pbmaltzman

Apparently Ken attended NBI classes in New York in 1967 and 1968, and he has been around Objectivist and libertarian circles for decades. So it is possible that some of you know him well.

-Ross Barlow.

Ross, as far as I know, Ken did not attend classes in New York in 1967 and 1968; but he has definitely been around Objectivisty and libertarian circles for decades.

Hi, Barbara:

I think I will e-mail Ken's wife, Debbie, again, and let her know, and she will read it to him. I only found this out a few days ago, and it explains why he hasn't been posting anywhere... literally, he can't type or even read anymore.

One of the things I always liked about him was his love of children... a very different attitude from my father's, and one that was a happy surprise for me. This has all been very tough on his wife and remaining daughter, Katherine, too. Katherine has dropped out of school. I sincerely hope she is able to turn her life around again.

I wish there were something we all could do for him.

Pam

Pam, I so much want to say something to Ken, something that might help. But I don't truly believe that anything can help;.grief of the kind he has experienced is beyond the power of words to heal. But if you speak to him again, tell him... tell him that he has been heard, and understood.

Barbara

Fran, I'm not technically in the Los Angeles area anymore, but I wish you luck and a pleasant visit.

Santa Monica is indeed pleasant, near the ocean--pricy. Because of rent control, it's very hard to find an apartment there at any price, and hardly anyone moves once they've got one.

I'm up in Lancaster, in the high desert above Los Angeles (60-70 miles or about 1-1/2 hours), so I'm not a good bet.

Pam Maltzman

Hi

I'm a UK resident and would like to visit LA for 3 months. I'm wondering if anybody has information on renting 1-bed apartments on a short-term (3 month) lease? I can't get a long-term lease and terminate it early as they'll be looking for my employment status, Green Card, etc. I work freelance. I've been told not to live anywhere that's been mentioned in a rap song (for crime reasons) and for pollution reasons I'd rather live in Santa Monica, or similar. The timing isn't critical, but I'm thinking of late spring, early summer.

Does anybody know someone who is going travelling and wants someone to look after their dog/cat/goldfish/tarantula/snake/iguana/Playstation3?

Any information on short-term rent would be appreciated.

Many thanks.

For anyone here who knows or knew Ken Gregg...

I just briefly spoke with him this evening.

Many years ago, we were a couple for about three years, and I also knew James well (I was, in effect, his stepmom for that time). I ended the relationship, but have always considered him a friend, and I have always wished him well; in fact, I attended his wedding to Debbie.

Ken, Debbie, and James moved out of So. California to Las Vegas, Nevada.

As has been reported here, James was killed some years ago by a drunk driver at the age of 26. The perp was apprehended but never even arrested.

Ken and Debbie adopted two little girls (full sisters), the younger one of whom was also killed about 1-1/2 years ago in Las Vegas by a hit-and-run driver (never been found, AFAIK).

All this tragedy has taken its toll on Ken, physically, spiritually, and every way possible.

He has been in home hospice for about the last year with end-stage congestive heart failure. Just talking is an effort for him. He can no longer type or even read.

I can't express how sorry I am that so much tragedy has happened to a good man and his wife and family.

Pam Maltzman

When I read things like this, it almost makes me glad that I don't have enough money to throw away on Objectivist conferences. Sheesh. Who needs stuff like this? I surely don't.

Yeah, I'm in the midst of dealing with this myself. I do medical transcription as an independent contractor. I got an approximately 30% pay cut within the last couple of years (they changed the way lines were counted for production pay). This was on top of a work slowdown, then a learning curve with a second hospital client, new computer, and new software. For a while I was only making maybe half of what I'd done previously.

NONE of my bills went down at all. And my live-in wasn't working for much of the past several years.

Out of panic and desperation, I had gotten payday (and other) loans to help out.

I've been working more hours and working harder in an effort to bring my productivity back up to where I can handle the bills again without desperation measures. And my live-in is working again. Now I'm just hoping that my hands, wrists, and elbows will hold up under the stress.

Yeah, it's my fault that I didn't have a pile of money saved up before all this happened... but the live-in's situation didn't help either. Had he been working when I got my pay cut, things would have been a lot better around here.

