One ought to think for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.
Moliere
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Hello Brest, Belarus
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Is violence becoming the American way of life? Is civility finally drifting out of our civilization and leaving behind a land of terrorists? So a Giant fan was beaten up in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot and is now in a coma. So what? It's baseball. It's important.
Players smashing into other players is the thrill of ice hockey. More players are carried off the football fields than ever were. I keep reading about what goes on in soccer games when the fans get unruly and the stadium comes down. Come on. Basketball players are easy targets. So are marathon runners.
If you can't beat up all the opposing fans, you can do what the sports Dad's do and go after the referee when your kid or your side gets a call you don't like. Knock him down.
If the other guy is about to win the tennis match, don't waste time, jump over the net and smack over the head a few times with your tennis racket. That should teach him a lesson.
When you're on the last golf green and another player is within one stroke of winning the tournament don't stand around gawking, have your buddies come out with clubs and break his knees.
Now lets see, there must be some way we can work the grand old red, white a blue violence into high jumping, discus throwing and table tennis.
This is nothing new, of course. When you read that some of our esteemed founding fathers would come into the floor of the House and Senate during the first few congresses and beat each other with sticks, you realize that some of the rules of condemnation were laid out early on.
I think it would be politically correct if a Republican and a Democrat were to duke it out on the floor of the House of Representatives. Don't you? Then we would know who is right.
If you don't like a guy's religion, burn his book. If you don't like a guy's sexuality, beat him up. If you don't like a guy's politics, buy a gun and shoot him, as happened in Arizona not too long ago.
What happened to civilized behavior? Where is it? What happened to American civilization? Where did it go?
DB - The Vagabond
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This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
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4 comments:
Sorry to say, but, I believe that our world has become a world of violence against the innocent folks. I believe that a lot has to do with the facts that parents are both working so the kids don't have someone to watch over them like it was when I was growing up. Know my parents set rules and if we didn't follow them, we answered to them. Today not only do the parents, but the kids alike want everything like yesterday and if they don't get it, they aren't willing to wait or work for it. We've become a country that seems to have little respect or caring for each other, it's sad state of affairs that it's gone that way. Not a day goes by that you don't read or see about violence happening, scary to think what tomorrow or a yea from now will bring.
Seems to be little sportsmanship left in this world. It all has to do with violence. Instead of trying to play better, just crack the opponent on the head so he will know better not to mess with you next time. We see adults doing this all the time and soon the kids follow suit.
Sports laws are too lax and there is little punishment for harming another player. Coaches, managers and owners don't set an example for their teams to follow.
This is the way we have learned to deal with many problems in life. Violence. To find civilized behaviour, you might have to go to some place like Japan.
Must say this ties in nicely with your recent posts on worldly philosophy. It does seem, in recent years, that discussion and concerted thought has been replaced by a standard series of irritable mental gestures in sports, entertainment and, most disturbingly, in government.
They get away with outlandish behaviour - because they can. Contact sports seem to be more and more similar to the games that the Romans played. Hockey players are in a "battle", a "fight" to the finish, and only the ones left standing with many wounds, attain victory. Of course, money and fame have something to do with it as well. I still shake my head in disbelief at the Nancy Kerrigan fiasco during the Olympic games...
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