Has anyone really thought about the last few years and what has become of this country? We have been in a war for ten years and nobody even seems to notice. A handful of people I know have seen Restrepo which depicts exactly what the hell is going on in foreign lands, but everyone has seen the Hangover. We forgive Kobe Bryant for sodomizing a girl (read the transcript and he admits it), but we want to lynch anyone who doesn't believe the same religion we do. We make heroes out of womanizers, drug addicts and pedophiles, but chastise people for wanting to omit God from the Pledge of Allegiance. We elect adulterers, but shun homosexuals who want to live in a committed relationship. We live in a constant state of hypocrisy. Has it always been this way? Or have we become this?
A few weeks ago, Osama Bin Laden was killed and America cheered. People actually praised God that he was found and shot. So does that mean that Americans, in general, believe in their own form of Jihad? Don't get me wrong, I cheered also, but for much different reasons. I cheered because in this one instance, we saved our selves tens of millions of dollars in extradition and legal fees. This was a lesser of two evils in this case. I'm also for the death penalty, something my conservative (and liberals) might be surprised to hear. I did not however take joy in a human beings death, simply as revenge. That is what they do in the some middle eastern countries and we call it an abomination. So why not now?
This past week the same sex marriage bill was passed and we praised everyone who saw the light. We praised Grisanti, who for months opposed it vehemently, but then when someone pointed out that his district is 80% liberal, he wavered. Today we praised Hillary Clinton, who in a quote, basically said that she agrees that you can't go against your constituents. Clinton in '16? Fuck her! We praised Obama for finally getting on board. He conveniently waited til he knew the outcome and then spoke up in praise before a gay and lesbian audience. Let's not forget that gays in NY now have rights. In NY and three other states. They do not have federal rights and their rights, even in NY are somewhat limited. It's a step, a wonderful step, but a baby step.
I have friends who I admire and respect both for the people they are and their intelligence, who sit idly by watching things like Jersey Shore and Jerry Springer. They watch every reality show, every vampire story and anything else that shows stupid people in stupid situations. I remember my youth, when shows were viewed because of content, acting and reality TV was called the 11 o'clock news. The only prime time reality show was Battle of the Network Stars and it was hilarious. Then came That's Incredible and we started our decent into idiocy. I'm not saying I don't fall prey. I am a sucker for any cooking competition and I live for travel shows that depict food from across the world. Even our series' have become fodder. I am obsessed with Dexter and I liked the first two seasons of the Sopranos, but would I ever compare them to things like Brideshead Revisited, I Claudius or even Shogun? Never. Back then acting mattered. Even now, when I catch a few minutes of the early Sopranos, you realize how silly the acting is. It's like watching the movie The Warriors. Great as a teenager, but awful acting now. Still entertaining, but in a different way. What changed in us? Is America really in the midst of an intelligence avalanche?
Even our elections have become silly. Two people slandering each other to such a point we find ourselves voting for the lesser of two evils instead of the better man. With all the Internet, with all the fact checking websites, most Americans prove their intelligence by listening to the likes of Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olberman and base their vote, their voice, on somebody elses opinion. It's sad.
I think the thing that really got me and when I knew we had fallen into the abyss was exactly two years ago. Grown men and women, with kids, crying at the death of Michael Jackson. Here was a very talented man. A man of much mystery. One who was as quirky as they come. A man who everyone knew paid a child's parents $25 million to keep quiet about something that happened in his home with their child. Something horrific. A man who admitted giving young children wine and letting them sleep with him. A man who had child pornography on his computer and in his bedroom. If this was the same people's neighbor they'd want him castrated, but he's a celebrity, with talent, so it's OK. People actually cursed at me when I brought these things up. They were so defensive for a man they'd never met, but liked to do laundry while listening to P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing). A mother sticking up for a pedophile. Amazing.
