Reading this blog is like being in anger management with a bunch of passive-aggressive college graduates but I like the intensity from Josephine!
This in regards to "reporta" and his opening statement and lackluster follow up. According to Hank Sims, we readers are supposed to "know John O. better" in order to suss out his supposed well meaning in the comment "how the mighty fall.." regarding James Faulks' arrest for posession of heroin. Well, I don't know John O. from Adam, nor do I know anything about his and James' past frictions; however, I do know that his comment, by all appearances, is anything but full of good intentions and I don't believe I am off base for thinking this, depite what "reporta" would have us believe in his lame excuse for follow-up clarification. John O., whomever you may be, people get caught up in all kinds of games, both conscious and unconscious, for all types of ill-founded reasons. This little psychological bait-and-switch doesn't fly with me and I do believe Hank Sims ought to stand corrected in his assumption that this reader or other readers approached this venue in the hopes of "finding grotesqueries". I value my intelligence and discrimination, and I find John O.'s approach to be thinly veiled sarcasm and his follow up to be cowardly after-the-fact pandering.
Re: “Before You Stiff Your Server”
The issue of whether to tip or not hinges on a person's sense of entitlement. Some people feel entitled to keep, others to share. This sense is predicated on an individual's values, upbringing, politics, surrounding culture etc. When this society can successfully motivate it's people to share this will undoubtably be a better world, but this is a tall order, especially in a culture that paradoxically celebrates individualistic, boot-strap lifting achievement while constantly working to homogenize us into a society of consumers, scrambling madly over the perception of limited resources. From a Darwinian perspective why should someone share their limited resources with another, limiting their own chances of survival while increasing another's? While the fact that we are social animals predicates that reciprocity should play a role in this social exchange: quality service=quality tip. But honestly, I'm complicating this- some people are just assholes and won't tip no matter what. As someone who used to make a living in the service sector I got to the point where I stopped taking it personally and that was the only thing I could do that made any difference.