Softtouchmale

This sort of came up in another Yahoo Answer.

So here goes.

Are you Scarlett O'Hara (or Scott O'Hara) demure, fickle, spoiled, and infatuated with an "Ashley Wilkes (man or woman)" always wanting but not being able to have him/her because s/he is betrothed or attached to another (cousin Melanie or Melvin)? A seeming perfect knight or lady, an Romantic illusion?

Or are you Rhett (or Rhea) Butler, a scalliwag, gambler, intoxicant, profiteer, soldier of fortune, and wonton sex god (or goddess), who secretly loves and then eventually in between husbands, marries Scarlett (or Scott) but can't profess love openly for fear of reprisal?

I leave you with Rhett's line: "I loved you but I couldn't let you know it. You're so brutal to those who love you." ;)

Answering Y!A questions has been a way of life for several years now. I came here with a broken heart four years ago, and then she came back, and then left 2 years ago. Then I came here again, with a double broken heart (2 years ago), and have been here since.

All this time focusing on other peoples' problems has made life a bit easier, but I suspect my presence here has been more of a salve than a solution.

Should I keep on going? Posting and answering here? Is it time to move on? Focus on me? Turn a new leaf? I don't know.

Anyway, in the two years I have seen many of the same questions, sometimes the exact same questions posted under different names.

And so its time to make the big decision. Cut back or not?

I'll post it in M and D because that is where I started.

Its a poem I wrote, personally its not my best work, just thought I'd write something a tad Goth.

Take me across the River Styx

Ferry my wounded soul to remiss

Give Charion his coins to send,

So my broken soul can mend

Lift me up to Heaven's Gate,

Take me there and lift my weight

So I can see everything,

And hear the Siren sing

Away, away too tired, I stray,

So empty, so hollow is my day

By day, by day I live and fall,

Yet worn on my face is a pall

Is Human Love Priceless? Is there someone you know that's shut in, or been shut out?

Is there someone you know that's become dispirited and lost?

Is it right to forget those who love you?

If you forget those who love you, haven't you throw away a beautiful gift?

Happy Holidays folks.

When you miss someone and can't be with him/her for the holidays would this be a cheerful thing to write?

Sometimes we forget to say "Hi",

Sometimes we forget to send a reply,

Sometimes my messages can't reach you,

Sometimes I might seem to be an unreachable guy,

But it doesn't mean I forgot you, because you're one of a kind,

When you're busy you might forget me and leave me behind,

No matter what, you're always in my dreams,

And you're always on my mind.

In this epistle I declare,

With my heart lay so bare,

I send you much love and many hugs,

Your loving friend, and lost lonely Teddy Bear

In the 1400's the Portuguese crown explored the African coast. During this period, commonly regarded as portending the age of exploration and Discovery and European colonialism in the word, the kings of various European nations sought justification for their actions to legitimize their prizes.

In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull Dum Diversas, thus granting Afonse V of Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery which legitimized slave trade under Catholic beliefs of that time. The approval of the creation of slavery was extended in the papal bull Romanus Pontifex of 1455.

Both of these preceding papal bulls came to serve as a justification for the subsequent era of taking of indigenous peoples into slavery and the creation of a slave trade during European colonialism.

Subsequently in 1493, the papal bull, Inter Caetera by Pope Alexander VI granted these rights to Spain in the New World (the Americas and parts of the Pacific). Also came slavery, mostly of Africans brought to Hispanola, Cuba and other islands and Central and South America where indigenous people starved themselves to death rather than be taken into slavery.

In each instance, with colonization came slavery and the slave trade.

Even "Christianized" slaves were held into slavery and this was sanctioned. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that, although the subjection of one person to another (servitus) was not part of the primary intention of the natural law, it was appropriate and socially useful in a world impaired by original sin. (Cardinal Dulles, Development or Reversal?).

I will concede that for a short period as in 1462, Pius II declared slavery to be "a great crime", that Pope Paul III issued three papal bulls attacking and yet defending prior slavery of Christianized people; and that Pope John Paul II condemned slavery as an abomination (in recent years).

However I am speaking to the history of the Church and its justification for inflicting pain on Unbelievers and so-called inferior races.

Long story short:

For most of my life I have cared for so many people. Family and friends and loved ones.

I supported my entire family including parents. When my father was put in a nursing home I paid his tab at $7,000 a month and have made the last payment even though he died in 2001. My brother only paid a tiny amount of money towards dad's bill even though my brother had hidden over half a million dollars of my dad's money from me. My brother watched me starve and try and feed my family while I paid dad's nursing home bill. He let me suffer with decreased earnings because I spent half my week in the nursing home with dad while my brother was taking money from my dad's accounts and hiding it from me.

After dad died, I borrowed money to help pay my brother's bills when he said he was broke and was desperate. He never repaid that money.

After dad died I was crushed. I met a very special person. Things were very good between us for years until a few months ago. I was generous with this person to a fault, but it would appear that all the help I gave them, and their family was well-intended but as it turns out unappreciated.

In retrospect, though this is probably wrong, I have found little good from having this person in my life. I really did love them, and in the end it is not looking like it is going to work out. I gave them so much of me and my time and resources, and so much of my heart, when they needed it, but now when I need them they are gone.

Their famous line was that God put us in each other's lives for a good reason.

I know this is wrong, but I sometimes wish that I never met them. I have had such pain because I had a great deal of love, faith and trust in them.

