Just as a counterpoint, from a friend, not all of them are dicks.
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Oh, I know they’re not. It just hurts our feelings when it’s the English because we feel kinship with them.
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Like George Carlin said, it isn’t all the fans, but it is enough to fuck things up. 
I don’t usually care much about international football, maybe it’s because I am an internationalist (I feel that have no country, England was just where my parents lived), maybe it’s because I am half English/half Scottish and I grew up in Carlisle (The Great Border City, but I don’t know what is so great about it). I usually end up supporting countries that have ex-Carlisle United players in their squads. This time that means England because Jordan Pickford spent half a season at Carlisle, he was only meant to stay there on loan for a month but he asked if he could have an extension. When a lot of your teams squad are journeymen looking for the best deal for them and their family at the end of their contract (and there’s nothing wrong with that), players who do things like that get noticed.
With the Brexit disaster getting worse every day I feel more of an outsider than I normally do. Part of me wants Pickford to get a winners medal, but the other part doesn’t want the jingoist nonsense that will inevitably happen now regardless of the final result.
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“He has issues with his personality,” Leitess told the jury. "They are things that make him eccentric or odd — not things that make him insane.”
I have been described like this. And have never thought about whether that gives me license to kill people. This thing of “othering” folks who look at the world through a different lens has got to end.
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I’ve personally lived in enough countries to not really call one mine, I tend to support teams that play good football, and both Italy and England have done that this tournament (well, the semis were a bit crap)…
The fact that I’ve lived for decent amounts of time in both countries helps too.
My family is not great. Narcissists, abusers, thieves, all present and accounted for. Bc of one particularly toxic and criminal member (a sibling) I’ve gone mostly no-contact with a lot of them who won’t have a relationship with me without trying to finagle that person into my life (they act as agents for the narcissist).
Anyhoo, I got this via text message late last night from my mother (parents divorced waaaay back):
“Just heard from (state he lives in). Your father has cancer (not skin) and he’d really like to talk to you.”
So, either this is a means to lure me into drama, or he’s so incapacitated that he can’t use the multiple means of communication open to him? He has my phone number, email, mailing address…
And for any parents out there, is texting now an appropriate way to tell your kids their parent has cancer? It seems so…WTF. And I realize I probably come out sounding like a cold-hearted bitch, but dealing with people like this for decades makes one veeeery wary. Fuck today.
Editing to clarify: the toxic sibling also lives in that state, and father and mother do not communicate, so the text is code for, “just heard from this person.”
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FWIW, for both my wife and me, when we went through it, we held off on telling the kids until we could tell them in person. But we had the option of time, which is not always the case. We also have very high anxiety kids, so no, texting was not an option.
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You text and say “I have to talk to you about something really important, so call me as soon as you can.”
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fI eel your distress, and I sincerely hope this isn’t too much affecting you.
A terminal medical condition due to cancer was, in my family’s case, the cause for family members who completely avoided contact for more than 20 years to get into contact via proxy, and then meet at the deathbed. Texts were sent, and no, text are and were not appropriate.
Some family members got into more contact than they wanted to in the process. However, for most of them, the contact to the dying person, and what they talked about, was very important.
At some point, I was organising timeslots for some people not to meet. I am sure I did many people a great service. I also have reason to believe that I should have taken more care of myself and my own needs.
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Judge overturns FDA ban on electroshock as punishment, essentially with the reasoning that if it is punishment it isn’t medicine.
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Thank you. And to @anon29537550 and @anon67050589 also. I had to time out for a couple days.
Things are pretty dire for my dad, all of a sudden, but I talked with my stepmother tonight. Turned us both into watering pots, but it was overall (I hope) good.
For anyone reading this who hasn’t been through it already: it’s painful and brings up a lot of stuff. If you can’t be there, or being there would add stress for the primary caregivers, I think it’s really kind to write a heartfelt letter to the person. When I asked my stepmom if that would be okay, and if she would read it to my dad if he wasn’t well enough to read it himself, she sounded SO relieved that I wouldn’t be showing up and being another thing for her to manage right now. I can only imagine what she’s going through. Hearing about it the way I did added an extra level of shiftiness to an already sad and shitty situation. But I’m glad I heard in time.
Fucking cancer. Fuck cancer.
ETA: Luther, I’m sure you did a lot of people a great service. Good on you. I hope you are healed or healing. That sounds…I can’t even imagine. Take care of yourself. 
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Hooliganism, and another superspreader event.
A volunteer stationed outside the ground told The Independent : “There were thousands on the steps near Wembley Way that bomb-rushed the barriers and broke through. It looked so co-ordinated as it happened in one big move as soon as God Save The Queen started.
“There was chaos everywhere. Fences were thrown on the concourse.”
England cricketer Jofra Archer captured the barriers being breached and flung outside the VIP entrance of Club Wembley.
At 9:45pm, the crowd outside was only growing and “getting more aggressive” with their attempts to enter.
Meanwhile, it was also sheer pandemonium inside. One-and-a-half hours before kick off, a Wembley spokesman was insisting “safety measures were quickly activated and there were no security breaches of people without tickets getting inside the stadium.”
This was contrary to visual evidence, as the area behind the goal Italy attacked in the first half was massively overcrowded, while the sections in front of and to the sides of the press box had no place to stand. The aisles were swarming, stairs blocked, the disabled area overtaken and many paying supporters had their seats stolen.
There were several scuffles between those with and without tickets.
It was only just after 8:30pm when a Wembley spokesman conceded there had been a breach, but again contrary to visual evidence, that only a “small group of people got into the stadium.”
I’m seeing people blame football for this, but even if you banned all leisure activities these arseholes would be fighting over what workplace they were employed by. I’m also hearing the usual reports of a spike in domestic violence, but again football is only the excuse for yesterday. Toxic masculinity is the real problem, the same as ever.
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Only woman student in a tech class listens to guys around her joking about consent. A**holes.
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But women aren’t in tech because women aren’t good at maths and sciences… /s
Assholes. 
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Yeah, I saw this because my 13 and 10 year old daughters had it on their TT.
Dafuq?
I can’t even.
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Yep. And the thing is, this is reportable. I hope she’s comfortable reporting this to her instructor, who would have to do something about it.
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I kind of want this to be a court case where someone tries objecting that she didn’t have their consent to record them, and then faces one of the hardest own goals of all time.
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