I think the following is true, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

The word "gay" was being used to describe men who would later be called homosexuals by the mid-19th century. I think I remember reading this in conjunction with something about Walt Whitman.

The word "homosexual" was coined by Victorian-era doctors, influenced by Freud and all that. It was created as part of the movement to medicalize human behaviors that were previously seen as moral failings; if they were diseases, then they might be curable.

The point - "gay", in that sense, preceded "homosexual" by at least a few decades.

Bloggers discuss that this guy did gay porn, and that equals prying into his personal life???

If I have a blog, and I write an entry about George Clooney's movie career, particular roles he played and how he portrayed those characters, am I prying into his personal life? Obviously not.

This whole thing is soooo strange. Did he think no one would notice, and if they did notice, did he think no one would point out his former career? Or does he just not care? If so, then why write this piece?

Many people assume that the Grandmother was a dottering old fool who wasn't competent to execute a will that dictated her wishes. There's no evidence of that.

The LW was the one who characterized the will as "Grandma wanted the money split between her grandsons and her partners". Was that the language of the will? Probably not. The will has to specify exactly to whom and exactly how much.

Granny might have come to love the LW in her own right, maybe because G. knew that the grandson was not such a great person, LW was a saint for sticking with him and providing G. with the hope that she would reform the grandson. Who knows.

In any case: Grandma has made her wishes known. She wanted $10,000 to go to the LW. No further analysis or ponderings are necessary.

Leave your ageism and sexism behind. There's no reason to think she was senile, a fool or so blinded by sentimentality that she didn't know that relationships sometimes go south (i.e., women make bad decisions because they're overly emotional).

I find that older people, having been raised in a different day and age, have better manners and are more considerate than people from subsequent generations (e.g., they hold their tongues instead of calling people out). This seems to be interpreted as inscrutability, making the older person a blank canvas onto which people paint their own attitudes and desires, such as 'grandparents want their grandchildren/descendants to have all of their wealth'.

That's not necessarily true. Older people are complete individuals, with their own wishes of how to dispose of their wealth.

THE POINT: we know what Grandma wanted. She spelled it out in her will. She wasn't stupid or naive; to the contrary, she had been alive a long time and probably has seen it all.

She wanted you to have the money, LW. That's why she gave it to you. Keep it and use it for your own benefit.

If the guy is rude, you must exclude.

for that bill. Absolutely, completely appalling.

Under what circumstances would you ever send a friend a bill for gasoline? Under what circumstances would you ever send a friend a bill for an unplanned minor expense of any kind?

Whatever happened during the climbing incident and afterwards is not a factor.

Giving someone a BILL for gasoline when they're dealing with an injury that sent a friend or loved one to the hospital is simply not something that a person with anything resembling manners would ever do.

The biller has revealed himself to be a person with less compassion for others than your average sociopath or serial killer.

I am simply amazed at how so many people here are not disturbed by the bill.

Regardless of what you do, you must cut this bill person out of your life. I suggest you give him that nickname - start calling him Bill, and when people ask, who's Bill?, tell them the story.

but I'm amazed that for a number of people, there seems to be circumstances under which the bill for the gasoline would be acceptable.

No, no, no. Sorry, no way.

The billing of the expenses is more than just appalling. It's symptomatic of a diagnosable personality disorder.

Inexcusable and unforgivable.

"Yet the pay gap persists even when looking at men and women who studied the same subjects as undergrads. "In education, women earn 95 percent as much as their male colleagues earn, while in math, women earn 76 percent as much as men earn," reports Reuters."

And this would be proof of a pay gap IF, for each individual college major, there was ONE and only one job a person could get. But unfortunately, different jobs come with different salaries, and people with the same major can get very different jobs.

When you look at people with:

1) the same educational backgrounds

2) and the same experience levels

3) who take the same job positions

4) and have the same outside-of-work responsibilities

there is no pay gap based on gender.

He needs to get to a doctor, probably get a testosterone patch, and start fulfilling his wife's needs. She sounds like a smart enough person not to act on her feelings with the stepson. But if she doesn't get her needs fulfilled at home, eventually she'll go elsewhere.

If I remember correctly, carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas. Methane ("carbon tetrahydride"?) is a greenhouse gas, as well as the various chlorofluorocarbons and the replacement refrigerants which, while they don't eat away at the ozone layer, nonetheless are greenhouse gases.

So basically, release of any gaseous carbon-containing gases into the atmosphere likely contributes to global warming.

when can I resume bringing my own vodka onto the plane, cleverly disguised as "spring water"? The prices of those in-flight cocktails are way too high!