WASP is very confusing. Because, it's easy to be white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, and still not have zillions of dollars. Annoyingly easy!

I think the acronym was much more meaningful a generation or two ago than it is now. Even though, a generation or two ago, it was still possible to be W, A-S, and P, without the zillions of dollars.

he became a lifelong Communist and forbid horsemeat to ever be eaten in the house.

I am glad to know Communists have culinary standards. Not having had a war on US soil in a really long time, I think the US has a very poor idea of what wartime life is really like. The other day a [Welsh] woman [who is too young to have lived through the war itself] on my flist flew into a rage over the intimation that British rationing was some kind of "We're British, we deny ourselves for fun!" type of thing, and declared angrily that Americans wouldn't understand. Which, I think we probably wouldn't.

Although my stepfather does remember some rationing; his kid brother was an infant during the war, and allergic to cow's milk, so they used up their whole gas ration to drive to Baltimore to buy goat's milk for him once a week. But that's not nearly the same as near-malnutrition type of rationing.

Wait, the British don't deny themselves for fun?

Gosh, my illusions are being shattered left and right today.

(and your ancestors would have been spared any number of prejudices so there is a certain privlidge in that)

Oh, that's undeniably true. Being broadly in the majority group does make life easier all around, and I know that's been true in my own life. I just don't think of myself as a WASP, y'know?

Wait, the British don't deny themselves for fun?

Well, there is the eternal pastime of waiting in the Tube while something or other is broken.

"We're British, we deny ourselves for fun!"

Dude, what? What? I mean, we probably wouldn't get the whole experience of years of enforced not-having-nice-things, but self-denial?

ION, came home sick. I can blame either husband's fighting-off-a-cold ick, or the ick that has slain half the department this week. Either way, BORED and too fuzzy to be coherent but too awake to sleep through the afternoon.

Well, there is the eternal pastime of waiting in the Tube while something or other is broken.

Yeah, but don't New Yorkers have that too? famous for self-denial, those Manhattanites...

British rationing was some kind of "We're British, we deny ourselves for fun!" type of thing

Oh, dear lord. You don't have to get-get it. Just having a clue should be enough.

Female 'Ninjas' Rob Richland Gas Station With Sword, Dagger

RICHLAND TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Police said two women dressed as ninjas were responsible for the hold-up of a Richland Township gas station Saturday morning using a samurai sword.

Police said the two women -- one with a dagger, and the other carrying the sword -- entered a Sunoco station in the 5600 block of Route 8 at about 3 a.m.

According to police, the women tied up the clerk and robbed the store of cash, cigarettes and lottery tickets.

"They were all covered in black and carrying swords, so it did appear that they were dressed like ninjas," said Chief Robert Amman of the Northern Regional Police Department. "Swords, daggers could be used to seriously harm victims, so this is a very serious crime."

Article at the link has a video of the robbery.

I'm having trouble with the genealogy thing, but I found my aunt's obit and unless Fay/Faye is a nick for Vivian, I think they are actually half sisters, which I've never heard. My family is so Tennessee Williams, it isn't even funny.

Bad Vegan! No... job.

District fires vegan art teacher

Dave Warwak said he wouldn't return to the classroom unless Fox River Grove Middle School served only lunches free of animal products, but with meat still on the menu, school officials on Monday fired the art teacher.

"We are not going to go vegan at this time," said Pat Hughes, president of the Fox River Grove School District 3 School Board.

The board, which voted 7-0 to fire Warwak, said in a prepared statement that he told pupils not to tell their parents, teachers or the school's principal what he was teaching and that he repeatedly refused to answer questions from school officials on that subject.

The statement also said Warwak converted his art classes into classes on veganism and animal rights.

Warwak, who spoke on his own behalf, chastised administrators for hiding from pupils what he called the truth about healthy eating habits.

"You are ruining my world and eating my friends," he said.Steve Beyer, whose 13-year-old son was one of Warwak's pupils, told the board that the teacher was supposed to "teach art, not use his classroom as a platform for his vegan ideas."

Warwak, 44, of Williams Bay, Wis., was asked to leave school grounds on Sept. 4 because he refused to stop talking about the benefits of a meatless diet and the humane treatment of animals, he said.

Warwak said posters in the school cafeteria that promoted milk were of particular concern to him. He called pupils' meal choices in school "poison," and said that he would not return as long as the school menu remained the same.

Warwak taught at the school for eight years and said his annual salary was $55,000. The district, he said, should be training teachers about "humane education."

Warwak, a former fishing guide, said he became a vegan in January. Earlier this year, he gave his 8th-grade pupils a book, "The Food Revolution," by John Robbins, subtitled, "How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and the World."