Inappropriate Conversations

Have you ever been unexpectedly stuck staring down the barrel of a gun being held by someone who clearly states he has no qualms about shooting you if you don't cooperate?

Outside of military-style preparation or perhaps police academy work, I believe it's impossible to predict how anyone would respond in such circumstances. I also found it challenging to assess how I responded for weeks, if not months, afterward. Simple answers rarely suffice.

When I tell the story now, I usually present the situation for laughs. Why not? If you can't find the humor, then you don't fully understand it. 

http://www.inappropriateconversations.org/e/113-raised-on-robbery/

Also: here is a recent panel discussion on the This Week In Gay podcast, covering different topics. Pleased to participate!

The first venture into TalkBack podcast episodes was thematic, Christmas shows in November-December 2018. It isn't hard to find running themes in past episodes of Inappropriate Conversations. A focus on the impact of gun usage starts here, revisiting October 2015, and will continue later in the month with a story that was 30+ years old in February 2013.

I tend to tire very quickly over gun control debates. The conversation always seems to devolve to extremes. Worse, what should be an open discussion on the relationship between rights and responsibilities never starts. 

If you make it impossible for people to make you happy, people will lose interest in whether you are happy or not. No, I'm not interested in the happiness of people who love objects and use people. It's true regardless of where such people stand on any political spectrum. Some things, once broken, cannot be restored.

http://www.inappropriateconversations.org/e/173-seeing-spot-run/

Some Assembly Required (A NeoSurrealist Forsaking a Habit for Lent)

Chapter 4

Did You Hear the One about V-8 Nate?

Prior Restraint

Premarital Skydiving

"Characters don't always say what writers want them to say, and it's ignorant to presume otherwise."

Different Drummer: Jackie Speier

As the old saying goes: the church is not a building; the church is the people. Well, I've been interacting with some of those people in new/old ways lately. The early episode of Walk The Earth was about walking away from one congregation. We had not yet found a new one yet. Now, years later, the church I've since joined is planning to start a podcast. Some of our sessions have been planning, others recording. I'll share links to Harmony Springs Gives Voice when podcasts are posted, probably on TalkBacks like this one. I've also recently joined a panel discussion on the podcast This Week In Gay with religious freedom/liberty among the topics. I'll share that the same way at the appropriate time. 

For now, I did need to define "church" if I wanted to talk about walking away from one, either permanently or on the way to something better.

http://www.inappropriateconversations.org/e/walk-the-earth-2/

Some Assembly Required (A NeoSurrealist Forsaking a Habit for Lent)

Chapter 3

"Gone, But Not Forgotten"

Timed Test

Hostile Takeover Bid

Fine Tuning

Replay

"If you cannot address the concerns of one increasingly irate customer, then those concerns ultimately may cost you the business of other customers as well."

Different Drummer: Bob Walkenhorst

The Rainmakers in Norway

When a new member of a church pledges to join a congregation, the public statement is often about supporting the church with prayers, presence, gifts, and service. At the point of deciding to leave a particular church, though, that pledge gets called into question. For some, leaving a congregation can reflect an abandonment of everything, all of that plus belief itself. For my family, though, the tension was more about whether the commitment was to a particular local church or something different, something more.

This episode, #wte 001, started the series of questions in a spinoff podcast of Inappropriate Conversations