Culture Change ?

As I approach the end of my seventh decade occupying ol’ Mother Earth, sometimes it is hard to judge whether it is my attitudes that have become fixed and unyielding or whether the change I see going on around me, really is a degradation of the culture in which I grew up.

I spent my formative adult years as a member of the U. S. Navy.  Sailors are renowned for having tattoos.  Some of the sailors that I was stationed with had one or two tattoos, mostly on their forearms or upper arms.  A very few had tattoos on their chest or other part of their anatomy.

I never had a desire to partake of that Navy tradition and to this day, I have no tattoos, piercings nor body art of any kind.  Unostentatious, the only jewelry I wear is a wedding ring.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Tattoos.  Whenever I go shopping, when I go to the Mall, when I go anywhere,  I see dozens of people, male and female, with tattoos.  Mostly with multiple tattoos.

I wonder, is it a generational thing? 

Am I just out of step?

 Am I not keeping up with progress?

I was a teen when Elvis came out.  Rock ‘n Roll was just starting up.  The adults were afraid ‘us kids’ were leading the nation on a path to ruin.

Is raising questions about tattoos more of that same old thinking?  Or is it an example of our society, the pre-eminent and powerful United States of America, losing its way and sliding to second class status?

Is it me, or has our country fundamentally changed?

Great News from Marc Ambinder! Evidence Obtained Via Torture May Be Usable After All!

Wow, Marc Ambinder is really hitting ’em today. First, he tells Josh Marshall that it’s “not terribly germane” to distinguish between Republicans screaming at speakers inside meetings, disrupting them, issuing death threats, etc.; and Democrats protesting Social Security “reform” outside of meeting places.

Huffington Post Blows It With Snarky Clinton Headline

Yesterday, The Huffington Post chose to frame the safe return home of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee with the headline “Bill Upstages Hillary … Once Again.” In huge 24-point type. Today, Taylor Marsh slammed them for it (itals in original):

Being Right Means Never Having To Say You’re Wrong

Attaturk on the right’s inability to admit being wrong about anything: “You can never say, ‘Y’know, that’s a good point, maybe I’m wrong.’ ”

And so it is with The Village and [its] attitudes toward the teapartiers and ending civil discourse by screaming over it, an Orange Pekoe Putsch. After all, as Marc Ambinder reflexively said, “it’s just like the liberals when Bush tried to reform social security”.

Well, no. When Josh Marshall reminded Ambinder that the protest over social security “reform” did not involve actually screaming at meetings to ruin them, threatening representatives with physical violence including assassination, and generalized douchebaggery, the response was telling:

Democrats may have used different tactics — protesting outside of places as opposed to inside of them — but that’s not terribly germane.

Well, aside from that being the entire point of what Marshall just said, and that it completely contradicts your original argument, you’re right Marc, it is not terribly germane, to you.