They can fire those things off easy as can be.
ME: Then maybe I’ll have to come up with my own letter combinations.
DONNA: Nobody will know what they mean.
ME: Sure they will. It will be determined by the context.
DONNA: I see what you’re saying. For example, you could sign all your tweets DOM for dirty old man.
ME: Hah-hah. And you’d be DOW.
DONNA: Hey, I resent that. I’d be DYW, dirty young woman.
ME: All right, I’ll give you that one. I’ve got another idea. Maybe we should sign-off to each other every night over Twitter. That might spark some interest. I could say something like, “@Donna_Carrick Tweet Dreams, Tweetheart!”
DONNA: Now you’re sounding like Humphrey Bogart, with an even worse lisp than usual.
ME: That would be okay with me. Remember The African Queen . At the end of the film, Bogart and Katharine Hepburn are facing a hanging by the captain of the German boat, but Bogart talks him into marrying them first. Hepburn’s face lights up and she adjusts her hair. It’s one of the great scenes in all of the movies.
DONNA: Simply fabulous. He was a real DOM in that movie. Mostly unshaven and hitting the bottle. Remember the leeches? Yech! But she straightened him out.
ME: We need to be cute in a similar way.
DONNA: It’s going to be hard when all of your tweets should end TTIB.
ME: TTIB?
DONNA: Remember the context. TTIB – this tweet is boring.
ME (after a second or two) : Okay, you can just KYCTY.
DONNA: I’ll bite. What’s that mean?
ME: It should be obvious. Keep your comments to yourself.
DONNA: Nite dear. It’s been a tweet talking with you.
ME (in a pretend sour mood) : Likewise, I’m sure.
No Problem, Excuse Me and the Limits of Civility
September 26, 2009
A spate of public rudeness lately has raised the question of how society has come to this sorry pass. Kanye West in the world of hip hop, Serena Williams in tennis and Joe Wilson in Washington’s political hot house all stepped over the traditional bounds of civility in the past week. What are the trends that have taken us in this misdirection?
Upon first reflection, I blamed Omarosa. She was the one who was most unbearable in the opening season of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”. Unfortunately, it must be admitted her wigged-out activities went a long way towards making the show a hit. We couldn’t take our eyes off her “train wreck”, whether we liked to admit it or not. Because bad behaviour pays, Omarosa has gone on to have a rewarding career.
But the history of behaving badly goes back much further. How about blaming running shoes? It was the “sneaker” companies and their ads – for example, “Just Do It” by Nike – that stressed attitude above all else. Politeness gets short shrift when “in your face” is the new mantra. Attitude has certainly been one artillery piece in the war to break down society’s norms and standards. But there are more, based on popular culture.
Maybe it was the movie Animal House . It started a whole trend whereby stupidity, crass actions and the graceless came to be glorified by America’s youth. The problem is the movie was really funny. And again, it paid off for its producers. Who doesn’t want to have a toga party? But the long-term consequences, well that’s another matter.
Outrageous behaviour in professional sports has been around forever. In tennis, it reached its apogee when Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe perfected their attention-grabbing and baby-gets-his-way performances. Now, some of the women players are getting in on the act as well. In the early days of golf championships, a tournament wasn’t complete until Tommy Bolt threw one or maybe all of his clubs into a pond in a fit of rage.
Awareness of anger in political forums has been on the rise due to news broadcasts of fisticuffs in far-away Parliaments. Going way back, when
ME: Then maybe I’ll have to come up with my own letter combinations.
DONNA: Nobody will know what they mean.
ME: Sure they will. It will be determined by the context.
DONNA: I see what you’re saying. For example, you could sign all your tweets DOM for dirty old man.
ME: Hah-hah. And you’d be DOW.
DONNA: Hey, I resent that. I’d be DYW, dirty young woman.
ME: All right, I’ll give you that one. I’ve got another idea. Maybe we should sign-off to each other every night over Twitter. That might spark some interest. I could say something like, “@Donna_Carrick Tweet Dreams, Tweetheart!”
DONNA: Now you’re sounding like Humphrey Bogart, with an even worse lisp than usual.
ME: That would be okay with me. Remember The African Queen . At the end of the film, Bogart and Katharine Hepburn are facing a hanging by the captain of the German boat, but Bogart talks him into marrying them first. Hepburn’s face lights up and she adjusts her hair. It’s one of the great scenes in all of the movies.
DONNA: Simply fabulous. He was a real DOM in that movie. Mostly unshaven and hitting the bottle. Remember the leeches? Yech! But she straightened him out.
ME: We need to be cute in a similar way.
DONNA: It’s going to be hard when all of your tweets should end TTIB.
ME: TTIB?
DONNA: Remember the context. TTIB – this tweet is boring.
ME (after a second or two) : Okay, you can just KYCTY.
DONNA: I’ll bite. What’s that mean?
ME: It should be obvious. Keep your comments to yourself.
DONNA: Nite dear. It’s been a tweet talking with you.
ME (in a pretend sour mood) : Likewise, I’m sure.
No Problem, Excuse Me and the Limits of Civility
September 26, 2009
A spate of public rudeness lately has raised the question of how society has come to this sorry pass. Kanye West in the world of hip hop, Serena Williams in tennis and Joe Wilson in Washington’s political hot house all stepped over the traditional bounds of civility in the past week. What are the trends that have taken us in this misdirection?
Upon first reflection, I blamed Omarosa. She was the one who was most unbearable in the opening season of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”. Unfortunately, it must be admitted her wigged-out activities went a long way towards making the show a hit. We couldn’t take our eyes off her “train wreck”, whether we liked to admit it or not. Because bad behaviour pays, Omarosa has gone on to have a rewarding career.
But the history of behaving badly goes back much further. How about blaming running shoes? It was the “sneaker” companies and their ads – for example, “Just Do It” by Nike – that stressed attitude above all else. Politeness gets short shrift when “in your face” is the new mantra. Attitude has certainly been one artillery piece in the war to break down society’s norms and standards. But there are more, based on popular culture.
Maybe it was the movie Animal House . It started a whole trend whereby stupidity, crass actions and the graceless came to be glorified by America’s youth. The problem is the movie was really funny. And again, it paid off for its producers. Who doesn’t want to have a toga party? But the long-term consequences, well that’s another matter.
Outrageous behaviour in professional sports has been around forever. In tennis, it reached its apogee when Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe perfected their attention-grabbing and baby-gets-his-way performances. Now, some of the women players are getting in on the act as well. In the early days of golf championships, a tournament wasn’t complete until Tommy Bolt threw one or maybe all of his clubs into a pond in a fit of rage.
Awareness of anger in political forums has been on the rise due to news broadcasts of fisticuffs in far-away Parliaments. Going way back, when
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