I know people who will donate money to every disease under the sun. Cancer, Diabetes, Lupus, MS, you name it (by the way, I've donated to all in the last two years). Ask them to donate to food banks, hunger prevention or to provide schools with notebooks and writing utensils and they turn a deaf ear. People are starving in our own backyard. These problems have far more dramatic consequences on our society. Crime, sickness, illiteracy, not to mention the increase in unemployment, welfare and in the end the rise of taxes. Although when it comes to that point, then people notice. They blame the guy who is currently in office but never look in the mirror. I'm not talking about handouts to drug addicts, I'm talking about starving children. I once worked on a home for low income residents. It was being built from the ground up and was supposed to be done by mid May. It was a union job and as they often do, the job ran over into the summer. Every day we'd see this family of five in a station wagon. Every day the father would disappear, looking for work and come back at night with food. Week after week this went on until finally someone on the job site offered him a job cleaning up. He was there for over five weeks, with his wife and kids, sleeping in the car during 80 degree nights. Every day he went looking for work, but without the proper clothes and hygiene, he was lost. The great part of the story is that someone finally gave him work and they let he and his family shower in one of the new apartments, but why did it take five weeks? This man would also never accept a handout. Behind his back, his wife would accept something for the kids. That was all. Proud Americans and nobody wanted to help them. I wonder how long they'd have to wait today. That's how it was twenty years ago.
How did we become this way. I look at myself. I grew up with tons of friends of various ethnicities. Now almost everyone is the same. It doesn't feel normal. The funny thing is hearing my neighbors tell me how the neighborhood has gone down hill. I recently asked someone who owns a house how many people they know on their block. There were about twenty houses and they said they knew three families. They've lived there for over twenty years. When I lived on Garth Road I knew every one of my neighbors on my floor, but only knew two or three families in the rest of the building. When I lived in Brooklyn, I knew every one of my neighbors names, I knew their grandparents, their grandchildren, cousins and friends. There were probably 60 houses on my street and I moved when I was 15. If you gave me about a half hour, I could go down the block, one by one and still tell you every single person who lived in every house, sometimes three families to a house. That was a neighborhood. That was America. We all watched Mash. The Muppets, Dallas and Dynasty. The Yankees or The Mets. The Giants or the Jets. The Islanders or the Rangers and the Knicks or the Nets. We watched the Cosmos and cheered Pele and Beckenbauer. We all stayed home with our parents and watched Scared Straight. We had block parties and the entire block built a park out of an abandon lot that is still there today. We were one city block in the middle of Brooklyn. We had every race, religion and sexual orientation and we laughed and cried together. We were what the world was all about. I fear I'll never see that again. Not in my lifetime. That is America...Now!
A few weeks ago, Osama Bin Laden was killed and America cheered. People actually praised God that he was found and shot. So does that mean that Americans, in general, believe in their own form of Jihad? Don't get me wrong, I cheered also, but for much different reasons. I cheered because in this one instance, we saved our selves tens of millions of dollars in extradition and legal fees. This was a lesser of two evils in this case. I'm also for the death penalty, something my conservative (and liberals) might be surprised to hear. I did not however take joy in a human beings death, simply as revenge. That is what they do in the some middle eastern countries and we call it an abomination. So why not now?
This past week the same sex marriage bill was passed and we praised everyone who saw the light. We praised Grisanti, who for months opposed it vehemently, but then when someone pointed out that his district is 80% liberal, he wavered. Today we praised Hillary Clinton, who in a quote, basically said that she agrees that you can't go against your constituents. Clinton in '16? Fuck her! We praised Obama for finally getting on board. He conveniently waited til he knew the outcome and then spoke up in praise before a gay and lesbian audience. Let's not forget that gays in NY now have rights. In NY and three other states. They do not have federal rights and their rights, even in NY are somewhat limited. It's a step, a wonderful step, but a baby step.
I have friends who I admire and respect both for the people they are and their intelligence, who sit idly by watching things like Jersey Shore and Jerry Springer. They watch every reality show, every vampire story and anything else that shows stupid people in stupid situations. I remember my youth, when shows were viewed because of content, acting and reality TV was called the 11 o'clock news. The only prime time reality show was Battle of the Network Stars and it was hilarious. Then came That's Incredible and we started our decent into idiocy. I'm not saying I don't fall prey. I am a sucker for any cooking competition and I live for travel shows that depict food from across the world. Even our series' have become fodder. I am obsessed with Dexter and I liked the first two seasons of the Sopranos, but would I ever compare them to things like Brideshead Revisited, I Claudius or even Shogun? Never. Back then acting mattered. Even now, when I catch a few minutes of the early Sopranos, you realize how silly the acting is. It's like watching the movie The Warriors. Great as a teenager, but awful acting now. Still entertaining, but in a different way. What changed in us? Is America really in the midst of an intelligence avalanche?
