World gone mad...

[andy2tanx]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Bren Tierney @ Nov. 11 2003,20:31)]And rarely a sadder sight: white kids (in a car for which they paid £7K - and a susequent £25K adding the woofers-n-tweeters) pretending to be (something they'll never be and just look w@nkers trying) black 'Gangsta Rappers'.

Bren... this was BRADFORD!!

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (aclivity @ Nov. 11 2003,17:46)]
For not one foot of this dank wet sod but drank
Its surfeit of the blood of gallant men,
Who for their faith, their hope - for life and Liberty.
Here made the sacrifice - here gave their lives,
And gave right willingly - for you and me.

Picture the scene: a mother and her 14 year old son talking in the livingroom of their home; and bear in mind the beautifully recalled, rendered and described snippet from Andy's posted inscription above:

Son: "Mum, why did all those men die in the wars?"

Mother: (smiling gently, gazing down at her progeny with a look only a mother can give, whilst cradling the little cherub to her bossom and running her fingers through his hair) "Well darling,  just a few of the reasons they all died were so shite like you could quibble and argue unnecessarily about who wears the best (most expensive) trainers; so you could idolise and consider as 'important' inarticulate wasters and poltroons with pure flakes for wives, like David Beckham and his ilk; so that you could play solitary 'Gameboy' and not mix or be sociable, or run the risk of enhancing your communications skills; so that you could wear your baseball caps backwards like twats and cover them with hoods so no one can see your face or hear the grunts which pass for expression; so that you could wear jeans which might fit a man fifteen times your size (please don't drag your crotch on the floor, dear, it's most unbecoming); so school could be 'wagged' and homework and the desire to do well and have a sense of achievement be tossed-off like they had no worth; so you could be so endemically uncreative and empty-headed as to bitch and whine endlessly about there being "nothing to do round here..." as a cover-all excuse to be louts whilst you smash windows, hang around in intimidating packs, like hounds, and generally never develop a sense of respect, committment, responsibility or the desire to do anything selflessly; so you could say "innit", as a suffix to any statement or sentence instead of the required and properly constructed question; so you could look down on and deride anyone with education and a desire to succeed off their own bats or the virtue to get ahead on their own merit; so you could redefine both lethargy and indifference and raise them to an art-form; so you could remain ignorant of the fact that 'Ali G' is a satire and neither a role-model nor someone to whom you might aspire to be; so you could remain the snearing, objectionable and ill-disciplined whelp that your father and I raised you to be......That's why all those men died in the two wars.........."

Sorry about the above rant from the hip - had to get it off my chest: I've just been speaking to an old acquaintance (one of the 'Old and Bold') who went through the Second War and who attended a Remembrance Day Service this morning in Cambridge.

Imagine, if you will/can, the scenes of deep sorrow amongst the aged, veteran assemblage (who'd turned up to pay thanks for the lives' of loved ones and friends lost in battle), as they looked on to find that 'scrotes' (as yet not caught and un-named) have drawn obscene pictures in black magic marker all over the names on the local War Memorial....

Never mind, eh, some do-gooding-PC-wallah Social Worker will, once they're caught, probably pronounce the little darlings to be merely 'just high-spirited', 'misunderstood' or that their actions were merely 'an unrequited call for help...';  before recommending that they all be given a jolly good holiday, more likely than not, to a safari park in Botswana......of course at the tax-payers' expense! Why would it not be?

So, signally rewarded for their heady wiles of youth and never having had the 'do you know what you've done is wrong and why so?' address, they just grow into older scrotes who then beget more of the same....and so the cycle continues.

I now understand, with greater clarity, why it is so important to remember the selfless fallen: they act as a poignant counter-point to the pointless acts of the selfish.

Those who gave their tomorrows for our todays might well now be asking themselves: was our sacrifice really worth it? Did we die for this shower?

Given their character and fiber, I'm bound to say yes: they would think it was worth it; no doubt they'd do it again so we could turn out the same also. One of the comforts we can take from their sacrifice is that the possble alternative outcomes on offer at the time mean that louts and the selfish (whilst not wholly paling into insignificance) are just that bit more bearable, if still at times enragingly unpalatable.

[Gavin Yates]

<font color='#000F22'>I agree with the above sentiments Bren but the blame for this lies not with the yoof of today(well it does too) but our own generation and the one before.

How did we breed such monstrosities?

It can't be some kind of wholesale virus as there are some delightful young people (I'm sure you've met one or two), some who see the value of society, are tolerant, respectful, even helpful.

So, it's the government then? That ugly spectre of totalitarianism that has corrupted our young people? No if that were the case then it would be enveloping all.

No, it's stupid freakin' parents ... &quot;Go and play on the motorway, there's a good boy, if you eat your KFC then you can have some more drugs, I'm so pround of you, the high score on the Playstation ... well I never.&quot;

So if we think today's young people are bad ... just think what's coming in five years, ten years, fifteen years ...

God it's depressing.

