Let's go down memory lane for a spell and talk about how things USED to be...
I grew up in Los Angeles in a middle-class neighborhood. I was raised with the insistence of respect for others and good manners. Most in my generation were raised the same. Swearing wasn't something any decent kid did and we didn't even know swear words until we were teenagers and heard them in movies. In my home it was rare to hear an adult swear, and by that I mean saying "dammit" was the extent of it, and one never heard swearing on television. I swear now, but occassionally and only for special emphasis, unlike a rap piece or comic that call every woman a bitch and can't say a sentence without the word "fuck" in it - somehow that makes the great word "fuck" lose its effect. (Robin and Whoopie and George Carlin - you are exceptions.)

We weren't rude in public or in school or at adults. We didn't call school teachers by their first names (until high school started this trend). We respected other people's property, their privacy, and being humiliated (and/or punished) for misbehaving was the worst thing we could experience. One could take us to the best restaurants and not be ashamed of our manners or behavior. If someone strayed from good manners, the adult present would quickly put them in their place, and didn't have to fear being killed for butting in or being sued over it. If a kid did something wrong at the drugstore, that kid's parents were told. The kid didn't go to jail, he or she was talked to and punished. If a little boy kissed a girl or a girl punched a boy, it wasn't a legal case and parents were paranoid and the kids put in cuffs and carted off to the pen and then sued. Society knew that it was a problem that had to be dealt with in a way that made sense and didn't damage anyone. Kids are not adults and they usually operate from their feelings - and what's wrong with giving someone a hug or kiss because you love them?! It's not sexual harrassment to a six year old! (And you know, left up to their own devices, most kids can handle it and take care of it on their own.) The idiotic term "politically correct" didn't exist to confuse us, and we behaved well.

When we dealt with anyone else, they were mostly respectful towards us, too. We got gas at a gas station with service guys who would politely fill our car for us, clean our windows, see if our tires needed air and fill them, add engine oil if needed....all for under twenty-five cents a gallon (and nothing extra for water or air) ! Everyone said their pleases and thank yous. It was a polite and kinder world than it's become today.

Yes, we were raised with those goodie-goodie programs like "Father Knows Best," "Leave it to Beaver," "The Donna Reed Show," "December Bride," "I Married Joan," and Andy and Opie. But those shows did have good values in spite of their idealism and often poor scripts. We also had the great comics like Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Steve Allen, Milton Berle (even in drag), the Marx Brothers. (Well, we did have the Three Stooges, and even though Moe's grandson was my classmate all through school and Moe used to pick him up from elementary school, I wasn't a fan of their humor.) All in all, television was new and innocent as Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody and Sheriff John and Ed Sullivan, and Disney. Entertainment was good, clean fun. Kids were innocent and had a childhood. My main gripe with those programs is that they weren't very cross-cultural and boys and girls were more stereotyped - each with their appointed roles to grow into. But, we didn't often see blood and guts pouring out of someone shot or stabbed. Shows weren't graphic in that regard. I don't recall ever seeing gore on "Superman" or "The Lone Ranger," or even on "Get Smart," although I think "Bonanza" might have been the rare exception. The inference or being hurt or killed was enough. In my world there were few crimes and and can you imagine that people left their front doors unlocked in Los Angeles and trusted their neighborhood? Yes, we did, and that bubble burst with the assassination of JFK and crime and rudeness increased since Nixon took office. Look how far we've come since then. Is everybody happy?

After JFK's death, Vietnam, Nixon, lying public servants (politicians) and government behavior and policy was such a let-down. I do believe that a big part of the hippie movement was not just to get in touch with the simple things in life that have meaning, like love for all life, but it was also an expression of depression and feeling betrayed by what we were raised with, what we felt we were promised, and what our world was becoming - and we didn't like it one bit. We didn't want to be part of that greedy, spiteful, crude and cruel world. Unfortunately, at that time few could find a balance that was liveable and people went from one extreme to another. Instead of copping out and joining the Establishment, many of my generation went the opposite direction as a big statement. There was no middle ground and that was a major failing. THEN, women's lib was the in-thing and women were dropping their traditional roles as mothers and housewives for the professional world. Again, that did lack some balance but I think we're returning to that balance today. Women's lib was a threat to men and the religious right who have since then been doing everything in their power to keep women at home and pregnant, and keep women from earning equal pay for equal jobs and overturn Roe v. Wade so women have no choices or power. A world without equality and balance of the male and female is a sick world. See the largest population of Muslims and how women are treated and how radical Islamists want to take over the world - I rest my case.