My boss (small local company) still pays better than a lot of the big national companies (thankfully). But when the outstanding bills are paid off, we're either getting the hell out of Southern California permanently (moving to where the cost of living is cheaper), or perhaps I'm going to look into a mobile home. My guy loves Southern California weather (he can't drive), but it's gotten to the point that other things are beginning to trump the nicer weather.

Maybe Third Worlders can live on a low income and 15 people to one room, but this has been grueling for me, and I'm sure a lot of other people are in the same boat, even if they initially had more savings than I did.

I realize that I don't own my job... however, some days I feel as if all those Indians and Filipinos are getting jobs at my expense. They may think three cents a line is just dandy, but they don't have to deal with U.S. cost-of-living, taxes, and regulations like native-borns do.

I can't see anything positive in this situation either--not from my point of view. I wasn't living very high off the hog to begin with. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's been financial hell clawing my way back to some semblance of normalcy.

Finally, the more-frequent changing of jobs is a reality for many of us now. I am in my 50s and have not had long periods of unemployment, but I have done a couple of different jobs which have either become less plentiful, changed radically, or practically disappeared, such as low-level commercial artist, headline setting, typesetting, proofreader, word processor (once a hot job category with lots of classified ads), etc.

I don't think that medical transcription will disappear any time soon... but right now I'm hoping I can stay employed in this field until I croak.

If all the clients are looking for is a cheaper price, well, they can surely get that by outsourcing overseas... but I have also heard that this outsourced work is pretty variable in quality (literacy in terms of vernacular speech) and must be heavily edited by American editors. Maybe this will change as overseas personnel become more literate, but all I can say is that judging by the e-mails I get looking to take my job, they're not there YET.

Posted today at Prudent Bear:

It is pretty clear that income levels in the West are converging with those in the more competently run emerging markets. The bad news is that in the years ahead this is likely to happen through an absolute decline in Western living standards. The populations of India and China greatly exceed those of all the rich countries put together. The greater part of Western economies is vulnerable to low-wage competition. Thus the economic histories of a high proportion of the Western population under 30, except the very highly skilled, will involve repeated bouts of unemployment, with job changes involving not a move to higher living standards but an angry acceptance of lower ones. By 2030, it is possible that the median real income in the United States and Western Europe may be no more than 50-60% of its level today.

http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/BearsLairHome

ROFLMAO! That's priceless and, as you pointed out, oh-so-true. I just finished work tonight. Thanks for the giggles. I needed some.

Internet flame wars

I caught this on another forum. I tried to look up the original image but could not find it. It is all over the place. Apparently it is an alteration of a 2004 Bush election spoof.

Tasteless, but oh so true.

Michael

And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year back at you, Kat, and everyone else here.

I second Barbara's comment about this being a place in Objectivist-land where there is very little or no blood on the floor... and I want to add that I also appreciate that.

Best wishes to everyone.

Merry Christmas and a 2008 Full of Wonder

Kat and I wish all the regulars at OL a very merry heartfelt thanks for everything you have done. OL is our forum home and your home, too. We love you folks. May the best spirit one can find in Objectivism (and in life) be what you find here and take with you.

And to all, our deepest feelings of goodwill and wishes for great happiness, achievements, health, prosperity and love. This goes for regulars and lurkers alike. Have an awesome life and may this new time be the best you have ever lived.

To those who do not like us, in the spirit of holiday goodwill: Be well. Be happy. Be productive. Be loving. Be just.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody!

Kat and Michael

Two comments:

There are pet-friendly landlords, but they're getting harder to find these days, especially in the big city.

WRT moving to a lower cost-of-living city: I guess I'm lucky in this, because I can take my job with me. I do medical transcription in my home office, and I can work for my boss from any of the contiguous 48 states, wherever I can get DSL and/or cable modem. I've already gotten one pay cut, and he won't cut my pay any further if I move elsewhere. Luckily I'm not working using dial-up internet anymore.

If you're in a place like big cities in California, however, even in the big city, for a lot of jobs the wages are pretty stagnant, and you may not be able to make enough to overcome the insane costs of housing.

I guess that some folks will do okay buying houses in this slumping market... when the bubble has burst and real estate prices come down at least somewhat, those with money saved up could probably snap up some bargains (okay, maybe not in So. California, but in other places). A friend recommended to me that I consider places in the Midwest such as Indianapolis, Indiana... housing prices are still relatively cheap. When I get some bills paid off, it's possible that I could move there, take my job with me, buy housing for the first time (maybe even income property), and have some passive income. At any rate, it's something worth checking out.