[Dr Stevil]

The guy running tour Day Skipper course also runs other marine vocational &nbsp;training courses during &nbsp;the day at the Maritime College. He &nbsp;told us last night that he had a class full offairly affluent and arrogant Saudi Arabians out on the quayside, hats off observing one minutes silence while facing the war memorial on the opposite bank of the river. They've been breakin up the lectures for the required five prayers a day so he &nbsp;told them, &quot;If you've got time for your prayers you can damn well find time to acknowledge the men and women that have made it possible for you to be here in the first place !&quot; Well done that man

[abucksdiver]

<font color='#000080'>Our little village (4000 souls... well about 1000 souls and the rest are soul-less... the result of a social housing experiment where you take all the troublemakers from the local towns and place them all in a small rural community... THANKS!) had a residents meeting a few days ago, to discuss the ongoing vandalism/unruely/anti-social behaviour/trashing of the local war memorial and graves in the churck-yard etc. problems...

Hey, the local &quot;scrotes&quot; (good description, Bren!) decided that they should attend to put their side forward...

I hope they all enjoyed their night in the cells at miscellanious local police-stations.

But you are right, they will probably have earned themselves a trip to Alton Towers at my expense for that little escapade..  

abucks

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Gavin Yates @ Nov. 12 2003,07:36)]I agree with the above sentiments Bren but the blame for this lies not with the yoof of today(well it does too) but our own generation and the one before.

How did we breed such monstrosities?

It can't be some kind of wholesale virus as there are some delightful young people (I'm sure you've met one or two), some who see the value of society, are tolerant, respectful, even helpful.

So, it's the government then? That ugly spectre of totalitarianism that has corrupted our young people? No if that were the case then it would be enveloping all.

No, it's stupid freakin' parents ... &quot;Go and play on the motorway, there's a good boy, if you eat your KFC then you can have some more drugs, I'm so pround of you, the high score on the Playstation ... well I never.&quot;

So if we think today's young people are bad ... just think what's coming in five years, ten years, fifteen years ...

God it's depressing.

Hey Gav,

I wasn't apportioning 'blame', per se; and I wasn't, to paraphrase the Bard, attempting a &quot;a pox on all you houses&quot; type approach. And yes, I have met some wonderful children who give me nothing joy and hope for the future. Nor am I advocating a 'hang-'em-n-flog-'em' dispensation.

But when state schools and teachers (by respective and successive governments) have been used, by turns, as both political footballs (National Curriculum, anyone?), accepted as 'holding pens' for the nations' hood-wearing pregnant 13 year olds (and their younger inseminators), and who generally put teachers in mortal fear of scrotes whose soul response (because they've been told and taught that they can) to any form of admonition or correction of their hellion ways is to trot out, by rote, the stock defence &quot;I'll get mi dad up to you!&quot;, and then have the 'system' back the actions (disgraceful as they are) of the child, then where and to whom, in a profession once considered a vocation, is a teacher supposed to reach for support or any validation that what they are doing is either worthwhile, or proof that they are making progess in passing on the values of respect for self and others, discipline, morals (yes, that whoary old chestnut) and responsibility. A large number of decent teachers (and we all know this to be the case) simply give up the ghost and bin the job - leaving the nations' kids in the hands of a second rate shower whom specialise in generalities and non-specifics. The result for those being 'taught' being what? Diassaffection? Lethargy, on the grounds that 'well if the teachers are crap, what hope have we got...?'

Couple this with some parents' list of stock responses to a child's request for help with homework of either: &quot;don't ask me, that's what your teachers are for&quot;; &quot;go and play on your Gameboy&quot;; &quot;go and watch TV or a video or summat&quot; etc. ad nauseam. TV and broadcast media then taking the key role of 'baby-sitter and teacher by proxy'. Nature-Nurture? Shit in, shit out?

Under these conditions, from where is a child supposed to acquire nuture, support, direction, correction or a sense of involvement leading to responsibility for his actions? If it's not instilled into him/her, you might as well ask him/her to translate Ovid or the Illiad; explain how a Wankel Rotary Engine works; order a meal in Swahili - but don't be surprised when they can't do any of these tasks; why should they be able to? They've had no instruction in same.

But hey, as long as Blair and his cronies send all their kids to private or selective schools (Diane Abbott, anyone?), whilst leaving the nations' finest to disolve in a sea of state educational sub-mediocrity, how can the parents form any bond of trust with those who 'rule' them?

The other worrying thing about the slide is that it creates mass dissaffection, frustration and resentment amonsgt kids and parents - and with the clarion cry of the hard right groups only a Daily Mail sound-bite away, then the dissaffected can easily find themselves in the welcoming arms (and swelling the ranks) of groups who advocate racist agendas and converstations (nay, policies) of repatriation and deportation. And we know where that leads....precisely everything that folks died fighting against in the two wars and else where.

And all because no one had the courage to try and strike a balance. Kids and their education (streamed and suited/appropriate to the child) is the most precious thing we have. To squander it (at any level, be that parents, government or in schools) will mean that history will be our judge - and if we don't learn the mistake of history, then we are sure to repeat them.

