Yes I know I’m baiting the troll.

if person studies and learns, they must be drugged.

Considering the amount of pot on an average univesity campus at any one time, I’d say that’s the norm.  And people keep telling me caffein is a drug, so…

I’m here to teach, raise the standard of living, go to higher thoughts

Well shit, that’s damn generous of you.  I pay good money for guys in suits to do that and here you are, offering it for free.

Actually, this is kind of a treat for me.  I never had anyone properly dissaprove of my tattoo when I got it.

KBG said to Don: (reference above for context)

“You and your all that new skin space on your lower lip put some exotic dancer as that would be your example of a male right that is why people get tattoos to advertise what they do not have as a living human. Does it disturb you?

Don:

The point I address: “Does it disturb you?”

YES, it bothers me. I ask a lady out and she wants to show me her butterfly on her tit.  I’m not even interested, NOR the poop spirituality behind it. In fact it is ugly,

The remedy: stop that horse shit, I do care about people, but I have limits. Don’t mark up your body, as I rather see the person than symbols.

Don

Don said:

Look Master_of_puppets,

Go fuck up your face and body all you want with tattoos. Thankfully the human race is more than you. Yes, Sexy is right, I have more pleasure in a brick wall, as the wall sits there but you should know better than to scar your own body.

Now you listen:

I have been with the disfigured by birth, faces smashed by war and bullets, by the natural missing of legs and arms, even lower jaws, by natural catastrophe, by gang violence, by police brutality, by every thing a human can deign and nature can vomit:

AND YOU being a healthily person, you mutilate your body in tattoos—FUCK YOU.

You neither cherish the human body nor respect yourself, much less your mind.  It is point less for me to compel you to reason, as you are brain DEAD.

Don

Les said:

Um, Don ?? Hello ?? Please acknowledge, Don ??
You’re raving again, mate.
Settle down a bit.

Don:

No, I’m pissed off, and this is a safe place to do it. OK, Breath Don, breathing is good. Fault me on that, everyone! Breathing is good! Now tell me I’m crazy!

Les, don’t you think it is important to base your life and future on something solid? Well, I base what I have on intellectual knowledge, intellectual capability, reasoning ability, and look who faults me? Every one but my peers.

Thankfully there are no peers here at SEB.

Les:

“Don, art is where you find it…”

Don:

YES, I know this, beyond any doubt. Beauty is “subjective”; beauty always had been and always will be subjective, BUT there are standards!

There is a long list of Subjective phrases, subject to the person, and NOT objective, as to the observer.

Case in point:

To use the human body as paper to make fuck ups on (show me art without fuckups), is revolting to me.

It is revolting to use the human body as scratch paper to be flushed, wadded in a corner and then rot until it stinks.

Human skins will NOT be lampshades! So DO NOT decorate yourself as such!

Don

What the Fuck am I doing Les?

I am arguing as to NOT mutilate yourself!

What is this SHIT! I am arguing with the GD brain DEAD!

Don

Hi Don!
If you’re so concerned about us mutilating and disrespecting ourselves,why cant you have respect for others and thier choices?

I’ll tell you why shall I ? - You’re an arrogant angry little man and i’m sorry to dispute you but you have little to no reasoning ability.

But who the hell am I to judge you eh? 

NO, my mistake, luckyJohn said what I responded to in part.

My apologies, I apologize for making the grave error of giving reference to which it is not derived.

Les, in my post is meant to be LuckyJohn.

Thank you LuckyJohn, YES, to breath is good, and I do love beauty. I find love better than ever before cults, as my personal fact.

Don

Frumpa:

If you’re so concerned about us mutilating and disrespecting ourselves,why can’t you have respect for others and their choices?

Don:

So, go mess yourself up, I assume you are an adult? But if you go after kids, (shape or form) I have legal standing to fight you in all the legal authority I need. So do NOT FUCK with ME!

I have seen more brutality to my own kind than I ever want to imagine. I have seen more crap and stupidity than I ever thought of. So, show how you advance the human race.

And I’m the one called crazy?

Don

That’s alright, Don.
As Salvador Dali said: Madness takes its toll; please have the exact change. 

Human skins will NOT be lampshades! So DO NOT decorate yourself as such!

I know the story is probably a myth, but ...
Why are you so concerned what people do with their skin?
Yes, I know; you’ve mentioned all the disfigured people you’ve seen/worked with but what has that to do with anything?
There is no correlation between a person being accidentally scalded and a person choosing to have a tattoo.
The scalded one gets the pictures he didn’t want and the other one gets the pictures he did want – and paid for them.
You may as well suggest that all people living in big polluted cities should move to the country where the air is fresh(er).

don’t you think it is important to base your life and future on something solid?

