thinkers. They just gave up trying to tell you what they were thinking, because you wouldn't listen. Or you wouldn't believe them. Or you belittled what they had to say. Or  you tried to make it all about you.

Likewise, most men don't make decisions on the spur of the moment. They put a lot of thought into their decisions, weighing options carefully. They know that, whatever decision they make, it's going to make somebody unhappy. This causes them untold agony, which they must bury and keep hidden, and just move on with their decisions.

They shouldn't have to justify their choices to you. Why do you make them do that? They get enough of that shit at work. Who made you their off-the-clock bosses?

Moreover, when you ask them why, and they tell you why, their explanation (or justification, if you'd rather) isn't good enough for you. You keep wanting to go deeper and deeper and deeper. You don't know when to stop. Eventually, he realizes that no answer he can give you will be satisfactory, and so he stops wasting his time trying. He shuts up.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot for a paragraph. These men respect you and they (well, most of them) support you in the things you choose to do. Some of them even love you, unconditionally. They will go out of their way to make things easier for you and to make you successful. Why in hell can't you do the same thing for them?

Now take a step back and look at the Long View. These men have been making their own decisions for years: getting up on time, getting themselves dressed, going to the bathroom all by themselves, pouring their own breakfast cereal, getting a driver's license, registering for college classes, applying for graduation, hunting  down jobs, buying cars and houses — and they did it all without your help.

1. Give the man some credit for having a brain.
2. Tell me why you think that the man needs you to tell  him what to do.

Now, granted, there are some men who can't seem to do anything without a woman behind them, pointing them in the right direction. But do you know what would happen to one of those men if that woman stopped helping him? After a few moments of confusion and disorientation, he would figure it out himself! He'd be ecstatic! He'd be truly happy for the first time in his life.


Oh, he may need you, all right. Everybody needs somebody in their corner, somebody to support them, to build them up, and to cheer them on. That's what he needs you for.

Not to try to run his life for him, like every other woman in his life has been trying to do for years.

Yet another warning to women: Stop arguing!

Ladies! Haven't we talked about this already? Apparently it hasn't sunk in yet, because you're still being assholes to your men.

(And guys, this is for you too, since way too many of you are still being assholes to your women.)

Why are you still arguing with the person you're supposed to love the most in your life? Why are you correcting them, arguing them, even interrupting them to do so? Why do you do it every time they open their mouths to speak?

Let me illustrate with a couple of episodes. These are real. Only the names have been changed.

---

EPISODE 1: The Texting Conversation

Your spouse or significant other just had an exciting text conversation with somebody, and they're dying to tell you about it. So they say "I just swapped a bunch of texts with Amanda Martinez," and they start telling you about it.

After a couple of sentences, you interrupt them: "Martinez ...?"

They answer, "Yeah ..."

This is when you correct them with your superior knowledge. "I don't think her name is Martinez."

---

EPISODE 2: The iTunes Playlist

You have some friends over for a party. There's good music playing. Your friends say, "This is a cool music." Your spouse or significant other says, "Yeah! It's a playlist of Phil Collins' greatest hits that I made yesterday."

This is when you correct them with your superior knowledge. "That's not Phil Collins!"

---

WHAT DO DO ABOUT IT:

Before you open your mouth to argue with your loved one, STOP. Ask yourself these three questions.

1. Are you sure they're wrong?
   
   You could both be right, you know. Maybe Amanda recently got married. One of you is thinking of her maiden name and one of you is thinking of her married name. Both names are right.
   
2. Does it matter?
   
   If your spouse is telling a story from their college days, it doesn't really matter if the trip was 30 miles or 50 miles. You may think it matters, but IT REALLY DOESN'T. Just shut the fuck up and let the moment pass. Likewise, it really doesn't matter if they refer to Amanda by her maiden name or her married name. You both know who she is.
   
3. Will speaking up about it strengthen your relationship? Or, looking at it from the other direction, will being silent about it damage your relationship?

If you can answer an honest and enthusiastic "yes" to all three of those questions, then by all means, speak up! But if you can't, then SHUT THE FUCK UP!

What's your real motivation in arguing with them?

Do they really benefit from your constant corrections? Is it making them a better person?

Does proving they're wrong, over and over again, give you more power - more control in the relationship?

Do you feel a need to keep them in their place?

Do you think they really enjoy your constant picking at them? Have they ever thanked you for it? I can tell you straight up, that they usually walk away thinking, "... What an asshole." Is that really what you want them to think?