So these now American adults in the 1960s (who were a little older than I was) had their own children and let them run free of discipline, there was a lot of experimental everything going on. Then these children grew up and felt lost and they were neglected. A lot of these children became yuppies....the "I want" and "me first" generation. And with the rotten political climate as role models, the evil Reagan and Nixon and Bush (both) bully and screw you attitude, the tainted and twisted ideas of what is truth, they fit right in. Join those tyrants or be ridiculed. The pendulum swung the other direction to life being about how much expensive shit one could accumulate and how one could snub another. Rudeness was in full swing and it was also being reflected in our media. The media works as a creative expression and as a reflection of society. Swear words, rude behavior, sex and violence became the standard. Class and good manners dwindled and with it went professional standards and courtesy.

Take big jump to the present time and what do we have? You know so I don't have to tell you because it is taking a toll on the mental, spiritual and physical health of all of us, such as people are fatter than ever, there is more disease and crime, people are overworked and under-rested which makes them feel on edge every day.

I take the time to relax and do my spiritual thing, and yet there is some frustration I feel for what I have to enounter. I experience most frustration because of people's lack of respect for anyone else - whether it be stealing a parking space you were waiting for or some jerk talking on their cell phone while driving and nearly killing people on the road and they are oblivious to it; to the driver who has dangerously taken risks and then flips off other people because they didn't get it all their way, as if the road is only there for them; or the drive-by shootings, as if these gangsters think it's nothing but fun sport to take away a life; teachers pretending they are medical professionals and ordering parents to medicate their kids who don't need Ritalin - drugging them right out of education and creative development, only to end up as troubled and angry adults. What changed since I was a kid that makes teachers afraid to discipline kids in some schools? Or, that some actor's sex life is my business; or the poverty and lack of socialized health care that still exists in America. Or, that schools can't afford books and supplies, or programs in the arts anymore. And young kids are looking for a rush and end up choking themselves to death. Then there are the taxes upon taxes that don't make the public's life any better. And the email spams and computer hijackings or fax and phone spams that we have to deal with to get companies to stop bugging us and we have no idea how they even got our number. Then there's big brother filming us on many street corners and freeways - everywhere! No wonder people feel angry and violated. I mean - there's a huge list of things about which to pissed off. Breathe, relax, ohhhhmmmmmmmm..........

Another reason I get frustrated is for the lack of professionalism in business. Why has it become the norm for every business to have automated answering systems that ask you if you want to continue in English, and have to jump through hoops for ten minutes of unhelpful recorded instructions before you finally find a way, if lucky, to speak with a human being? Then, when you have a person on the line you'd hope they'd know their business, and most of them don't have a clue. They don't even have a clue who in their business does have a clue, and futhermore, they don't really care either way. They don't want to be bothered. If you have a defective product or you were treated badly by any of these people in business and you tell them you are upset, they tell you to calm down or they can't help you! Don't you wonder why these people work in customer service when they don't know what that is and how to do it? Don't you lose respect for a company that hires incompetent fools like that? And you want me to calm about this and accept it as just the way things are? No thanks. I don't give them my business anymore.

Believe me, I am a polite and patient person and it takes a lot to get me to lose my cool. Stupidity, careslessness, the fact that nobody really listens anymore and makes you repeat something five times because they can't concentrate, don't know English, or automatically assume a woman is a man on the phone are enough reasons for me to lose it. That's why rudeness has emerged from good people like me - because we've been pushed beyond decent limits, pushed to have to accept what no one should have to accept and to be forced to behave to satisfy some creep on the phone who doesn't know their business. Why are feelings to be denied? We're sick and tired of this - we've had enough. Are you getting me? For this reason, yeah, take me back to the old days where professionalism meant something and people who dealt with the public had good manners and common sense, and cared to help.

To be completely fair, there still are many courteous and caring people in the world, and I encounter them every day. That helps keeps me sane and makes our world a little easier to navigate these days. Not all hope is dashed. People are basically good. I know it makes another person's day a happier and a little more stress-free when I can be kind to them. It helps us all. I don't want to return to the old days for everything, but I sure would like to see us return to better manners, less hysteria, less victimhood, less selfishness, less violence. Perhaps people need that old-fashioned adult to butt in and remind them. Maybe the many world-wide catastrophes have made their point by waking up people to remember to care about what's really important in life. It's not about the newest model of cell phone, or the car you drive, or what designer's clothes you wear, or your fake boobs or botox. How long do people want to keep running from themselves? Let's get real and treat each other as the beautiful people we truly are, in balance, in peace. Thanks for reading this - it helped release some of my frustrations from today.