Even our elections have become silly. Two people slandering each other to such a point we find ourselves voting for the lesser of two evils instead of the better man. With all the Internet, with all the fact checking websites, most Americans prove their intelligence by listening to the likes of Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olberman and base their vote, their voice, on somebody elses opinion. It's sad.
I think the thing that really got me and when I knew we had fallen into the abyss was exactly two years ago. Grown men and women, with kids, crying at the death of Michael Jackson. Here was a very talented man. A man of much mystery. One who was as quirky as they come. A man who everyone knew paid a child's parents $25 million to keep quiet about something that happened in his home with their child. Something horrific. A man who admitted giving young children wine and letting them sleep with him. A man who had child pornography on his computer and in his bedroom. If this was the same people's neighbor they'd want him castrated, but he's a celebrity, with talent, so it's OK. People actually cursed at me when I brought these things up. They were so defensive for a man they'd never met, but liked to do laundry while listening to P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing). A mother sticking up for a pedophile. Amazing.
I know people who will donate money to every disease under the sun. Cancer, Diabetes, Lupus, MS, you name it (by the way, I've donated to all in the last two years). Ask them to donate to food banks, hunger prevention or to provide schools with notebooks and writing utensils and they turn a deaf ear. People are starving in our own backyard. These problems have far more dramatic consequences on our society. Crime, sickness, illiteracy, not to mention the increase in unemployment, welfare and in the end the rise of taxes. Although when it comes to that point, then people notice. They blame the guy who is currently in office but never look in the mirror. I'm not talking about handouts to drug addicts, I'm talking about starving children. I once worked on a home for low income residents. It was being built from the ground up and was supposed to be done by mid May. It was a union job and as they often do, the job ran over into the summer. Every day we'd see this family of five in a station wagon. Every day the father would disappear, looking for work and come back at night with food. Week after week this went on until finally someone on the job site offered him a job cleaning up. He was there for over five weeks, with his wife and kids, sleeping in the car during 80 degree nights. Every day he went looking for work, but without the proper clothes and hygiene, he was lost. The great part of the story is that someone finally gave him work and they let he and his family shower in one of the new apartments, but why did it take five weeks? This man would also never accept a handout. Behind his back, his wife would accept something for the kids. That was all. Proud Americans and nobody wanted to help them. I wonder how long they'd have to wait today. That's how it was twenty years ago.
How did we become this way. I look at myself. I grew up with tons of friends of various ethnicities. Now almost everyone is the same. It doesn't feel normal. The funny thing is hearing my neighbors tell me how the neighborhood has gone down hill. I recently asked someone who owns a house how many people they know on their block. There were about twenty houses and they said they knew three families. They've lived there for over twenty years. When I lived on Garth Road I knew every one of my neighbors on my floor, but only knew two or three families in the rest of the building. When I lived in Brooklyn, I knew every one of my neighbors names, I knew their grandparents, their grandchildren, cousins and friends. There were probably 60 houses on my street and I moved when I was 15. If you gave me about a half hour, I could go down the block, one by one and still tell you every single person who lived in every house, sometimes three families to a house. That was a neighborhood. That was America. We all watched Mash. The Muppets, Dallas and Dynasty. The Yankees or The Mets. The Giants or the Jets. The Islanders or the Rangers and the Knicks or the Nets. We watched the Cosmos and cheered Pele and Beckenbauer. We all stayed home with our parents and watched Scared Straight. We had block parties and the entire block built a park out of an abandon lot that is still there today. We were one city block in the middle of Brooklyn. We had every race, religion and sexual orientation and we laughed and cried together. We were what the world was all about. I fear I'll never see that again. Not in my lifetime. That is America...Now!
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