Are you just trying to shut them up?

If one of these is your reason for arguing with them, then SHUT THE FUCK UP.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT:

Were they always wrong like this when you first fell in love with them? And you fell in love with them anyway? Then your own judgment is terribly flawed. You made a terrible mistake. If your judgment was so bad back then, then what on earth makes you feel qualified to point out their flaws now? You're nothing but a goddamned, fucking idiot.

Are they really so terrible - such awful specimens of humanity - that you feel the need to constantly point out their flaws and their mistakes to them? If so, why did you bother to get married (or whatever)? Why don't you just get up your courage to end the relationship and walk away? If they're so flawed, I'm sure you can find somebody better.

Because if you don't, someday they will.

POSTSCRIPTS

p.s. I'm pretty sure that when their phone displays "Amber Martinez texted you," it really means Martinez.
p. p.s. I'm also pretty sure that when they searched for "Phil Collins" on iTunes in order to build their playlist, they meant Phil Collins, and they only downloaded Phil Collins tunes.
p.p.p.s.  By the way, if you're guilty of doing this, then you are a pompous, self-important, stuck-up, asshole. Just thought you should know.
p.p.p.p.s. You're saying, "It's not constantly". Oh, trust me, it's constantly. You just don't realize it. Look up "fundamental attribution error" on Google, cuz you're doing it.

Another warning to women: One word is all it takes

Most women have no idea of the power of their words. They do not understand how, with one single simple word, or even just the inflection of their voice, they can turn a good day bad, or a bad day worse.

Or just the opposite: they can salvage a bad day and turn it good, or take a good day and make it spectacular. Just one single word.

There's a Biblical verse that says, "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing? My brethren, this ought not so to be." If you had to choose between saying something to make someone feel better and saying something to make someone feel worse, which one would you choose? Why would anyone ever choose to make someone feel worse? That is, without a doubt, one of the dumbest choices you could ever make.

A case in point: A husband and wife are getting ready for work. They're both running late, but it's garbage day, so the husband is scurrying around, emptying wastebaskets. He's not upset about it; it's just something that needs to be done, as normal as brushing teeth or grabbing a coat.

But taking out the garbage was also on the wife's list, and so she says to him, "I'll take care of that."

His reply, "No, don't worry, there's only one can left."

She could smile and say, "Thank you." She should smile and say, "Thank you." Instead, she snarls "All right ...." and they don't have time for any more interaction. She's busy with her hair and makeup, and he's already late, so he takes the trash out to the trash cans, puts them on the curb, and leaves for work.

He just gave her a gift of 10 to 15 extra minutes that morning - time that he really couldn't spare himself. It was a gift from the heart. But she didn't see it that way. For her, it was a disruption to her day's plans, and a loss of control.

And for the husband, although he couldn't put it in these words, he was hurt because his wife had rejected his gift. And the last thing he heard from her, as he went out the door, was not an expression of love, but a snarl.

Ladies!
1. Why would he want to go home to that? Who wants to go home to someone who feeds them vinegar instead of honey and wine?
2. How many more times will she reject these little gifts of love before he finally gives up and stops offering them?

Why "You're in America, so Speak English" is a Pile of Bullshit

Boole Sheet

One of the world's great logicians was a man named George Boole, an Englishman who lived from 1815 to 1864, and who is honored, among other things as the father of computer science.

A philosophy professor once developed a worksheet for students to use to trace the logical flow of complicated arguments. He called it a Boole Sheet, in honor of George Boole. Sometimes this worksheet would become so complicated that it looked like a herd of cockroaches had had pencil leads tied to their asses and been released to scurry all over the paper. The logic was impossible to follow, and the argument was said to have filled an entire Boole Sheet.

The expression was eventually shortened to "That argument is full of Boole Sheet." And there you have it.

Okay, that story isn't true at all. The only part that is true is the short biography of George Boole. But if you say "bullshit" with a Spanish accent, it sounds like "boole sheet." And for some reason, that's relevant to the subject of this (non-fiction) article.


Boole Sheet and "Speak English"

One of the biggest pieces of bullshit in the U.S. today (not counting anything that comes out of the White House or the Capitol Building in D.C.) is the "Speak English" movement. Its basic premise is that English is the official language of this nation, and therefore anybody who wants to live here should speak English. Proponents point to the large number of immigrants who have become successful in America precisely because they learned to speak English. They point to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants, whose children can speak English even before they get here. And they point to the fact that the founding documents and governing documents of this nation are, and have always been, written in English.

