What in the world is wrong with society nowadays?

[Hugabear]

http://www.local6.com/news/15831787/detail.html

I'm sure many of you have heard about this by now. A teenage girl is lured over to another girl's house, where six girls are waiting in ambush. They lock the door, and proceed to beat the shit out of her, refusing to let her leave, and videotaping the entire thing, and then posting it online.

How in the hell have we gotten to this point? This is hardly an isolated incident, it seems we hear about these stories on a regular basis. It saddens me to see how so many in our society seem to glamorize and thrive on violence. I really don't know what the answer is. This incident happened nearby where I live, and according to callers on various radio shows, some of these girls had "proper upbringings" - never got in trouble, had "stable" families, got good grades, etc. Yet somehow they gave in to peer pressure and pulled off this horrific crime.

Now I know that when I was growing up, we had our share of fights. But somehow, it never really seemed to go too far, and there definitely wasn't the internet for people to post their exploits. I don't know if our entertainment is growing more violent, but it does seem that a lot of movies, TV shows, videogames, and music seem to 'glamorize' violence.

Now before you think I'm calling for censorship, I am absolutely opposed to that. However, I do think that we as a society should try to create an atmosphere in which violence is not acceptable. We need to try to be agents for positive growth, not negative.

What does everyone else think? How can we reclaim our society?

[Eric J in MN]

1. I'm aware of zero other cases of American students...

...beating up a classmate, intending to post it on the internet.

[Mojorabbit]

3. Well there have been

several cases of teens beating up homeless people and posting the video.

[cynatnite]

4. Some kids got caught here a few years ago with that intention...

boys were beating up another boy.

This is a lot more common than you realize.

[pepperbear]

13. it has indeed become a "fad" for lack of a better term. n/t

[mwb970]

37. If you read the news more, you would know that this is fairly common.

I have seen increasing numbers (way above "zero") of stories just like this one, yes beating up fellow students, yes posting it on the Internet. Why would you think this was the only such case? It's a big country.

[dysfunctional press]

41. got some links? 4 or 5 should do, seeing as it's so common and all...

i'll sit down and wait for my links...

[mwb970]

45. OK, here you are.

(Sigh) I'm not really sure why I should use my time this morning showing you something obvious that you could find out for yourself, but here goes....

Teenagers Misbehaving, for All Online to Watch
(New York Times, February 13, 2007)

Last month, after viewing a video of the beating of a 13-year-old girl that was broadcast on Web sites including MySpace, Photobucket and YouTube, the authorities arrested three freshman girls from nearby North Babylon High School.

Such sites are flooded with teenage-fight videos, and there are many sites, like PSFights.com, devoted solely to similar acts. In response to such cyberbullying, Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, recently asked school districts to designate a staff Internet monitor to watch for Web-posted misbehavior among students.

(snip)

“Teens have been doing inappropriate things for a long time, but now they think they can become celebrities by doing it,” said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Schneider Children’s Hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

“In the past, you’d brag to your friends in the locker room about doing something stupid or crazy or daring,” Dr. Adesman said. “Now the Internet provides additional motivation. But these things can just as easily lead to criminal prosecution as broad celebrity.”

If that's not enough for you, try this site, where kids post videos of themselves beating each other up. Or maybe you would prefer to watch your fight videos here. Then there's this story:

Fight video incites cellphone ban debate; High school brawl posted online
( North Bay (CA) Nugget, February 21, 2007)

Scraps between students are no longer the private domain of schoolyards and hallways, with pocket-sized technology able to record and post disturbing images online for anyone to see.

That happened Saturday when a brazen fight between two teenage girls in the hallways at Chippewa Secondary School joined the rapidly expanding ranks of similar video clips on the Internet - a phenomenon experts say amplifies both the humiliation of the victims and the power of the bully.

The clip, which appears to have been recorded on a cellphone camera, shows one girl with a blond ponytail and dressed in a pink top walk up to a schoolmate and deliver several blows to her head. The victim tries to block the punches and get away, but her attacker gives chase, landing about 40 vicious blows to the head over the course of the 26-second clip.

The fight happens inside the school's main entrance in front of a crowd of students who do nothing to intervene. Some encouraged the violence.

The clip was posted Saturday on youtube.com - a popular video-sharing website - and had been viewed almost 1,100 times by late Tuesday night. It has since been removed. "It is ugly," said Patrick Bocking, superintendent of programs and schools for the Near North District School Board. "It's a scary thing to see."

