I see no reason to insult half the world’s population by calling their genitalia ugly and comparing it to offal which, in case some readers are unaware, according to my dictionary is “waste or rejected parts, especially of a carcas”. Yes, very kind of you.

I can imagine how you and those of your ilk would be outraged if I compared female genitalia to half a pound of stinking, chopped liver!

But let’s address the ‘issue’ with which you are so concerned.

So I’m talking about such things as unwarranted violence on our streets, species becoming extinct through our doing, and global warming crucifying the entire planet…

And you’re picking me up on my vocabulary. Yeah, like that’s the issue we should all be talking about!

So is modifying our language is going to save the planet! Is it top of the Kyoto protocol?

I write about issues. REAL issues. Issues that truly matter. Like conservation, human rights, poverty, hunger, environmentalism. I write about these subjects in common English for the common man. I do NOT have any sort of political or extremist agenda.

As such, I will NEVER clutter my work with cumbersome abominations like ’s/he’ when the accepted form, ‘he’, will be understood by everyone.

Likewise, I will NEVER degrade our beautiful English language by using utterly ridiculous and utterly non-sensical terms like ‘herstory’ when I mean ‘history’.

I write for the man in the street. Everyone understands my worrk Everyone understands my passion. Everyone understands my good intentions. Even you.

If you can’t see your ridiculous comment is damaging by clouding the true issues here - poverty, violence, global warming, etc - then there is little hope that anything worthwhile will ever move you.

I will not bow down to the demands of an extremist minority.

Steve

This phrase may have penetrated so deeply into the US mentality that it has become “normal” and “meaningless” to you, but it rankles deeply with me, and with many other women too, I imagine.

I will not have courage defined as the sole preserve of testosterone possessors, in terms employed by Mafiosi, Mexican bandidos and African-American thug-rappers!

And actually, I’d rather NOT have balls - they, and their accompanying pricks, are ugly bits of offal.

I enjoyed this blog very much, thought provoking.

I thought of how much I enjoy giving a gentle smile to most people I make eye contact with as I go about the day. Just a simple genuine smile. 90 percent do not smile back. It seems to make them uncomfortable to share something as simple as a smile. But who knows, maybe for the other 10 percent, it makes a tiny difference. It makes ME feel good when someone smiles at me, whether it’s a baby in a stroller, or the 90+ year old man I see regularly at the post office gathering cans and plastic.

That was just one of many things your post brought to mind.

This song came to mind as well, as I heard it on my home last night:

“She calls out to the man on the street
sir, can you help me?
Its cold and Ive nowhere to sleep,
Is there somewhere you can tell me?

He walks on, doesnt look back
He pretends he cant hear her
Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there

Oh think twice, its another day for
You and me in paradise
Oh think twice, its just another day for you,
You and me in paradise

She calls out to the man on the street
He can see shes been crying
Shes got blisters on the soles of her feet
Cant walk but shes trying

Oh think twice…

Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do
Oh lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell from the lines on her face
You can see that shes been there
Probably been moved on from every place
cos she didnt fit in there

Oh think twice…”

-Phil Collins

Anyway, I think I’m off topic somewhat, but it does seem as though we live in an increasingly disposable, fearful, unhappy world.

Just thinking out loud…

~Lynn B.

I too am appalled at the lack of ‘values’ in today’s society. I am disheartened, disparaged and deeply distressed at the lack of respect, empathy and common courtesy that most human beings now exercise toward one another and towards everything else in general.

I must contend that I did not receive my ‘values’ through religious teachings, I received them through parents and grandparents…and great grandparents. None of which were devout churchgoers. My family is (or was, now, as most are deceased) a mix of many religions of which none are/were devoutly practised. The values those religions instilled, however, WERE practised on a daily basis. Not the dogma but the essence! They knew right from wrong and they in turn taught me right from wrong. They also taught me to let my conscience be my guide.

I was also raised with a lot more discipline than what is seen today in children or in grown adults. My father was in the Marine Corps for 30 years. I was born ‘into’ the Corp so to speak…and I was the son my father never had. That is a whole other topic I won’t bore you or other posters with. Sufice it to say that I was instilled with self-discipline, respect for elders, common courtesy towards all and a healthy dose of personal responsibility. Ethics and values were not ‘disposable’ .

So, one may wonder just where or when our ethics and values broke down and became disposable? There are a lot of factors involved. One of which, I believe, is political correctness…on steroids. One has to weigh just about every thought and word one utters to avoid offending anyone or face ridicule, condemnation and character assassination. When a person cannot say what one means..that is political correctness on steroids. And we let that happen.

We now fear to correct our children or we might be turned into CPS for having ’spanked’ our child or spoken harshly to that child–turned in by the child themselves or by a neighbor or another family member. So children go undisciplined. And we let that happen.

We now work more for less so we can spend more that we don’t have. We do this because we are ‘programmed’ morning, noon and night by our Corporations, by our government and by our media through our TV’s, satellite dishes, computer screens, radios and magazines. So, both parents work at jobs they don’t enjoy for less money than they are worth and for longer hours. When they manage to get home they no longer have it in them to deal with private life and their children. They no longer know or care what their children are doing or who they are associating with. Children are now raised by the corporations and the government. AND WE LET THAT HAPPEN.

When I say ‘we’ I mean ALL of us as a society. We as individuals have let ourselves down and have subsequently let our next generation down and so on and so forth. All because ‘we’ as individuals and as a society have bought into the ‘need, need, need, want, want, want’ mentality that our overlords have systematically drilled into us for DECADES. They have done their work well.

Some of us though, remember how it was ‘back in the day’. Some of us still practice what we were taught. We pay the price for it everyday in both subtle and not so subtle ways. And some of us get so worn down by these pressures that we turn away or give up and then give in and stop caring for ourselves and our fellow man. And we let that happen.

Nowadays we are the few. But we are still here. We still ‘fight the good fight’ and stay true to our principles, ethics, values and our own morality. It all comes down to choice. We can choose to be ethical, just and compassionate towards all living things or we can choose to be self-absorbed, hateful, callous, vindictive, amoral, deceitful, greedy, souless beings. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. And so it goes with values, morality and ethics.

As for myself, personally, I view nothing as ‘disposable’. Not things, not people, not animals, not land. Nothing is disposable.

T

While these have become “useless” in most people’s eyes, they are, in fact, the answer to reversing many problems, including stopping the deterioration in our public education system.

http://setourteachersfree.com/education_news/education/

This is a simple explanation how teaching values WORKS to help achieve SUCCESS!

Thank you for writing on this topic,
Brennan Kingsland
http://setourteachersfree.com

Fae - thanks and don’t worry, I will be posting about waste and plastic!

Candee - thanks for the support and a valuable contribution. Glad to hear you take parenting so responsibly. A pity more parents don’t follow your lead.

*C* - thanks for the laugh. I hope you’ll be back, too.

Steve

I had no problem with the phrase.
Anyone who knows me, also knows that, while entirely feminine/feminist, I have more balls than most men I know!
*laugh*

*C*