Most "hated"? Most resisted or hardest to implement, perhaps ... if this is meant, as vague and flippant as some of these are, to be taken entirely seriously.

I'll play along, on behalf of myself and my brother-and-flatmate:

Do not buy a pet

Well, an aquarium might work, but we've never even had one of those. Pets and rental properties don't mix, anyway.

Move to a lower-cost-of-living city

The unadmitted other half of this: It usually means far lower potential incomes, as well. Apart from the housing market in smaller cities being less frenetic, I'd say it's a wash. And with differing job markets and family ties, it's not as blithely simple as the author suggests.

Hi, Brant: Northern Arizona is on my list of places to check out; maybe Phoenix (depending on the condition of the A/C). But frankly, although I've heard good things about Tucson, I'm not sure I want to live that close to the U.S./Mexico border.

I'm a libertarian, but not really an open-borders libertarian. IMO gotta get rid of the welfare state first.

Heh... beachfront property is expensive everywhere. And while I realize that the idea of beachfront property in Arizona is a long-standing joke, it's my understanding that because of the way the earth is actually moving along the faults, and because of the way Baja California is drifting, California isn't about to fall off into the ocean.

Sorry about that, but I guess Arizona will stay desert for the foreseeable future. I'm in the desert here in Lancaster, too... about an hour's drive north of L.A.

Well... I've never smoked. I buy some things used (when it makes sense to--I usually refuse to buy anything used if it has to do with food preparation).

I absolutely refuse to give up my cats. I dread the day one of them gets seriously ill, but they keep me sane. Truthfully I need to have pets. I like critters better than a lot of people.

Pam: Come to Tucson; when California slips to the North and into the SEA, you'll have beachfront property!

--Brant

Well... I've never smoked. I buy some things used (when it makes sense to--I usually refuse to buy anything used if it has to do with food preparation).

I absolutely refuse to give up my cats. I dread the day one of them gets seriously ill, but they keep me sane. Truthfully I need to have pets. I like critters better than a lot of people.

I have both cable and DSL for work (medical transcription); one backs up the other.

I can't afford to visit a foreign country, regardless of the health care available there or here.

I want to either get out of California within a few more years, or else see if I can buy a mobile home for relatively cheap. I look on Craiglist and see decent houses being sold for far less than in So. California. The prices here are simply insane.

Good suggestions, all of them. But I absolutely refuse to do without pets. Here's a tip: Feeding your pet the best food you can afford (such as putting a dog or cat on a mostly-raw-food diet) can save you money in the long run. The animal will be less likely to get really horrific degenerative diseases. For example: Feeding the kitty good food is less expensive than taking her to the vet because she got kidney failure from eating nothing but dry food.

The 10 Most-Hated Money Saving Tips

I came across this cute little article on the Free Money Finance blog. The article really is worth reading (it is linked in the title), but I will list the most-hated money saving tips briefly here (in reverse order of hatred):

10. Be healthy.

9. Move to a foreign country (or visit one for health care).

8. Quit smoking.

7. Buy used things.

6. Buy a house you can afford.

5. Cut your cable TV.

4. Take your lunch to work.

3. Limit small spending.

2. Do not buy a pet.

1. Moving to a lower cost-of-living city.

Urghhh!

What's worse is that these things work.

OK, I have mentioned them. Now I won't need to mention them ever again!

Michael

Over the years, there have been more than a few programs for people to improve their vision. I believe the granddaddy of them all was William H. Bates, an ophthalmologist, who survived into the 20th century. His techniques are still in use today. At one time they were also widely used, I think, by some public schoosl system in New York (later on the optometrists and ophthalmologists banded together to outlaw his work for a time--they didn't like the competition!).

Two of Bates's students were Margaret Darst Corbett and Charles R. Kelley (the latter was also a student of Wilhelm Reich). There is also a book by Dr. Marilyn Rosanes-Barrett (or Berrett--must check spelling), and I have run across more in the years since I took some classes from students of Charles Kelley's (with the old Radix Institute, 30+ years ago). I guess you could google this subject, and also look up these books on Amazon.com.

I wear glasses now, but for a time in my youth I did indeed see better with this kind of program. I'm unevenly nearsighted, and my eyes don't work together all that well, but I did notice a difference.

