You Know before we educated every one else on manufacturing, and let them buy out all of our high end educational universities; where they do all of the real tech work.
You know or teck that they brive our school to give them by paying for all of those high end programs because our governments are to cheap to suport the schools any more? But I didn't say any thing.
If you lived as a child in the 60's, 70's or 80's looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have...
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a ute on a warm day was always a special treat. Our cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cupboards, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No mobile phones. Unthinkable.
We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate patty cakes, bread and butter, and drank cordial, but we were never overweight...we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games, 65 channels on pay TV, video tape movies, surround sound, personal mobile phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms ... we had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian - how did we do it?
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.
Footy and netball had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment..... Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law - imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
Greed is the real culprit.. Everyone has to have all the latest toys, but don't want to pay a fair price for them.. For me it was the 40's and 50's.. Mothers were home taking care of their kids, where they belonged.. Fathers were bringing home the bacon.. Children didn't need all those safety devices.. (and they still don't) Just another gadget to make the corp-rats rich.. We learned to sit, down and shut up, and stay out of trouble, or we got the crap beat out of us.. Too bad that doesn't happen today.
Quote: The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law - imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
AMEN TO THAT!!!
And yeah...I remember not wearing a seatbelt, or riding in the bed of a pickup, drinking from the hose...all that...and I also remember having to get a job AND keep my grades up while saving to buy my first car...nowadays a kid turns 16 and is given a BMW...I had to work my butt off just to afford, and keep, my beater of a car...if I wanted new clothes...I had to work for them...meaning chores at home, good grades, and an after school job...better believe I APPRECIATED those new clothes and my beater car!!!
Damn...I so miss the old days...when we were still allowed to think for ourselves without some law telling us what we can and cannot do...personally I LOVED riding my bike without all the safety crap...if I crashed...then it was for me to deal with. These days with Lawsuit-anitus, everybody is suing everyone else because you sneeze in their general direction which somehow amplifies the flu cooties they were already carrying...causing them to actually get the flu one day sooner...yada yada yada...
...and I'm sorry, but I just want to egg some 16 year old with a BMW, credit card, designer clothes, and no job!!!
It's a cream filled sponge cake that was used as an excuse for murder .. He got away with it.. It's was called the twinkie defense.. A San Francisco city supervisor walked into the courthouse and killed the mayor because he was gay..
Whoa. Im feeling the heat here guys... Our generation may be a bit messed up but we're not all BMW driving, armani wearing jerks... As a kid in Brooklyn we had to learn crap the hard way too, most of the above list still applies.. or at least it did for me and my freinds. Not all of us have lawyers for daddies and get whatever we want... Honestly Ive had the same 3 shirts for 3 years.. but thats just because im lazy and I dont want a job. But things arent handed to us all. And just because we take advantage of new technology doesnt make us dependent on it.. think about it somebody from even further back could begrudge you running water, whether from a hose or not.
Good to hear that at least Brooklyn is still old school. I'm in California, and things are MUCH different here...anyone born in 1985 to present are given EVERYTHING, and are nothing but spoiled brats (whom I'd love to hand out some ass-whoopings too). I've heard young kids call their mother a bitch, or tell their dad to go piss off...then pitch a fit if their TIVO is taken away. One particularly obnoxious brat, about 16 or 17 years old, came up to me one day as I was getting into my 1987 CRX which I've had for YEARS, and say "sucks to be you" as he beep beeped his door locker on his convertable BMW...then laughed to his friend. I met him at a stoplight a few minutes later, his mistake. He tried to race me (as he has an almighty BMW to my CRX). I took him at the line, then shaved his front end before cutting him off and slamming on my brakes. See the moral of the story is this: I have been driving longer than he has been living. My CRX while old, has been modified so that it is very fast. Being that it IS old, I only pay liability insurance on it, as its value now is worth maybe $2000. So if he hit me, who'd be the one crying??? All I can say is I'd be laughing all the way to the bank, while he'd be dealing with pissed off parents and a VERY high insurance rate.