I'm sorry, but this is just taking too long and is starting to feel like a waste of time. There are dozens of stories like this. Here is a Google search that will let you pick out your own. Is this enough for you?

(edit: formatting)

[mwb970]

51. And by the way, the sarcasm is not appreciated.

Especially since you're the one who's wrong!

[Blue_Tires]

63. i wish i could say the same

When i lived in D.C. (P.G. County), there was a longtime HUGE underground industry of homemade fight DVDs; sold alongside the bootlegs in the street markets for a few bucks a pop...the majority of them were made by and starred high/middle schoolers...They had a number of variations: 20v20, 1v1, boys, girls...the list goes on...

This was before youtube took off (I moved away 4 years ago), but I would think a lot of that stuff is online somewhere...I don't have the time to search the WaPo archives, but you will find some good writing on it in 03 or 04

[cynatnite]

2. Did you see the mother of one of those girls on the Today show?

She said that girl was responsible for getting herself beaten.

It comes down to bad parenting and not knowing what these kids are doing. All the good grades, cheerleading and this supposed stability is nothing more than an illusion.

[devilgrrl]

9. That woman sounds like piece of puke.

No surprise that her daughter's one too.

:puke:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

53. Yes, I bet that homes where the kids were raised with an attitude of

respect for other people's dignity would not produce such gang-ups.

Parents can do a lot to foster empathy in their children by pointing out such incidents and saying, "How would you like it if someone did that to you? Think about what it must feel like."

But if the parents foster an attitude of "Anyone who's not just like us is to be despised," then you'll get gang behavior like that, no matter how affluent the home or how "high-achieving" and "well-rounded" the children are.

[Echo In Light]

38. People believe and do all sorts of crazy shit based on collective illusions

[melody]

5. This is society. We're primates. This happens all the time, everywhere.

The more violent a society, the more free-thinking and creative it is. The most financially successful societies
are the more violent ones.

That said, this happens all over the place, all the time. Bullying and violence is more the rule than the exception.
Ask any "different" kid who has ever gone to school.

[Hugabear]

8. It makes me incredibly sad

Even if you raise your kids "right", they're still subject to peer pressure when they're with their friends. Sadly, peer pressure can cause kids (and even adults) to do things they would otherwise never do.

[melody]

10. Exactly.

Even generally good kids can act like savages when they're in a mob.

[Kitty Herder]

17. I completely disagree. The more violent a society is, the more likely it is to

wipe out other free-thinking and creative societies. How many free-thinking, creative societies were wiped out in the colonization of this continent?

And of course more violent societies are more financially successful. They have fewer scruples about exploiting people and natural resources.

[melody]

28. Social studies have shown -- the same elements that give us violence also bring about creativity

... and free thought.

It's established social science.

[Kitty Herder]

30. How do they define creativity and free thought?

Naturally, they define them from within their own cultural construct. It's nearly impossible to see outside of that. It's like asking a fish to define water.

If you limit the notions of creativity and free thought to the commercial or military inventions that predominate in our own society, then, yeah, we probably seem pretty creative and free-thinking.

But not creative enough, apparently, to figure out how to live together peaceably and not destroy the planet. Something many indigenous cultures figured had perfected millenia ago. And the only thing we creative folks could figure out to when confronted with cultures different from our own? Destroy them. Pretty damned creative, huh?

Also, could you point me in the direction of said studies? They sound incredibly biased to me.

Another thing, what does our collective inability to question "scientific studies" say about our ability to think freely and creatively? (BTW, I suffer from the same inability most of the time; it's part of our conditioning.)

[melody]

31. Well, we can torture the data until it says what we like

But then we're left with the properties of the research itself.

To blur the lines of the material is to blur all the lines and we might as well surrender discussion.

[Kitty Herder]

32. Again, can you point me in the direction of this material? The social sciences

are, by their very nature, inexact. They attempt to measure things that are subjective and difficult to measure. Most of the time, responsible social researchers do a fine job. But even the best studies are subject to the biases of the researcher and other cultural biases.

Creativity and free-thinking are inherently subjective notions. In order for a study of them to be meaningful at all, they would have to be defined by the researcher beforehand. I'm interested in how they defined them.

