*Australia’s ‘Fox’ style A Current Affairs style program.

I think make-up is seen as superfluous and vain because it’s (mostly)a female activity. If men wore make-up it would be seen as a form of high-art. 

And unfortunately we DO live in a world where a woman is valued primarily on her looks. I don’t like it any more than you do, but that’s just the way it is and I can’t see it changing any time soon. You do whatever you can to help you get ahead, including slathering on huge amounts of make-up, if you have to.

And besides, make-up is actually a lot of fun, it’s like painting a picture or creating a character! :)

As to the topic, I do think you’re making a strange assumption about how @tobergill:disqus made the man on the platform feel. His post implies that the man was pointed out discreetly, in a private tone of voice, and the first identifiers used had nothing to do with race. 

It’s quite possible to draw your partner’s attention to a stranger without drawing everyone else’s attention to them, too. 

Seriously? Is that the best you can do? I hope Antinous disregards this poor advice. It’s ineffective. 

Sarcasm is difficult to use well in general but  it makes a spectacularly bad interpersonal communication tool. Look at the reaction you generated with your sarcasm. Did you assume  most people would know you were mocking a “troll”? You were wrong. And, in the process, you painted yourself as thin skinned and belligerent. 

As for labeling S&C a troll? That’s a harsh way to treat your readers. Not every criticism has to be met with ‘overwhelming force.’

I even said he is a nice guy (he is!) how can that be passive-aggressive?

Actually, that’s exactly what made it passive-aggressive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive%E2%80%93aggressive_behavior
“I think you’re a nice guy BUT…” is like the archetypal passive-aggressive opener.  Since I was raised Irish Catholic this is how my family communicates.

Seriously, _do_ come on!

(PS: yes, hate crimes against — and murders of — foreigners because of their ethnicity do happen in Japan and are increasing; white men get stopped and searched far more often by police, brown South Asians are often not treated like humans. But overall, Japan is a really safe country.)

(Also, how the hell do you know where exactly tobergill lives/took the subway? Don’t call somebody a racist unless you have incontrovertible proof or at least reasonable cause to believe so. Even though parts of my family perished at the hands of the Nazis, I detest people who go around calling others Nazis for no good reason. All it does is make the label utterly meaningless when it really is appropriate.)

And you can bet that anyone seeking to quickly identify me will use one word and one word only: foreigner (= white — non-Asian — guy in Japan)! And when I read a (Japanese) book or newspaper like any other guy on the train there _are_ people pointing and saying “look at that wacky gaijin!”

Can it be annoying? Hell yes. Does it ruin my life? No.

I don’t have to imagine.

And now let’s stop the officially sanctioned ludicrous and flamebait-y accusations of sexism/racism/whateverism, shall we?

(Maybe the roles of moderator and snarker-in-chief should be separated? Seems like a conflict of interest.)

I think Antinous / Moderator was replying to tobergill in this case

I have superpowers in that I can reply via the backside even if we’ve reached the nest limit. On the front side, it says at the bottom of my comment whom I’m replying to, even if it’s not nested. Is that visible to you? I don’t always see the same thing that the public sees.