There are always things in our lives we wish we had the answers to. These are the things most of the civilized world never had to ponder because they weren't issues. Where has the common sense gone? If you feel you have some to add, send them in the comment section.
1. If YOU knew the popular rap group who touted; "Shoot that MF in the head, blah, blah, blah..." was just a group who made an entertainment song and was not meant to be taken literally, why don't YOUR kids know that too?
2. When will the young urbanite's T-shirt color change from white?
3. Where has "individuality" gone and how can we get her back?
4. When will reading become cool again?
5. If it wasn't okay for you to do it when you were a kid, why is it okay for your kids to do it now?
Russ Stovas said...
ReplyDeleteTHE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!
If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about
how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways....yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell
I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and
how easy they've got it! But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't
help but look around and notice the youth of today.
You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!
And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet . If we wanted to know something,
we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter ..with a pen!
Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it
would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike
to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day
to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!
We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody
else called they got a busy signal, that's it!
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no
idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug
dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels
or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the
seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you
and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide
to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to
get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no
Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you
hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!
And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.
That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regards,
The over 30 Crowd
April 14, 2008 10:51 AM
Then: Your mom said, "jump!", you said "how high?"
ReplyDeleteNow: Your mom says "jump!" you say "for what, I'm doing something else right now!"
Your mom says, "okay, but as soon as you finish that game.....
you get my drift, where's the back bone?
1. In the 80's, it was, "why are all these kids wearing black t-shirts?" Or, maybe that was just me in LA surrounded by NWA wanna-be's.
ReplyDeleteI digress... Ok, now to what I was really replying to.
Technology and apathy are a dangerous combination...
2. There have ALWAYS been lazy people. Read Proverbs. Now, laziness is facilitated by:
the Internet(which I think is the antichrist - though I'm still typing this out on a blog - go figure):"Why go to the library? I get a synopsis of anything I want to know about with minimal effort and minimal reading right here. An encyclopedia... What???
video games: "Why go outside and ride my bike or play red light/green light, I've got all that here on the screen?"
computers: "Why learn how to spell? The computer does it for me?" (and they still have typos because they're too lazy to run spell-check)
iPods: "Why make the effort to go out and shop? I can get all the music I want by sitting my lazy ass at home, eating a bag of Flaming Hots, gettin' fat on the couch."
apathetic instructors (NOT ALL teachers are apathetic. I'm just speaking to the ones there only to get a paycheck: "Why think? The teacher doesn't even expect me to think." I have a caveat to this which really upsets me.
I teach an after school culinary training program. Many of these kids are in "culinary programs" at their high schoos. These programs are supposed to prepare students for the hospitality field upon graduation.
I have learned that at more than one of our high schools on the southeast side, the instructors program provide no instruction 90% of the time. By no instruction, I mean that they sit there and browse the Internet for two hours while students sit on their desks and do nothing.
So, not only are these instructors setting bad examples for healthy work practices, but they've also seemingly given up on our kids.
Who expects children to think? Who challenges them to think?Unfortunately, the ease of apathy has played a big part in the predicament these young people are in today. Sit them in front of a screen somewhere - TV, computer, Gameboy - whatever. They'll be aaiiight, right? Wrong. This mentality, along with the technology overload kids are getting is making their minds atrophy.
Technology has over-simplified things to a point where kids have lost the need to think for themselves. We are losing the ability to reason because much of our lives have been reduced to a screen of icons and automated systems that all but wipe our ass. Who truly values a powerful mind anyway?
I think that our evolution is leading to our destruction. It's cyclical. It's even natural, isn't it? Things evolve and end, right???
NO!!! God has given us minds to use. Laziness, slothfulness (one of the seven DEADLY sins) is making our God-given minds obsolete. Kids don't NEED to think, so they choose not to 'cause it's easier.(Now can you see my Internet/antichrist connection???)
Every day, try to wake a kid up from this zombie existence. Challenge them to think, and stay on them until they do. You see them on the train, in the store, on the street - everywhere. Many of 'em will huff and puff and call you crazy... But for that one who listens, you will be a life saver.
Peace,
~S~