Do I even need to say that violence itself is destructive, which is the opposite of creative? That contradiction makes me very curious how they reconcile violence with creativity.

Something else occurred to me. Was this study/studies a study of individuals? Because the subject at hand here is societies. How on earth can we say that because more violent individuals are more creative that more violent societies are more creative as a whole?

Also, it's difficult to use studies of individuals in one society and use that to make judgements about all societies. For example, if these studies were done on Americans and found that violent individuals were more creative than more peaceful individuals, how can we know that the same would hold true among, say, Australian Aborigines?

[melody]

33. I'd have to point you in the direction of thirty years of research

I did a quick check of Pep and found the following article. Though psychological in slant, it may be what you're looking for:
http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=SPR.022.0207A

We're talking depth psychology for all human beings. These triggers are special, not social, so they would have to hold from society to society to be considered. Otherwise, we're talking cultural anthropology.

The motivations behind creativity and violence are linked. What causes one, seems to trigger the other. That does not mean that creative people are violent or vice versa. It means that under variant circumstances, one is triggered versus the other.

[Kitty Herder]

35. We seem to be approaching this question from different angles.

You're approaching it from a psychoanalytical one, and I'm approaching it from an anthropological one, since we are talking about comparisons between cultures. I was expecting you to give me a link to some kind of cross-cultural, ethnographic study. I think it's difficult to make sweeping statements about society based on psychoanalytic theory, considering how controversial it is, it's lack of scientific rigor, and that it's usefulness even in therapeutic situations is doubtful. My own distaste for it, as a feminist, has led me to avoid studying it much, so I may be talking out of my ass here. But I'm going to try any way.

Since the topic at hand is violent societies and cultures, I would think anthropology or sociology would be more appropriate sciences to apply. It's pretty hard to apply psychoanalysis to questions about differences in cultures or even to how our society functions as a whole. To answer this question of whether violent societies are more creative, we'd need to have a rigorous (or as rigorous as possible for such a subjective idea as creativity) cross-cultural study.

Although it's difficult to tell from an abstract, this article seems to be saying that creativity is the result of the sublimation of violent (and libidinal) urges, pretty basic Freudian stuff. It follows that if a society is more violent, perhaps its individuals do not have enough creative outlets, and the more creative outlets people have within a society, the more creative the society as a whole, the less violent the people will be because they have an outlet for those urges. In that way, it may contradict your premise that violent societies are more creative. It seems to be saying not so much that violence leads to creativity, but that creativity curbs violence by sublimating it.

Of course, there are other ways to interpret it. Here's one. The more anger people have, the more violent urges they will have to sublimate. So in a society like our own with widespread inequality and injustice that cause anger, there may be more creativity, but also more violence from those who do not sublimate those urges into creative endeavors. If people are overworked from holding down three jobs just to pay the bills, they obviously don't have much time for creativity in their lives, which could create a dangerous situation. That interpretation supports the idea that violent societies are more creative, because it's scenario where the two increase together.

I'm just guessing here. There are various ways to interpret this in terms of what it means for differences in cultures and societies. That's the problem with trying to apply something like psychoanalysis to questions it wasn't made to answer.

[melody]

52. My background is in cultural anthropology

At the heart of anthropology is psychology.

You cannot remove psychology from any social theory. It's like trying to discard behavior from cultural understanding. It's the heart of the beast.

[Kitty Herder]

68. My background is also in cultural anthropology.

Granted, I'm still working on my degree. So far I've not encountered attempts to apply Freudian psychoanalysis to questions of comparative ethnography, which would seem to be the best way to approach the question of differences in cultures, e.g. are more violent cultures also more creative. Old-fashioned psychoanalysis would seem to be of limited usefulness for the reasons I mentioned above. Of course, I'm sure some anthropologists somewhere have applied psychoanalytic theory to cultural questions. Personally, I just don't give much credit to psychoanalysis, but then my background is not in psychology.

I understand from friends who have studied psych, that in their schooling, they are basically taught to bow down in homage to the great man, even if his methods are not something they actually then use. Like I said, it's not the most rigorous science, based essentially on guesses about human nature by one man who couldn't admit that his female patients had been sexually abused as children and made up fanciful theories to explain that away. I does have it's uses, but the field of psychology has progressed far, far beyond that and become an actual science. Of course, there are those who are still absolutely dedicated to psychoanalytic theory. And there are still psychoanalysts who practice it as therapy, despite there being more effective and much, much quicker modalities. And it has shown some usefulness in explaining human behavior despite the fact that it's not particularly scientific. Some of Freud's intuitions were right on.