Why does it seem like he has been putting people in my life so that I help them or make them feel better and in the end all I am left with is pain, humiliation and so much loss? I work very hard. I am very conservative, and I try very hard to be a good person.

I am just trying to figure out the point of this person even being in my life when all it has brought me in the end is hurt and personal loss.

Recently this same person, who has personally benefited from my generosity, love and support told me that God did not put us in each other's life and disassociated from me. I had also been tormented by other members of this person's family with hateful messages and voice mails.

So I guess does God put people in our lives or are we all just being hooked with some huge con game?

In short: I am betting its 50/50. God waves people in front of our faces, then we make the mistake of trusting them.

Okay. This little guy decided it was too cold outside. I opened the door to my basement and he flew in real close to the ground and then disappeared into the "woodwork".

So far he's found every possible hiding place in there. Any nook or crannie the size of a mouse hole is fair game for this cagey beast.

Okay so far he doesn't like all of his cubby holes. He's got some water to drink and I'm getting ready to find some kind of bird seed, fruit or berries. I really don't have any lizards as its too cold for them, no tree frogs either as its too cold for them. And the only insect bait I have is dead.

I've tried a box with lots of straw in it, cut a hole in the top and tried that. But that's the one place he won't run to.

I also tried the same thing a 2nd time, this time using latex gloves figuring maybe my scent scared him off. No dice.

My only other option is starve him out, leave the door open and air condition the house I just spent a lot of money heating, or leave the house, park the car inside engine running and gas him then clear out the carbon monoxide (LOL) or find a way to bait and trap him. I'm going for the last option.

I'd hate to waste the little guy. I know he's cold. My basement's warm. But he's making lots of shrill noise down there and I'd like to get some sleep sometime.

If you were in love, deeply in love. But your children insisted that you not see someone that you loved; and you knew that this would totally crush the person you love, would you let those circumstances dictate your heart or would you let your heart dictate your destiny? And if you chose to go with destiny, wouldn't you work hard to find a way to reconcile everything and make it work?

And if you failed to try to fight for the one you love, what would that make you feel like?

Pick a number from 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest:

1. 15 minutes and I'm good.

2. 1 hour or a tad bit over.

3. A whole day tops.

4. Until the paramedics arrive.

5. They'd have to drag my cold, limp, hideously grinning corpse out of it! I'm never gonna leave my orgasmatron!

So I get this offer by Federal Express, sent to my home, offering to refinance my house at an unbelievably low 5.25% APR, and it promises me that my payments will be lowered by another $100 or so per month.

So I call the number from my cell phone and dial in the "Senior Mortgage Consultant" extension number. Now this guy is never in.

Then next thing you know it, some creditor (looking for someone else) starts calling my cell phone day and night, about 20 times a day. I keep telling him to leave me the hell alone and stop calling because the cell phone is for use in emergencies and I get billed by the minute. He ignores me.

How, I wonder, did this guy get my number? The only possible person I have given it to is this dude from the bank offering to lend me money.

Then I looked at the letter again and googled the telephone number I've been getting calls from, and they both go to the same address.

I thought it was illegal to use a scam to try and collect a debt. And I did I forget to mention, that the person who they are trying to find, is someone else with the same last name, not the same first name?

Should I sue?

I have a DiMage-7 camera that I have been using for years. Lately when I shoot a pic the screen goes black and when I shoot a pic anyway, its black.

If I disconnect it from power after turning it off and then point it at a light and then turn it back on it recovers the display and will shoot a pic and then go black again.

Anyone ever have this problem before? And if so is there a solution?

Just want a nice one for my living room.

I see that the party of my choice has once again pandered to the religious right and taken a hard line against abortions.

I personally don't care if someone wants an abortion as its not any of my business.

I also don't care about any religious propaganda being a part of politics as I don't support the intertwining of religion and government.

Do you think that the party has let us normal members down in favor of a small yet overly zealous and all too vocal minority?

It seems that in this political season we have two realistic condenders. Obama and McCain.

Do you find a friend in either one and if so, why? If you don't in either, then why?

America's dependence on foreign oil?

Regardless of which presidential candidate wins, what should the next president of the US do, given the parameters of his constitutional office, to significantly reduce the US dependence on foreign oil and thus stabilize our economy?

I thought of this given T. Boone Pickens' interview last night on network TV. If you don't know, T Boone Pickens is an old time independent oil man who wants to invest vast sums of money in wind power and has started his program NOW to do his part.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/08/pic...

It seems with credit being tightened so mightily so that the consumer can't get a loan without having a nearly perfect credit score; and with wages not keeping pace with inflation; and with the price of necessities like food, shelter and fuel rising at extreme rates; is there anything we can do to stop this death spiral?

It seems with credit being tightened so mightily so that the consumer can't get a loan without having a nearly perfect credit score; and with wages not keeping pace with inflation; and with the price of necessities like food, shelter and fuel rising at extreme rates; is there anything we can do to stop this death spiral?

In 1944 the US Gov't opened numerous plants which employed variants of the Bergius Hydrogenation Process which was applied to coal, biotic materials including sugar cane trash, rubber tires and anything containing carbon. Many of the plants continued to produce 200 barrels a day using minimal test quantities of coal and other carbon rich materials. When I was in college my professor who was forced to work on Nazi synfuels said you could make gasoline from anything containing carbon -- and do it cheaply. So with the infrastructure to move fuels around, why aren't we doing what South Africa is doing right now and has been for generations?

With the worldwide prices of refined fuels, foods, and other commoditites increasing dramatically and income remaining relatively the same, aren't we all really getting bled dry?