Now, however, I have blended lenses with titanium frames--two pairs, one specially made for computer use, and one for outside the house (such as driving). They were very pricy; between the examination, titanium frames, and the fancy lenses, I spent something like $1200 or $1300 for both pairs together. Ouch!

Maybe next time I need my prescription changed, I'll take advantage of the information which Michael has posted here.

I will say, though, that these glasses are the least intrusive ones I have ever worn. The thickness of the lenses, with the newer materials, is dramatically pared down from other glasses I've worn, and the trifocal progressive lenses don't distort my face nearly as much as older pairs do. Wish I could have had glasses like this back in high school!! B)

Eyeglasses are for mystics!

http://www.rebuildyourvision.com/

I assure you with dramatic government validated proof. I used to have to wear glasses as part of my driver's license requirements. And yes I still wear them to read small type. However, by exercising my eyes for instance by flying a plane and landing without my glasses; by not wearing my glasses in daily life -- I have re-strenthened my eyes. Now, the Great State of Michigan has given me a driver's license with no restriction for eyeglasses. I passed the government-administered official department of transportation bureau of licensing examination!!

You can, too!

(Maybe this needs to go in "Everyone is Wrong." (Sorrry.) ... but it's true! I passed the test... and I can land a plane without my glasses... what a quandry... what a dilemma... how to prove this Objectively?? oh, no! I forget about my avatar. Shucks, darn and heck, there I am wearing glasses... not just glasses, but the very bifocals I had made to order for flying... I am so embarrassed.... But, wait!! Yes!! As a true believer, I do not need to let the truth get in the way of an assertion..... (whew! close call...) )

Yeah, Peter, that's a real doozy, all right.

In medical transcription here in the U.S. we get many doctors for whom English is their second language--so I suppose they should get a little more leeway. But I get a lot of supposedly native (American-English) speakers who massacre the language pretty badly too. Whenever a doctor tries to spell something, whether it's a drug name or a patient name, I shake my head and look it up.

I don't have as much sympathy for doctors as some people might... after all, they're higher up in the hierarchy than I am (and usually with an attitude to boot), and they're supposed to *know* what those big words are.

Michael, for a moment there, I thought you were resurrecting the discussion on circumcision!

I think of howlers like these whenever some schmuck tells me that (1) spelling things correctly matters not at all, and (2) the ability and willingness to spell words correctly doesn't mean a person is intelligent.

HAHAHAHAHA... I do medical transcription for a living. If I didn't know "to" from "two" from "too," or "perineal" from "peroneal" (and MANY other sound-alikes), I'd be fired... and I'd richly deserve it.

Pam - sound alikes in English cause many pitfalls....but consider this poor opera singer rendering the Croatian National Anthem before a recent international match in London between England and Croatia...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7109058.stm

Its right up there with "Ich bin ein Berliner"

Peter

But, but, Chris--the ones who are going around talking like that are almost NEVER the ones who choose to save the planet by offing themselves, because of course they are the elite who get to tell the rest of us benighted humans what to do with ourselves.

Pam;

It seems so easy. Why don't you tell they don't have to stay around.

Personally I was never enthusiastic about having children, but it had more to do with personal involvement in the living hell that was my parents' marriage than anything else. Back then, marriage and children seemed (to me) like a trap which would leave a woman helpless, without job skills, and high and dry if the man decided to dump her. Among other things, I resolved never to be without job skills, so that I wouldn't end up as a middle-aged woman who had to work at a fast-food restaurant because I had no more lucrative skills.

In high school, I knew girls who definitely wanted kids, and their main goal in life was to find the right man to sire them. I also knew one girl who--at the ripe age of 16 years old--was adamant that she never, ever wanted children, and she was highly indignant that no physician would tie off her tubes until she was a certain age.

I can respect someone's personal decision to have or not to have kids, but not for the stupid reasons of "saving the planet." That makes me want to barf.

I spent a couple of years in Colorado (left over a decade ago). I briefly worked at a hospital there which had pretty decent cafeteria food (especially the mushroom soup and the desserts). One night, they served me some kind of entree on paper instead of styrofoam (because they had run out of styrofoam plates, probably). As I was in line to pay, the blue-eyed, blonde-haired bimbo of a cashier told me I was "saving the planet" because my food was on paper rather than plastic.

