[ExI] the really important urgent issues

[Lee Corbin]

Alex wrote

> On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:52 AM, <ablainey at aol.com> wrote:

> That occurred to to afterward, but it makes you wonder what if
> anything the parents would do about it?

Alex is referring to his description of the discouraging, offensive,
and uncivilized conduct of some local boys who'd been stealing
apples from his apple tree somewhere in England, and who
generated the most profane insults they knew when he yelled
at them to stop.

> After all, they are the ones that have been responsible for the
> moral education of these young un's. Haven't they done well
> so far !

But the truth is that boys have been doing this to their elders
for thousands of years. In the opening pages of Mark Twain's
"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", he describes
himself, transported somehow back in time, riding into town
on a horse or donkey or something, and being jeered and
pummeled by rocks by the local (9th century) boys. Says he,
"So I had to get down and deal with them just as in my day,
(the 19th century) )", presumably trying to chase or scare
them or something, or to throw rocks back at them.

By and large, I believe that children are *better* behaved today
than when I was a child in the 50s, and that was a lot better than
the stories I heard my father tell of childhood in the tens and
twenties. Take "Trick or Treat", for example.  In the bad old
days, there really was a rather mean Trick that would get played
on anyone who didn't provide the candy-loot that was demanded.
Little kids today scarcely know what the phrase even means.

But I'm speaking of a Californian who can actually remember
at age 7 noticing that the kids were nicer in southern California 
than they had been in small town Nebraska. I think that the
newer the communities, the less corruption overall, and the
better behavior of children. 

(Still, I totally agree with you that such behavior is not acceptable,
and that whatever improvements---including getting their parents
or even the police involved---that might be effective should probably
be undertaken. No reason we can't keep on improving our societies.)

Lee

> Likewise I think the law is flaccid when it comes to this kind of
> behaviour in kids this age. Teachers are no longer allowed to
> deal out discipline and even parents are limited and watched like
> hawks under the guise of 'protecting kids from abuse'....