What do you say we stop this little debate, as fun as it has been. We're going around in circles. You go ahead and have the last word, if you want it. You have my utmost respect as a fellow student (I mean that in the broad sense. Although, I'm still in school, I assume you are through?) of the most fascinating science in the world(anthropology), even if we do diverge when it comes to psychoanalysis.

[melody]

69. You don't understand how human culture is grounded in psychology?

I don't know what else to say to you. Freud (along with behavioral psychology and other various schools) is central to the study of psychology until we have some reliable neurologically based psychology -- it's all shadow puppets and interpretation till then.

We can spin concepts all we like to make them mean what we'd like them to, however semantics is central to ethnography ... language is neurology. I don't know what else to say. It's fairly simple. This will therefore be my last word on the subject.

[Kitty Herder]

75. You really, really don't understand what I was saying. Did you read my posts?

I know I said I would give you the last word, but you didn't appear to have even read my posts, which makes me angry.

I was not saying that human culture is not grounded in scientific, modern psychology. I was speaking strictly of Freudian psychoanalytical theory, whose scientific merits are debatable. The abstract to which you linked was about old-fashioned Freudian psychoanalytical theory. There is far, far more to psychology than that. Psychology has come a long way, baby.

I assume from your name that you're female? As a Freudian female, how are you dealing with that penis envy? If Freud was right on that issue, wouldn't women be lining up for sex changes? In reality, more men get sex reassignment surgery. That's just an example of flaws in Freudian thinking.

[mwb970]

39. Wow, that is a *very* sweeping, general statement.

Violence = creativity? Can you give a citation for this "established" fact? I would be interested.

[smirkymonkey]

48. So would I....

It seems to me that most creative people are the least violent (and actually tend toward self-destruction more than outward violence). The most violent people I know seem to be the least creative and most authoritarian.

[melody]

58. I cannot believe this is even being debated

Look, I can't help that you folk don't like the facts. I've posted links on other messages.

No, I'm not going to march out more citations for you. It's not my job to inform your mind.
I'm going to answer the last message on this thread and then ignore it. Think what you like --
I'm an artist, too, and I don't like the idea, but I cannot change the nature of the human mind.
If you can't stand to know the link between violence and creativity then pretend you didn't read
about it.

Now have your last word and let's finish this discussion of the particle and wave nature of light.
:eyes:

[eShirl]

40. then Zimbabwe must be about due for a rennaisance

(sp?)

[smirkymonkey]

49. Touche!

:rofl:

[melody]

65. And I guess you'd have a real problem with the sky being blue lol

I can't believe you people.

Next you'll be contesting that "silly" law of gravity. LMAO!

[melody]

60. Don't like the truth, don't remember it, just discard it from your mind

The mind is what it is.

As I said, this is ludicrous to even further debate ... it's like debating the nature of light.
It is what it is. Have your last word and we'll finish the thread.

[Cronopio]

62. "As I said, this is ludicrous to even further debate ..."

When did you actually debate? You just cited one dubious study as if it was the Gospel.

[melody]

67. Because there is nothing to debate!

Dear god, it's like debating evolution with fundies around here! It's fact.

[eShirl]

70. ok, show me all the creativity pouring out of Zimbabwe

I'm listening

[melody]

73. You're assuming that all violence is primary

Violence is brought about by social forces also.

I'm saying that ... oh, god, never mind, think what you want to think.

[eShirl]

74. I'm not assuming anything

I made a joke and, wow look at the response.

[Cronopio]

61. And Idi Amin was a closet Picasso.

And Hitler really did have artistic talent.

The implications are earth-shattering. Rewrite the history books immediately!

[melody]

66. You'll have to rewrite neurology to dispute it

I'm sorry, you just will.

My god, there's nothing that will get DU panties in a wad like reality and science and annoying
stuff like that.

I'm a writer and an artist, but facts are facts. It's a fairly simple mechanism when you stop to consider it
but then that would necessitate accepting frightening concepts.

[eShirl]

72. the scientific method is a wonderful thing. n/t

[Deja Q]

19. Well, we've been trillions in debt since 1980.

Your excuse doesn't fly. :P

[melody]

29. It's not an excuse, it's a reason -- and the people who are trying to control our natures

... are the ones who have us in debt.