[tom]

I'm sympathetic with much of this, but there's one statement I think needs addressing:

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]the nations' kids in the hands of a second rate shower whom specialise in generalities and non-specifics

Without evidence that this is truly the case, this sentiment is little other than a &quot;Daily Mail soundbite&quot; in itself.  This isn't a challenge to you to provide evidence - I think a discussion along those lines is probably the last thing we need here. I just think that this may well be a gross mischaracterisation of the majority of teachers.

I personally get a bit tired of the media's scapegoating of many groups of public sector workers, who often do very difficult and thankless jobs for little reward. I believe that at one point in time teachers, nurses, police, etc were respected professions. Maybe that change in society, along with their use - as you say - as political footballs, is one of the problems here. I blame the 'popular' media for much of it.

OK, I'll put the soapbox away now!

Tom

[aclivity]

<font color='#810541'>Bren,

do you have kids?  It's an honest enquiry - your views reflect my own, and I have 2 anklebiters now.

My take on your points is one which shifts with the wind.  Before I had the kids - less than 2 years ago in real time but feels like a lifetime ago (literally for my eldest, in learning terms for me)  - I used to get really angry about parents who dumped theur kids in front of the TV all day.  Now, my 21 month old daughter spends quite some time in front of the telly.  It keeps her occupied, she has certain favourites that she actually watches (Percy The Parkkeeper and Robot Wars.  Well maybe not robot wars, but I watch that so she HAS to), the rest of the time the TV is on but often ignored.
EDIT: when I say 'quite some time', I mean a lot of time by my standards, certainly not for more than a couple of hours all day, and not all in one go - after all, this is a little girl with wellies and there are puddles to be splashed in.

My daughter has a huge vocabulary for her age, and I'm sure that she has watched 'grown up' TV with her parents has helped, although I know that her being immobilised throughout the summer whilst she was recuperating from an operation helped - a childs brain, it seems, can only cope with learning to walk or learning to talk, not both!  She can hold conversations with us, albeit not very complex ones, in stark contrast to her little friends who seem to use only single words.  I put this down to the fact that Jo, my wife, actually TALKS to her and plays with her as much as possible during the day.

Then comes the other side - how does one teach a child to have a social responsibility? I don't think any amount of legislation or changes to how a once noble, altruistic profession such as teaching can be to blame.  I have to hope that I will instill my values in my children; not my views or politics, certainly, but my core value of respect for other people.  I worry - every day - that I will fail at this, but perhaps this where I draw my best hopes for success.  I do not intend to let fear of failing cause me to stop trying.  I also do not expect teachers or scout leaders or church leaders or whoever else to take that responsibility for MY children.

I'm rambling a bit, reflecting my confusion probably.  Perhaps it's because I'm relatively old to become a parent that I feel I owe my kids a lot of my time and attention?  I couldn't put my finger on one reason why some kids seem to come out as 'scrotes' and others don't; which scares the hell out of me for bringing up my own kids.  I just hope I spot any scrotiness before develops into a full blown personality, and can identify the cause when / if it happen?  

Andy

[Bikerbill]

Teachers piss me off  My son was excluded from his class for 'clucking' He was sent home with this stupidly worded form which I was supposed to sign.  I paid his teacher a visit the next day.  She informed me in her best middle class accent while looking down her nose at me, that he was disrupting the whole class with his clucking.  It turned out that he clucked twice   As I was winning my argument, she then proceded with some educational jargon, in which I replied with better educational jargon, she looked confused poor bitch, I then told her that I too work in education and that her teaching skills need to be addressed.  She reluctantly tore up her form.

As for the ned's, all they need is a bit of lead behind the ear, administered by a gun

[my_evil_twin]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Lou @ Nov. 11 2003,14:50)]We had a voluntary 2 min silence here today.  

<font color='#000080'>We have &lt;u&gt;involuntary&lt;u&gt; two minute silences where I work (govt owned building). Officially sanctioned commemorations(Princess Margarets death (widely assumed to be alcohol related), Queen mother dying at ripe old age, poppy day, sept 11th) have two minute silences announced in advance, announced over tannoy, non-participants requested to &quot;respect silence&quot;. I imagine this is not the only workplace where this happens.

I wonder how many of the people who are reported as participating in officially sanctioned silences do so involuntarily?

Official &nbsp;publicity (items on the news reporting requests for silence, guesses as to how many people will participate) etc builds officially sanctioned commemorations up weeks in advance. Employees are pressurised to participate.

Strange in particular that the death of a 90+ year old woman (Queen mother) was thought more worthy of silence than the commemoration of the 6 million+ victims of the holocaust - the first Holocaust Memorial Day was on January 27th 2002. Unlike Poppy day, Queen mothers death etc there was no advance build up on the news, no encouragement or facilities for employees to observe any form of commemoration.

6 million innocent civilians vs one old and extremely rich woman. I know who I'd choose for official remembrance.