She was so pretty, and such a waste of protoplasm... I imagined that I could almost hear her pea-brain rattling around in her empty head as she nodded her head from side to side. . The whole encounter made me want to barf.

Oh, yes, and Colorado was the place where I first heard the saying "Humans are a cancer on the face of the earth," uttered by a wacko. Colorado State University is infested with people like that, and I hear that Boulder is even worse.

Michael, for a moment there, I thought you were resurrecting the discussion on circumcision!

I think of howlers like these whenever some schmuck tells me that (1) spelling things correctly matters not at all, and (2) the ability and willingness to spell words correctly doesn't mean a person is intelligent.

HAHAHAHAHA... I do medical transcription for a living. If I didn't know "to" from "two" from "too," or "perineal" from "peroneal" (and MANY other sound-alikes), I'd be fired... and I'd richly deserve it.

The Jews and the 'Genitals': The best - or worst - schoolboy howlers

24th November 2007

Daily Mail

I caught this link on another forum. It is a hilarious set of excerpts from Must Try Harder! The Very Worst Howlers By Schoolchildren by Norman McGreevy. These are actual comments made on exams by kids. Here are a few of the ones that set me off.

A fairy tale is something that never happened a long time ago.

Homer wrote the Oddity. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

An epitaph is a short sarcastic poem.

In some rocks there are to be found the fossil footprints of fishes.

The Dutch people use water power to drive their windmills.

Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offence.

In the middle of the 18th-century, all the morons moved to Utah.

Hitler's instrumentality of terror was the Gespacho.

The U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. became global in power, but Europe remained incontinent.

Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they are there.

Handel was half-German, half-Italian and half-English. He was very large.

Stradivarius is an imaginary prehistoric animal.

The Jews were a proud people, but always had trouble with unsympathetic Genitals.

The seventh commandment is "Thou shall not admit adultery".

Solomon had 300 wives and 700 cucumbers.

To keep milk from turning sour: keep it in the cow.

One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.

Gonads are a tribe of wandering desert people.

Adolescence is the stage between puberty and adultery.

Michael

Hehe! Michael, thanks for the giggles! I'm going to sit down and transcribe now.

One last shot (at least for now):

A Jewish baby boy was born with only one eyelid. The mother, worried, asked the doctor, "What can be done about this?"

The doctor replied, "After the circumcision, I will use the skin from down there to graft him a new eyelid."

"Won’t it make him cockeyed?" she asked.

"No," said the doctor, "It will give him good foresight."

Michael

Matus 1976, I forgot to say this before directly to you, but the can of goat smegma is rolling-on-the-floor hilarious. I just couldn't stop laughing! Ah, the wonders of photoshopping software!

Either way, here is a nice gift for you

Chris, I didn't mean to offend you. But I thought the can of goat smegma was rolling-on-the-floor hilarious!

I know I said before.

Can we move on. Please!

Michael,

ROFLMAO... I don't think it is an indictment against American women, because I don't think the guy has ever had a DATE with any American woman. If anything, maybe he thought American women had too much of a soap-and-water fetish.

I will, of course, assume that his wife smelled the way he thought she should--that is, up until the time she divorced him and cleaned him out. I have run into the fellow several times at libertarian events, over the intervening years (since Toastmasters), and most of his conversations have consisted of rants against his ex-wife.

I understand why some men are very afraid of marriage and divorce because of the financial havoc it can wreak. Not a pretty sight. But foreign women are obviously not always less larcenous! One of our friends married a crazy, paranoid, controlling South American woman, and they are now in the process of separating. She ran through his nest egg when they married (in debt up to their eyeballs), and I'm afraid of what it will do to him when they divorce. He'd have dumped her a long time ago were it not for their son.

I agree that kids are always trouble. But then, merely being alive, in general, is a passel of trouble! (I think there is some sort of Jewish/Yiddish proverb to that effect.)

Pam

Pam,

LOL...

Now you have my imagination running wild. I wonder if this guy's story is an indictment against the genital odor of American women in general. Also, we must presume that his foreign bride's genitals smelled the way he thought they should. So we may conclude that his experience is evidence that there is no causal relationship between genital smell and a woman's larcenous heart. (I don't see any causality with kids. They are always trouble irrespective of genital smell.)