[riverdeep]

34. How does that explain places like Sweden?

It's got a churning economy, a populace that's highly educated and long-lived, isn't known for military zealousness, and according to the author of 'Flight of the Creative Class', the nation is an attractant to business creativity because of its combination of talent, technology and tolerance.

If you want to go back farther in time, the Minoan-Crete culture also stands out as a counterexample.

My own theory: What DO both these cultures have in common? A more egalitarian approach to gender equality. Generally speaking, where you have high subservience of females, you have more violent societies, including primate societies.

I don't buy the idea of these qualities- high violence, high creativity, economic prosperity- being necessarily interlinked. I will concede that are many examples, however. It should also be noted there are plenty of societies that are violent beyond belief and are dirt poor and stuck in the bronze age.

Lastly, places like Sweden and Norway take bullying very seriously- not accept it as a fact of life, thanks in part to pioneering work of people like Dan Olweus.

[Echo In Light]

43. Agreed. Also, sexism runs rampant in totalitarian structures {glorification of machismo}

[melody]

56. It's also a tiny country with deep roots

It is not going to be as prone to the problems of essential human nature as a big country with shallow roots.

Boulder, Colorado is what you want to compare Sweden to, not the US.

You can "not buy it" all you like, it's established science -- the neurological triggers that bring about creativity also
spur violence. Creativity, violence and free thought are all deeply linked in the mind.

[raccoon]

50. I have to disagree here,

"The most financially successful societies
are the more violent ones. "

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere--and also has one of the highest murder rates.

[melody]

57. That's an entirely different matter

It is caused by other elements. There will always be exceptions.

[raccoon]

64. Where did you hear that,

""The most financially successful societies
are the more violent ones. "

[Vilis Veritas]

6. Throw away the TV's...n/t

[depakid]

7. Local "news" enables this sort of behavior

and the American media conglomerates actually promote it with their sensationalism.

Think about it. What effect is the proliferation of all the most amazing _________ shows and all their "reality" videos?

Any kid can make a video these days....

[melody]

11. All it does is give a different air of high drama to their violent rampage

Kids at that age are all about histrionics and high drama. It used to be the schoolyard scuffle in front of everyone --
vids on Youtube just make the schoolyard bigger.

[Hugabear]

15. Somehow, back then things just seemed different

When a couple of guys squared off in a fight, they'd usually fight until one person gave up. You might get a black eye, bloody lip, or even a broken nose - but hardly ever did you hear about someone getting knocked unconscious, or six-on-one gangups. I heard someone say back "in the day" that there was almost a 'code of honor' among fighters. It just seems that things are more vicious nowadays. Back then, people would settle a dispute with an after-school fight that rarely lasted very long. Nowadays, people are more apt to seek serious bodily harm, or even resort to weapons like knives and guns.

[melody]

27. I went to a private school with supposedly intelligent, well-bred kids

And I had four boys who used to gang up on me everyday in the schoolyard and beat me up.

And I'm female.

Unless you're different, you just don't know how brutal people can be.

[Echo In Light]

36. Exactly. What's surprising is how few can relate to that reality due to mass homogenization

I'm sure you know the scenario all too well; the kid who doesn't fit in {and doesn't want to} who is the victim of the popular kids, yet has a few acquaintances that mingle within the various school cliques, and the one ones who are likewise friends with the popular bullies can only empathize so far because they either can't or won't acknowledge just how bad their friends' tyranny is.

Our society is filled with people who are eager and willing to trivialize and downplay the rampage of others. The higher up on the social status ranking system they are {the right clothes, the right looks, right car, right friends, right attitude, all in keeping with corporate values} the more willing people are to turn a blind eye.

We were poor and moved a lot when I was a kid, so I was always the new kid - on top of being a weirdo to begin with, who from very early on was quite independent minded - so I had my share of ugly school encounters...at least until I got big enough to fight back, and once you start you don't stop, so I ended up quitting school and picked up a GED yrs later - that has never once been beneficial for finding work.