Don, life is just some mostly insignificant stuff that happens between birth and death and most of us base our lives on anything solid enough that works for us, but as you know mine may not work for you and visa versa - that’s the beauty of it; if you look for it and find it you too can choose to look at the positive rather than the painful bits you constantly seem to choose to focus on.
Most of us do the best with what we have; to swallow up the time to get to the other end without too many mishaps.
There is another school of thought which suggests: Life is not a journey to the grave, with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming..."Wow! What a Ride!!!”
Try and enjoy the ride, Don
One of our elder-statesman politicians said back in the 70s: life was not meant to be easy.
A few years later I found the whole quote.
George Bernard Shaw: Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage—it can be delightful.

Okay, I call bullshit. Someone is having us on.

You remind me of that cult preacher I got away from many years ago,

Between that and the story about being drop kicked between the goal posts at the age of three, to land on his head and help his team win, this windbag is so full of shit you can smell it when he opens his mouth.

Les, have you checked his IP and compared it with past trolls?

Between that and the story about being drop kicked between the goal posts at the age of three, to land on his head and help his team win, this windbag is so full of shit you can smell it when he opens his mouth.

I reckon that was an amusing little look into Bob’s ... no, Don’s brain.
You never know - his mother may have told him that story instead of the truth.
I mean you can’t tell your kid his father used him as a punching bag, can you ... and the extra carrot of the team winning the game – that could work for a mentally challenged kid.
Wonder what the game was - maybe he’s Croatian and the Serbs got him or ... or ... Fuckit. I’m going to bed. 

Human skins will NOT be lampshades! So DO NOT decorate yourself as such!

If one of my loved ones takes a fancy to one or more of my tattoos, I would consider it an honor for them to make my skin into a lamp shade or other decorative item.  If one of them should ask, I would give them permission to do so after my death.  I don’t know if any state in the US would allow it, but I am sure that there would be some other country that would allow such an art project.

DON

Don scribbled the following…

Look Brock,

When you can write a post and substantiate your thinking with formal logic, science, law, or human standards unto direct prosperity, then you can move out of the low class that you are in.

I’ve yet to see you write a substantive post using formal logic, science, law, or human standards so why the hell should you expect Brock to do so?

In my entirely subjective opinion, Don, you’re a moron who has trouble putting a coherent sentence together and who mistakenly believes he’s somehow superior to all the people he takes it upon himself to lecture to. You’re the SEB Village Idiot who believes himself to be King.

I generally tend to skip most of your comments at this point because there’s very little in them worthy of paying attention to, but every now and then you leave one short enough that reading it for the entertainment value sometimes pays off.
The above comment was just such an occasion.

To further my point in how much respect I have for Brock versus you I would like to point out that Brock is a permanent SEB Contributor who has the ability to submit entries that bypass the normal vetting process I use for guest entries. He’s one of four people with that privilege. Whereas you, well, I tolerate letting you post your comments and that’s about it. Putting it in terms you’re more likely to understand:

Brock = Lots of my respect.
You = Lots of my general amusement.

Les, it takes but a few minutes of quality time with Google to stumble over this post, which may or may not have been penned by the same Don, for some suitable definition of Donhood. Make of it what you will.

elwedriddsche; I don’t think that it is the same Don.  The person who wrote the post in your link writes coherent sentences and is able to spell.  The fears expressed by the writer of the post may even be justified: THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

At the end of that post, the writing starts to degenerate into that which is familiar.  Note the primary concern of the writer:  loss of parental rights as a result of mental illness of the parent.

When I encounter the comments of people like Don, I become more conscience of the need for laws that insist on mandatory abortion in cases of incest.

Consi, like I said - make of it what you will.

However, the point I made earlier, if obliquely, stands. If one does believe that Don is mentally impaired, what’s the point of trading barbs with him? And no, I’m not asking anybody for an apology, just to reconsider the rationality of engaging in that particular flame fest.

Thanks, Les. You’ve always had lots of my respect too. Otherwise, I doubt I would have been here as long as I have.

The freedom to freely post an entry has always been something I’ve appreciated greatly as well. I’ve submitted some real stinkers, for sure, but I’ve always taken solace in the chance to improve my standing with a subsequent post. I’ve had more doubts lately that what I’ve written would be worth sharing, but that wasn’t because of anything you’ve done or failed to do. You’ve always been very encouraging. Thanks again, for that.

As for Don, I firmly believe he has no desire to share in a conversation. He writes for his own benefit and submits selfishly. I’ve never been so close to thinking someone deserved to be banned than I have with him, and I abhor banning. I fondly remember the days when he was not here.

elwedriddsche; I don’t think that it is the same Don.  The person who wrote the post in your link writes coherent sentences and is able to spell.

It’s him. Same mistakes in grammatical structure. For more of his posts, look here.

Back when I was in elementary school, it made me furious when somebody picked on me, I defended myself, and we BOTH got into trouble.

At this end of time, though, I’m watching what’s happening in this thread and having second thoughts.

I think Don has some points. I also think he expresses those points rather badly.

At the same time, I think the lot of you might want to just cool off. Some of you are convinced Don is a troll, or worse, but really, this whole thing isn’t reflecting well on anybody. It’s a pissing match now, and you’re all getting wet.

