Mark

Colorado dad, real estate agent, elite athlete, traveler.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@bendreyfuss He can do whatever he wants but he can't force me to go along with his lie.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@lecternleader The problem with Haiti is the Haitians.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@kyledcheney Why do they have to have a reason?

If it's under the authority of the executive branch then it's under the authority of the executive branch.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@KaeleyT By the way, this opinion is the same for males that are taking doctor-prescribed testosterone for legit medical reasons.

If you're not clean, you don't compete.

But for sure, a female taking testosterone can't compete fairly vs normal females. Nor vs males.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

Well... many of them can.

People who take performance-enhancing drugs, i.e. testosterone, should not participate in sports.

It is not fair to the 99.9% of recreational athletes who train clean to have to compete against users.

There is no solution to this other than that personal choices have personal consequences.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@CallahanAutoCo Not even going to watch

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@MeidasTouch The truth matters.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@katherine_deves No apology.

No lawsuit if they followed the rules at the time.

Awards should be stripped and given to the rightful (female) winners.

[Christina Buttons @buttonslives]

Remember the expression “don’t bottle up your feelings”? Somehow this idea became conventional wisdom and I heard it constantly growing up—but it never intuitively made sense to me.

The same goes for the idea that we need to talk about our traumas. I once had a therapist who insisted I had to revisit the traumatic things that happened when I was young. But what actually helped me was not thinking about it or talking about it. I coped by distancing myself from those experiences—like they happened to someone else. The more space I put between myself and that girl, the better.

Something has always felt off about the idea that healing requires dwelling, ruminating, and rehashing the past. We need to start rethinking our approaches to mental distress because they aren’t working.

I'm glad some are trying to challenge the old practices. I came across this 2023 study: "Improving mental health by training the suppression of unwanted thoughts."

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@buttonslives Agree 100%.

If it worked then it would work.

Never in my life have I been on either end of "just have to get this off my chest" and had it be even neutral. All it does is make the speaker even more upset and further embed the trauma.

You don't get over it by wallowing in it.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@eemaguire @FoxNews It costs EVERYTHING to stand up and be forced to lie about the plain, obvious, undeniable truth.

Acknowledging reality is the last stand.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@nayanikaaa @NIH There are whole departments of DEI.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@johnrich Oh man. I had to go to the post office yesterday and the line was crazy. Worse than Christmas. Now I know why.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@navybluetarheel @DolioJ I sang that song to my then-fiance, now ex-wife at our rehearsal dinner.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@sarahpatt08 Parking on the driveway makes me feel poor.

Scraping snow off my car in the morning makes me feel really poor.

I park in the garage.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@treblewoe It's one of those things that is correct enough either way.

Duck Tape is a brand.

Most retail "duct tape" is not suitable for actual HVAC work.

It's not an important distinction.

[Perry E. Metzger @perrymetzger]

There is a tactic that I call the “hostage puppy.” A group spends much or most of its time and money in horrible, counterproductive ways, but they are also keeping an extremely cute and vulnerable puppy alive. If anyone tries to cut their funding or shut them down, they wheel out the puppy, show its soulful eyes to the cameras, and explain that if their budget is cut or they are shut down, the cute little puppy will die.

The puppy takes many forms and can be more or less literal.

Perhaps a corporate department is actually responsible for some extremely vital function, but does it very badly and does many other things badly besides.

Perhaps there’s a nonprofit that legitimately helps a small number of impoverished children but also spends vast sums causing harm elsewhere.

Maybe the puppy is some important service that people rely on, which, when a budget is cut, is shut down first, in order to inconvenience the greatest number of people to cause pressure for restoration of service.

And sometimes, there’s almost literally a puppy, or a homeless child with cancer, or a starving family.

The puppy can take many forms, but the common theme is that if you try to fix or shut down the failing organization, everyone will learn you’re a puppy killer. Surely you wouldn’t want to be a puppy killer?

(I’ve heard people call something similar “Washington Monument Syndrome”, after the fact that any attempt to cut the parks service budget will result in the Washington Monument being closed to tourists first, but I don’t think the term is sufficiently evocative.)

Sometimes, it’s really important to have a name for something so that you can point out when it’s present. And now that you’re aware of it, you will probably see hostage puppies all around you.

How do you save the hostage puppy? By reminding everyone that it is not the case that there is only one group of people on earth that can care for the puppy. Other means of caring for the puppy are probably available, ones that don’t involve also throwing a lot of resources into a hole in the ground or worse. In fact, you should take the puppy away from the people holding it hostage. They probably don’t actually have its best interests at heart if they’re using it that way.

[Mark @Mark_Pear]

@HilzFuld I wish I could like this twice for correctly identifying the group in question.