My wife had similar experiences. The school she attended had an infamous bully incident: a car full of jocks began harassing a lone stoner kid at a gas station {my wife knew him and said he was quiet and didn't really have any friends} they tried to hit him with their car, he jumped up on the hood in an attempt to dodge it, and so they sped off with him on top, with an interstate entrance being not even half a block away. They got on and you can pretty much figure out what happened. They had to scrape the kid of the pavement. No charges AT ALL. Why? Cause the shitbags involved were the communities precious "gladiators," with one of them bound for big doings on a popular college football team.

[melody]

54. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more

I was the smart fat kid going to a private school through subsidized scholarship. My parents were poor white trash while I went to school with rich kids. It was a great school and a good education, but I was picked on constantly.

I always have to smile when other people (who weren't the different ones) can't believe this sort of thing happens. I'm amazed it doesn't happen a lot more often than this.

[Echo In Light]

71. It unfortunately speaks to the efficacy of thought control/uniformity

Conform or be cast out.

"To defy the laws of tradition is a crusade only of the brave..."

[cynatnite]

16. It's not just the news that enables it...

It's also websites as well. They were going to put this on myspace and youtube because they knew they could.

Ultimately, the majority of the fault lies with bad parenting and the teenagers involved.

[Deja Q]

12. Vanity, desire for fame, bullying, what children are exposed to, what is tolerated...

True, "Grand Theft Auto 3" did not start the problem.

But the core issues are not being addressed.

The problem DOES start with childhood.

I was lucky, the day I tried to be "cool", by wearing the styles others wore, and bringing in a walkman and listening it during class. One of the kids next to me started whispering to its friend, "He thinks he's so cool".

The electronic crap needs to be banned. (Hell, back in the day I got yelled at for using a wristwatch calculator, while others used standard calculators. I turned that lemon into lemonade by using paper and pencil and am probably better off for it. But the music players and ipods and portable nintendos and cell phones for kids where we have tv commercials convincing parents ot use THEIR plan because it's unlimited texting and no more multi-hundred dollar bills each month... gee, aren't kids supposed to go to school to learn once in a while; not dink around on electronic toys? When our media tries to capitalize on the very situation, we have one hell of a problem.)

Have a formal dress code. Then nobody will be able to whinge and complain about, well, anything! (if metal band t-shirts with slogans like "Metal up your ass tour 1987" (complete with a rather graphic image, which I will not describe) were allowed back then, what must be allowed these days? :scared: And if administrators didn't care back then, what must it be like now?)

For kids that slip up, analyze the problems and don't summarily lump them into wrong situations...

[depakid]

22. School uniforms are actually a good idea

If you spend some time in countries like Britain and Australia- where it's the cultural norm, you'll see that the kids don't have much of a problem with it- and it really does act as something of an equalizer and promotes cohesion.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

55. And it gives kids something harmless to rebel against

I'm convinced that adolescents are programmed to rebel. If the parents let them do anything they want, then how can they rebel except by doing something extreme?

[texastoast]

14. Maybe this book can help explain??

http://www.yesyourteeniscrazy.com/my_book_01.html

[seabeyond]

20. coolest. sounds interesting. have you read?

i am going to just have to check it out. i have a 12 and 10 yr old boys, lol.

[texastoast]

24. I was referred to it about 5 or 6 years ago

It is a very good book and its basic premise is that with all the peer pressure and, more organically, the cocktail of imbalanced hormones experienced during teen years, teens are just nuts. Menopausal women generally got nothing on teens when it comes to mood swings.

My very favorite parenting book is "How to talk so your kids will listen - How to listen so your kids will talk" by Mazlish and Faber. It's the most important book I've ever read on parenting. And IT WORKS (if only the parents can modify their own behavior--that's the trick). The skills in there apply to relating to all people (and yes, I know my posts reflect that I have a few lapses from time to time).;-)

http://www.fabermazlish.com/

[seabeyond]

25. thanks....

kids and i dont have a tough time talkin and listen, we have done it since day one....

but we have been looking for a teenage book. is as important for my son, he likes to read ahead and know what is happening.

i bought real boys years ago and both boys read that. actually my youngest just now getting into it.

appreciate

[seabeyond]

18. free for all society with absolutely no boundaries

or responsibilities from all sides.....

[devilgrrl]

21. Who ever dies with the most toys wins!

With a philosophy like that, what's there to be shocked about?

