Where Are The Hair Clippers & Duct Tape When We Need Them?
I was just watching an interview with the morons that closed down Boston yesterday. I'm using the word "morons" generously as I watch them "perform" for the cameras. They are flip, disrespectful and totally unrepentant that their idiocy put an entire city's emergency resources on high alert for the entire day...not to mention inconvienced and put in danger all the daily commuters as highways, mass transit and waterways were completely shut down. Trust me, the one with the dreadlocks better thank his lucky stars that I'm not his Mom..of course if I WERE his Mother, he wouldn't have gotten to this point and be so extreme in his actions, thoughts or looks. Heck, I threaten to cut my son's hair while he sleeps if he doesn't get regular haircuts that make him at least look human. Self-expression is one thing, while being totally irresponsible and looking like a throw rug, is another.
WHAT is wrong with some of the youth today? These are the people we are going to have to count on one day to keep us safe, to run our country. Now admittedly, some of our contemporaries at times drop the ball, BUT they often err on the side of trying to be too responsible, to do too much rather than doing nothing at all and leaving everything to fate and a Ouija board/Magic 8 ball.
I have great respect and hope for a lot of our youth. I see so many bright minds, so much potential in many bright faces going through the school systems. On the other hand however, I also see way too many that have absolutely no direction in life...no respect for anything or anyone. I grew up in the 60's and 70's so I know that many of our generation that began their lives as flower children or in a different era managed to pull it all together and grow into adults with purpose. What I'm seeing from a lot of young people today, is not the same. The world today is regrettably different. It's a more serious place..it's truthfully a meaner and more intense place. The dangers in the world today are more widespread and more focused.
I watched the events yesterday develop through the hours at a time in our lives where we have to be more vigilant for our safety, for the safety of our loved ones...and even though it started to unfold as someone thumbing their nose at the system....it still could not be ignored. The statement that we have to be right all the time, while a potential terrorist only has to be right once, is so true. I wish to holy hell it wasn't, but those are the cards we have been dealt and there is no going back. I'm sure that wrecks with injuries had to wait much longer for a response time as well as other valid 911 calls for people in need as the city was for the most part shutdown in the name of caution while safety was guaranteed in what turned out to thankfully be numerous cases of hoax and pretense.
Perhaps I'm a little more sensitive than most to some of this. Between being in the classroom and the training I've had to receive over the past few years to be in the air (and frankly courage somedays to board some of the planes), I will admit I have almost ZERO patience for pranks or flippancy where safety is concerned. I realized this morning that in some ways I'm turning into my parents, and at the same time also realized, I'm thanking my lucky stars they instilled a lot of this in me. The old fashioned qualities of responsibility, of country and self...all qualities I've tried to make sure that my children have. My children are far from perfect. They have mouths and opinions (and have inherited those qualities honestly from me)...BUT they have a love of country...a love of family...and manners and respect at their core, where it matters and will emerge fully one day.
So, these boys need to be put under a jail...not be on TV getting their 15 minutes of fame acting like fools. What they did was serious and dangerous, not to mention stupid and totally irresponsible. The youth of today needs to realize they have the complete and total freedom to act or say what they want...as long as they also accept the knowledge that by doing so, there are consequences...sometimes very severe ones that are not able to be wiggled out of by being cute and flip. Life carries responsibility for yourself and for others. It is not a world where the only one your actions impact is your own life. Life is like ripples in a pond...something small radiates out from the middle and sometimes, depending on the initial impact...can have a major effect in what occurs in the end.
On a day where a veteran from the Iraqi war that lost both legs is being recognized for his service and given a chance to run his own business due the the good heart of the Little Caesar's founder...this drivel takes over the news. Our priorities have gone to to hell in a handbasket.