But when all is said and done, they always come back to their basic premise: "You're in America, so speak English.

Here are four counterarguments to that basic premise. You may dismiss some of these arguments as disingenuous, but they're meant to show that some of  "Speak English" arguments are too simplistic.

1. America is a big place.

America is two continents, connected by an isthmus. And a few hundred islands. There are 23 countries in North America, and 12 in South America. The vast majority of these countries (and people!) do not speak English. They speak Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Even the largest three countries in North America, have three official languages: English, French, and Spanish. So when you say "This is America," you're painting with too broad a brush.

Outside of the U.S., when people say "America," they mean "North and South America." If you mean "the United States of America," then say so.

However, for the rest of this article, we'll slip back into the vernacular usage, and depend on sentence context to make our meaning clear.

2. "Learn to speak English, you immigrant. My (immigrant) ancestors did." Um, not all of them did.

Cheech and Chong's parody movie and song, "Born in East L.A.," illustrates the fact that some second- and third-generation Americans (back to the vernacular usage of the term) grew up speaking Spanish. While most of them are bilingual, some can speak only Spanish. It's not their fault. They have never needed to speak English.

In San Francisco's Chinatown, you will find many people age 30 and older who do not speak English. They have never needed to.

I do agree that if you're going to speak English, you should speak good English, not the doggerel that passes for a local or ethnic dialect. But that's not an immigration issue.

3. "We were here first." NO, YOU WEREN'T.

I love this one. I salivate every time I hear this one, because I want to chew the speaker's ass off.

I used to work with a man of Hispanic descent. His family had lived for generations on a ranch near Pueblo, Colorado. When you asked him where his ancestors were from, he said "Mexico." But then he will tell you that they have lived on the same land for 300 years.

Confused? Go look at the maps in your history book. Until February, 1848, the area now known as Pueblo, Colorado was part of Mexico. My co-worker's grandmother still has the original land grant from the king of Spain, deeding the property to her ancestors hundreds of years before. They have never moved, but wars have been fought and boundaries have been redrawn, so that what was once in Mexico is now in the U.S.A. But his family are not immigrants. They are a powerful rebuttal to the "Speak our language, because we were here first" argument. And they are not the only ones. There's an even more ancient claim.

Until 1831, the Cherokee Indian nation was a confederation of legal entities known as the Five Civilized Tribes. They lived in what is now the southeastern United States. Modern Americans still think of American Indians as savages on horseback, living a relatively uncivilized life. The Five Civilized Tribes did not fit this picture at all. They adopted European ways almost as soon as they met the Europeans. They wore European-style clothing. They had brick buildings with glass windows and fireplaces. They even had European-style outhouses. They were an autonomous society, with their own government, judicial system, language, monetary system, economy, commerce, schools, police, and so on. Then the U.S. government decided they wanted the land the Cherokees legally owned, and so in 1831 they moved them at gunpoint to what is now Oklahoma. Of the 130,000 Cherokees who were forcibly relocated, 60,000 died en route. The U.S. government tried to eradicate their language and other institutions, and to force them to learn English. I doubt that the "We were here first" argument would have saved the Cherokee nation.

4. They're here to stay. "Thank you, muchas gracias."

The immigrants are here to stay, whether you like it or not. Most of them are not taking jobs from Americans. Oh, they are getting jobs all right, but the jobs they're taking are ones that Americans are too proud (or lazy, or chicken) to take and do not want. Most of those workers are legal immigrants or have legal work permits, and have the paperwork to prove it.

So how should we treat them? With courtesy! They're human beings, with families to care for and mouths to feed, just like you. If they perform a service for you, they should be treated the same way you treat your stockbroker or your real estate agent. But let's add a twist to it. Now, listen carefully, you stupid, self-absorbed Americans!

If you can tell that the person who has assisted you speaks Spanish, then you say "Thank you." And then, in the same breath you say, without pause, "Muchas gracias." You're not showing off your language skills, or your superiority over them; on the contrary, you are simply and sincerely acknowledging their humanity.

It's that simple.

So, what now?

The world is a big place, and English is not the only language spoken in the civilized or free world. If you want to become a citizen of the world, then learn to speak a second language. I suggest that Spanish is the most immediately useful second language for you to learn. Expecting everyone else to learn English is unrealistic and selfish, and any justification for doing so is just a pile of Boole Sheet.