[seabeyond]

23. interesting. i have never looked at it that way. hm.... n/t

[Fireweed247]

26. Look at the example our government is setting!

Imagine growing up with Kennedy as president, then imagine growing up with W and all the supposed grown ups allowing thugs to run the country, attack innocent nations and kill millions of people only to be rewarded for it in record profits.

WE need to take back our government, and set a better example for the children.
www.peacecandidates.com

[dysfunctional press]

42. since when do we hear these stories on a regular basis?

this is the first one i've seen of this type of behaviour.

[mwb970]

47. As my post upthread reveals, you are insufficiently informed on this topic.

How you could have missed this huge phenomenon so completely is a question for the ages.

[raebrek]

44. Television content is a problem.

Our television content is far more violent then other countries I have visited. More violent then any other country I have visited.
The violence varies from show to show but I see it on many shows.

Jerry Springer would not have a show if it weren't for violence. Yes, they do get some interesting topics but it is the fighting that they get between ordinary people that brings in the ratings. I don't think it can be the shows message at the end.

The political shows. Looking for reasons to twist anyones words against someone else's. Looking to find a way to make the ratings work by finding a way to create hate and ratings. Looking to put someone down for something they are doing, something they said, or something they did in the past. Always looking to create division where it didn't exist before and in the process increase viewership and their ratings. Division doesn't help anyone, but it seems to bring the ratings up.

Then there are all the CSI and shows like 24. Nope I don't watch them so you will have to tell me about how they are. I imagine they create great stories that do something.

I prefer comedy shows. Shows that make me laugh. It seems that now days there are not too many things that are allowed to be funny. You can't make fun of this or that. Political correctness. It seems to me the only thing that is allowed to be made fun of now days is middle aged white guys. Everything else is taboo. So now it is difficult to find a good middle ages white guy for a role model on TV too.

What we need are good role models. Real role models not role models that are created to be role models. Role models created to sell shoes, sport drinks or beer.

I guess the real problem is that people look for mistakes in other people. They wait for it and then they say Ahaaa. I knew that everything the did right up until this perceived misstep was a lie. Obviously their entire life was a lie up until this point where they made the misstep. Now I have caught them. Then they feel better about themselves because they found a flaw in someone else.

I don't usually spend this much time writing and some who read this may be glad that I don't. They will see that I have few posts and classify me accordingly. Some may actually look at my profile and see that I have been here for a good while. I don't ever remember how long and I am not going to bother to look today either. I guess I just wish, and it is a big wish, that people would stop looking for all the mistakes people make in life to validate their own feelings and start just living life. I guess I have slipped far from where I started here. Sorry about that.

I guess that life is getting to complicated for me.

Raebrek!!!

[sentelle]

46. who, exactly is teaching values, nowadays?

Schools aren't. They don't have the time in the day, they are underfunded for what they do, and even if they could, whose values would you have them teach?

Parents, by and large are not there either. In a two earner household, you have no one in the house after school. Latchkey kids become latchkey adults. I realize that the parents are likely my age, taught to find their own. So now, my generation is having teenage kids, and exactly what is the punishment for things they do wrong? Where is the respect for authority?
Who is teaching these kids that this is ok? If it isn't you, then who is teaching your kids these values? And why have you given up your responsibility as a parent?

[slackmaster]

59. Too many people who are just plain ignorant of history

Last week two exceptionally attractive women sat next to me in a bar. One was roughly 30, the other late 40s. I thought they might be mom and daughter. They had a few shots of tequila, and the older woman started flirting with the bartender, a handsome man who I happen to know personally. He lives with his long-term girlfriend and his teenage daughter. Not available at any price.

The woman persisted, and I glanced over at her. She smirked and slurred out something like "Not you, I men HIM!" "No problem!" I replied.

Then she looked at me and asked "Are you a computer geek?"

"Why, thank you," I said. "I happen to be a highly paid systems administrator." I'll fast-forward to the really disturbing part.

I said to the older woman "You seem to be a good judge of people. I want you to tell me how old I am, and I will give you a major hint. The day I was born, the President of the United States was a Republican." (I'm a young-looking 50, so her only reasonable answers would have been a little over 50 or 33-39 if I did the math right.)

She said "I think you were born in 1966."

"Nice try, but there was a Democrat in the White House that year: Lyndon B. Johnson."

This woman was 49, certainly old enough to remember 1966.

There are way too many people out there who don't know the most basic facts of history.

[ileus]

76. preach it to 'em JR!!!