Michael

Hi, Michael:

Heh... well, I might get brain cancer someday! Why not just off with my head RIGHT NOW? It'd save me a lot of trouble later on!

Seriously, though, I have typed up medical reports for women who had "prophylactic" removal of their breasts and ovaries.

Another of the weird people I met in my Toastmaster Club days was a foreign fellow who was about as assimilatd and hip as the "Check Brothers" from the Saturday Night Live skits with Steve Martin (and I forget who else). This guy was always saying stuff such as "a genital should smell like a genital." His hygiene was more or less okay, but he was well known for his off-the-wall comments, mostly about sex.

Anyway, the foreign guy, at some point, went back to the "old country" and bought himself a bride, who eventually fleeced him at divorce just as much, or as more, as American women are reputed to do, and also turned his kids against him.

Pam

Pam,

Well, there is something to be said for pulling all the teeth (baby teeth and permanent) out of the young because some people are not taught how to brush their teeth properly. It has been proven scientifically beyond a shadow of a doubt that a person without teeth gets no cavities. This is in 100% of the cases tested.

We also should cut off all fingernails and toenails, too, to avoid all those gross people who don't clip their nails and let dirt build up underneath them. Ewwww... I have read studies that people without fingernails and toenails do not get onychocryptosis or unguis incarnatus, but I would have to check to be sure.

Michael

Oh, darn, everyone's moved on already! No more SMEGMA!!

I think that the can of goat smegma was hilarious, just forgot to post about it before!

Smegma is supposedly what the uncircumcised penis secretes under the foreskin. However, I have never seen this in person, having only seen pictures of uncircumcised men and their penises. It supposedly can have a texture similar to curds or cottage cheese. From what I've read and heard, it can acquire an unappetizing odor and appearance if not cleaned out regularly. At least one woman has told me that she found it unpleasant to perform oral sex on an uncircumcised man, although many other people argue that uncircumcised means better sex.

Sigh. Already people want to move on and my curiosity has yet to be satisfied. The closest anyone has come is Bob (Ba'al), with "cottage cheese". Are there no scientists among you who understand insatiable scientific curiosity? Am I going to have to go ask the nurses I know, who may be less intrepid and fearless about socially fearsome questions than I had hoped Objectivists might be, to find out more about what this substance is all about? C'mon, Bob, others -- color, texture, scent, viscosity, etc. -- just what are these gruesome details?

Judith

Selene, I have met satire before. I just wasn't sure that what you posted was satire. Sorry. I can't always read delicate nuances in the printed word on a BBS. My bad.

Pam, let me introduce you to the concept of satire. My point was you ladies jumping on the penis...oops there goes that satire again. It reminds me of the old joke of the blind man walking by the Fulton fish market in NY City in the early morning. He stops and tips his hat and says "Good morning ladies."

Selene, OF COURSE both men and women should practice good personal hygiene whenever possible. Neither men nor women should expect to jump into bed with the opposite sex if they smell bad. I never meant to imply that only men got funky.

When I was in high school, a Moroccan girl transferred in to my English class. She dressed fashionably in short skirts, but she always smelled like a bag lady!

IMO, it's a good idea for both men and women to bathe before sex. 'Nuff said.

Judith, I didn't mean to insult barnyard animals. What I meant was that the guy's hygiene was gross. He didn't seem to wash either himself or his clothing very often, and he smelled gross nearly every time I ran into him. I can't imagine wanting to have sex with someone who smelled bad.

Pam

I once was a member of a Toastmasters Club where one of the older guys went everywhere smelling like a barnyard animal. He would come to a meeting and hug and rub himself on the women. People delicately told him this was a problem, but he just couldn't understand. I remember watching him rub himself on one of the best-dressed women in the group, and I could well imagine her taking that outfit straight to the dry cleaner's the very next day.

I can't even imagine any woman wanting to have sex with someone who smelled that bad. He just couldn't pass the smell test.

Forgive my pushy curiosity here, but I'm still in the dark. By "barnyard animal", do you mean that he smelled like old rubber tires? If not, is there anything to which you can compare it?

Judith

I hate to be the egalitarian in this thread, but does not hygiene apply equally to women. I am sure some of us have testimony as to the "smell test" referred to above. However, on a lighter note, does anyone remember the great Saturday Night Live spoof of the Mohel [moiel] performing a circumcision in the back seat of a luxury car bouncing over a potholed road?