I find it very telling that you write at length about the strength of the allegory and the ideals of the movie and very little about whether or not it's a good movie. The Atlas Shrugged movie had respectable characters and good ideals, and as we may remember, it was absolutely awful.

You are quite out of touch indeed if you think anyone is surprised when a Pixar movie does very well. That said, Avatar made almost three times more than the last Toy Story.

"It adds nothing to the movie, but it certainly takes away from it." Nonsense. The swear humanizes Lincoln. It provided a way for the filmmakers to show that Lincoln was still in touch with the common man while he lightens the mood. It just wouldn't have worked as well otherwise. "Millions of Americans avoid the movies today. Why? I think, in part, because they don’t want to be insulted by profanity, sex, and violence." Even bigger nonsense. There are just cheaper, more convenient entertainments available in ever greater numbers - the most highly consumed of which, of course, have plenty of profanity, sex, and violence. I think my main issue, though, is that you don't seem to make the distinction which the Bible and which the government make between profanity and obscenity. Most of your reasoning is based on profanity (religious curses); most of your examples are obscenity (sex/body function curses)

That's quite a generalization. Most young people in general, regardless of race, use a lot of filler. It's the way they talk - every generation has one, part a natural linguistic cycle for the young to differentiate themselves from the old. I would bet you that your eloquent salutatorian throws quite a few "likes" around when she's not formally addressing an audience.

I don't see how you're in a position to judge the education your great grandmother and great aunt received - it happened decades before you knew them. What do you think accounted more for their wisdom by the point you knew them - their high school education, or the decades of life and experience that they had before meeting you? Also, what does that have to do with language?

Are we honestly supposed to believe there was some Grand Old Age when politicians did not try to speak broadly so as to appeal to as many people as possible? To believe there was a Golden Age when every adult, most likely illiterate anyway, was eloquent and poetic in his discourse? When the new generation's vernacular was not mourned as the end of the language by the old generation?

I'm confused. Do you also post as clarityseeker2?

clarityseeker2 Wrote: 5 hours ago (5:18 PM) "I simply acknowledged it and commented back. Yeeeeeesh, for you to not see this is stultifying..." Oh, I saw it was a response to someone else----------don't worry about that. Your post was still kind of a mess----------When you say----------"particularly by irresponsible "adults""----------what are they particularly doing?----------Adding marijuana to this list?----------Endangering children?----------Keeping marijuana in homes----------with kids? We have no idea----------the phrase isn't clearly referring----------to anything. You-------also----------imply that the study gives us some kind of "evidence"----------about the situation with these irresponsible adults----------when really they don't come up----------at all. I'm not sure you intended this implication, but unintended meanings tend to sneak in to messy writing. Oh. And the dashes------separating each idea-------by clunk, awkward punctuation that isolates rather than connecting each idea----------those don't help either.

edge57 made the same point further down the page; that's what he means by "repeat."

clarityseeker22: Rather than get into an insult match, I'll just ask for clarification: What point are you trying to make by linking us to that study? You seem not to approve of marijuana legalization and to think that that study supports you, when really it suggests we make it harder for kids to get into their parents' supply, not that we make it harder for parents to get a supply.