A Disappointed (Cranky, You Say?) Old Man Comments on News and Other Affairs

When I first established this blog several years ago, I had in mind to write about selected news items and the absurdities of modern American life from the viewpoint of someone born in a different era (the early 1950s), and most certainly in a different America.

Life was simple in those days, if only because choices were fewer. Most families were lucky if they could tune in to four television channels. "Ma Bell" (AT&T) was the sole telephone provider. Without computers and the Internet, kids played with Spalding and Wilson sports equipment, rode Schwinn bicycles, played tag or hide & seek, or simply relied on their imaginations. Policemen, teachers, priests, and adults generally were treated with respect; children were actually expected to say "Please" and Thank you." I spent my entire early childhood growing up in suburbs, playing outdoors with my neighborhood friends well outside the purview of our parents (even in the local wooded areas and undeveloped fields -- unthinkable now to parents who have been conditioned believe that horror lies around every corner.

Yet it's also true that life in the 1950s was not nirvana, but when in human history has that ever been the case? Yes, women had far fewer of the equal rights they deserved, and minorities -- especially African-Americans, had even fewer. Not to mention gay men and women; they had yet to even make it to the closet from which they later emerged. McCarthyism was rampant, innocent people were blacklisted, and J. Edgar Hoover was spying illegally on American citizens. The skies over Pittsburgh and Gary, Indiana were as polluted as Chinese cities are today, the waters of the Cuyahoga and several other American rivers could actually catch fire, and oil and water were accepted as illimitable natural resources. Sexual mores were downright Puritanical, popular music was mired in sweet melodies and antiseptic lyrics, and women were said to attend college with the objective of obtaining an Mrs. degree.

Times have most certainly changed, and life (and recognition of basic human and civil rights) has improved for many. Nevertheless, the trajectory of American history's arrow is decidedly mixed and trending downward, the result of many factors: the catch-up game being played out in Europe and other parts of the developed (and developing) world; steady loosening of standards of behavior; increasingly militant theocracy among some Christian groups; loss of respect for institutions; computer and communications technology; 24/7, hyper-sensationalizing media; a major political party no longer interested in governing except on their own terms, willing to harm the citizenry's welfare rather than accept any form of compromise; the inexplicable elevation of faith and opinion over science and analysis; a society in which the first step on the achievement ladder is to grab the Warholian fifteen minutes of fame, deserved or not; cheapening of the word "hero"; and elevation of the notion among individuals that their personal opinions and beliefs are paramount, more valid and important than those of the group. To name a few of the factors.

So here I am, recently turned 63, speaking in this post to no one and everyone simultaneously, and hoping that the disappointed, frustrated, infuriated, and even cranky musings of a reasonably well-read and well-educated "young elder" might offer some wide-ranging perspective on the absurdities of current affairs and twentieth-first-century life.