I personally love being in my mid 30's. I got to catch the tail end of Disco, lived through New Wave and Punk (the first time around), and while I don't drive a BMW, I can go to a bar without a fake ID. Oh, and I have FANTASTIC insurance rates.
And yes, you can use just about anything as an excuse these days...but I still say...DON'T BLAME THE TWINKIES...especially if they are fried...YUMMMM!
Thanks for the twinkie explanation, though how you use a cream cake to get away with murder beats me.
Maybe I shouldn’t post this because I’m enjoying the responses :-) However what I posted about the old days wasn’t meant to be a shot at young people, I was simply pointing out that society has changed. Many of those changes seem to stifle endeavour and encourage greed. I know shamefully selfish people and thoroughly decent caring people from all generations.
Hang on, if a twinkie is a cream filled cake how do you fry that?
Lard is bad for you, so we use Canola Oil & batter .... then deep fry 'em
The Twinkie Defense ? Supposedly thr guy was so hopped up on sugar he didn't know what he was doing....& he got off, if memory serves.
For the record, I LOATHE Twinkies, always have, even as a kid
And I hear 500 years after Armageddon, all the landfills are gonna be filled with cockroaches & styrofoam cups and most of the American corpses from the 60's upward are going to have undigested Twinkies in their caskets. Yuck ....
Ah now I know what the twinkie defence is, a scheme to avoid responsibility for your own actions, Thanks Anne.
I like Phil’s attitude to food, you must be here for a good time not for a long time Phil. Have you tried Christmas cake with Wensleydale cheese, now that is a taste sensation that everyone should try at least once.
The real tragedy is that it worked.. It continues to work..
Who said that lard was bad for you?? They lied.. It is pure fat.. It contains nothing but fat.. I couldn't make decent buscuits or dumplings without it.. It has no colesterol and no bitter aftertaste, like canola oil..
Life was meant to be enjoyed, not spent worrying about what you look like..
My Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead had spikes to push into real potatoes, that you got to eat for dinner with real butter.. No one ever got their eye poked out.. Except the potatoes..
And people wonder why I get depressed.. All the fun has been removed from life..
Oh well, I refuse to let it get to me..
I'm w/Matt here... this is probably for 2 reasons: A) I'm a Brooklyn girl, and B) I had a former co-worker who used to make fun of me for being a Gen-X'r, but she finally admitted, that as I had a job, an apartment, and took no money from my parents @ the age of 22, other than being a club girl, I didn't really qualify.
I know what it is to wear hand-me-downs, to have a choice between renting a movie or buying MORE ramen for the next 3 days worth of food.
and yes... part of the answer to the original question is: when we became so dumb that we started asking Big Brother to protect us from our own idiotic actions. Witness: Driving w/a cup of hot coffee between your legs.
Somewhere along the way some of us decided common sense didn't make us responsible for ourselves.
I wrote a HUGE essay on something similar...
It was about the FCC, Christian Coalition, and mandating censorship.
I think I am bright enough to decide what I watch and when...the 2 above named organizations think otherwise.
Anyway back on topic...sort of...
Has anyone noticed a definate lack of originality in movies lately? The Horror flicks are all remakes...like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre...sorry, you CANNOT remake a Tobe Hooper great. Sequals suck ass. Hell even musicians aren't writing music anymore...they are looping tunes from previous hits to make their one hit wonders...ala Puff Daddy/Puffy/P Diddy/Diddy...whoever he is today. Everything seems recycled except the things that SHOULD be recycled!!! And tell me...WHY hasn't any of these engineering geniuses made a bed for pregnant women to be able to sleep on their bellies? I mean pregnancy is not so foreign a thing...when I was pregnant with my twins...I cursed the geniuses for NOT making me more comfortable...and I doubt I was the only woman on this planet who has ever been pregnant.