...

In my lifetime, I’ve had shoulder-length hair, collar-length hair, a buzzcut, a crewcut, a mohawk, a ponytail, a center-part, right-part, left-part, and I’m now mostly bald. Thinking of the time when I got the mohawk, I wonder what it would be like if the only way to change your hair would be if it was permanent ever after. I don’t like the picture. 

I’ve carried a tape recorder with me since I was in my 20s, and kept a running commentary of ideas, thoughts, events, and plans. In my 20s, it was a cassette, these days it’s a microcassette. Some years back when I was planning a 5-day cross-country road trip, I dug out 3 of those cassettes from my 20s to listen to on the trip. Just to see who I was, what I was thinking about, 25 or so years ago.

Jeez, I could barely stand to listen to the kid on those tapes! He was juvenile, unsophisticated, not that bright, and bogged down by the simplest stuff. He was dopey. He was EMBARRASSING.

We look back on our lives and tend to think we’ve changed only in small ways, that we’re mostly the same people we always were. But I have the evidence on tape: sometimes we change DRASTICALLY over our lifetimes. So much so that we’d barely recognize – and might not even like – who we once were.

The class clown from my high school years, a simple-minded cutup named Phil you’d guess was fated to be a tire salesman, and probably not a very good one, turned up at our ten-year reunion as a surgeon.

My main view of tattoos is that young people, people who might well change radically from one ten-year-period to the next, are making “forever” decisions about a frivolous matter of skin decoration.

I know women who don’t like wearing the same shoes two days in a row. And who among us has the same partner he or she had at the age of 19? (Who even remembers his or her name?)

And yet a few nights ago in a Wal-Mart, I saw a 19-or-so year old employee with the glaring black inscription “Belinda” on the back of his neck, above the line of his collar.

Is he going to regret that? From the perspective of my longer life, I’m about 95 percent sure he will.

Well, OF COURSE it’s his right to get “Belinda” painted on the back of his neck. Doesn’t mean I can’t regret it as a spectator, knowing what he’ll probably go through later. Because it’s MY right to care about other people.

Yesterday, smoking was the height of sophistication and cool, and tobacco companies were our friends. Today, tobacco companies are malignant parasites, selling poison. Looking back on it, were any of us really old enough to make the decision to inhale poison, and kill ourselves in various ugly ways?

Well, we have to allow our adult selves that right – the right to make our own mistakes. But do we have to let it go without comment, or advice? I don’t think so. 

I get it that you’re all proud of your tattoos. I get it that you think it’s every man, woman and child’s right to get tattoos.

But do you get it that it might not be the wisest decision you ever made?

Say there was a technology developed 40 years ago that would allow you to permanently “tattoo” your favorite song in your head, so that you’d hear it all the time. Can you imagine today hearing 13-year-old Marie Osmond’s whiny voice in your head all day long, singing “Paaaper rowzezz ... paaaper rowzezz ... Oh how real those rowzezz seem to beeee. But they’re ownllly ... im-ih-ta-shunn ... Like your im-ih-ta-shunn LOVE for meeee.”

Would you regret it? Bet your ass you would.

Those of you so defensive about tattooing, I know there’s a very high probability that some few years down the road, you’ll be on the other side of the argument. Regretting. Suffering the effects. Asking yourself, “What the hell was I thinking?”

The difference between you and me is that I’m already there: Tattooing is silly. It’s low. There’s a large element of childish “Look at me, mommy!” rebellion in it. Most of the time – considering that the patterns are being chosen by kids just as dopey and unformed as I was at that age – it’s ugly.

Do you have the right to do it? Sure. No doubt.

But I can’t just say “Go for it, dude!” Because I’ll never think it’s pretty, or cool, or wise.

And someday, probably, neither will you.

When I encounter the comments of people like Don, I become more conscience of the need for laws that insist on mandatory abortion in cases of incest.

Well put.  If Don were a baby I’d shake him.

@ Hank Fox

You raised a valid point using logic and clearly wrote part of what Don was probably trying to say.  You’re probably right about the guy with Belinda written across his back regretting it.  I’m 20.  I’m also starting to realize just how little I actually know (it’s easy to get an inflated head when you consider the level of discourse among most people).  I accept that I may regret my tattoo.  I’m sceptical that I’ll regret it, but that’s just a function of age.
You don’t have to approve, and you can be embarassed on my behalf if you want.  Where Don is going a little overboard is in calling everyone who has a tattoo an unlearned, impulsive moron, and stating that all tattoos are ugly.  As has been said many times, art is subjective.  There is no right or wrong.  There are no universal standards.  Everyone here probably has a story of seeing a supposedly moving piece and thinking “wtf?”.

Upon reviewing Don’s posts, I really do think he has some kind of mental disorder, so I’m not going to respond directly to his comments any more (unless he calls me a fuckwad).

Hank:

Ditto, even though I’m not bald, wise or long in the tooth.