OT - Fireworks?
hopitus wrote: On Jul 2, 4:18 pm, wrote: "EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote: Lesley wrote: In the end they almost wanted to come back and hire me as a tour guide.... but after all the things I told them when I mentioned the Minnie Lansbury clock they asked "Is she related to Angela Lansbury" (Sort of Minnie was her grandfathers first wife when the clock needed work done she put 5K or so into the fund) and shot off to take photos ....And then we wonder why American tourists have a bad reputation in Europe! At least, in the UK they are justified in expecting the natives to speak English. (One of the prime complaints against us in other countries.) I don't understand. What did she say that was objectionable? I mean, she was on the right track, wasn't she? Minnie *did* have a connection with Angela, if not by blood, then by marriage, so how was this an example of being an obnoxious tourist? Joyce You are right; she did NOT say anything objectionable. What I believe Lesley was LOL pointing out was not a big deal of Merkin tourists being "obnoxious" but simply pointing out that as tourists out of USA , they have the attention span of a gnat when someone *they ask* on the street (a stranger, if you will) tries to inform them of the answer to their historical question......they run off to shoot photos of the local sights . Kinda airhead behavior but not obnoxious, just thoughtless. Feel free to disagree with my interpretation. Yeah, that was more-or-less what I meant (although some people carry that rudeness to extremes). |
OT - Fireworks?
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OT - Fireworks?
On 4/07/2011 1:03 AM, CatNipped wrote:
wrote in message ... On 3/07/2011 8:47 AM, CatNipped wrote: I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place of such history - any longer than a couple of centuries' worth. You, like I, live in a country with many thousands of years of human history. Its just not Western history. Yowie Got me there! ; And it's more an oral history than a written one. And seeing that I'm part native American I shouldn't have made that gaff to being with!shame faced You are a smart chickadee - how about finding out more about that NA part of yourself? Yowie |
OT - Fireworks?
On 7/3/2011 7:47 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:
Yowie wrote: On 3/07/2011 3:32 AM, CatNipped wrote: LOL! Your post sent me back to a childhood of playgrounds set in concrete. Bones had to be sticking out of skin before anyone was sissy enough to go home crying to mom when we fell off the top of the monkey bars or "tightrope walking" on the top of the extra tall swing set - not to mention trying to get the swing to go completely around in a circle and more often than not banging into the steel posts instead. Then there was the ever popular child's game of "Lawn Darts" where children stood on opposite sides of the lawn and threw very large steel spikes at the target at one child's feet - can't tell you how many times I had to pull a dart out of my leg. There were public pools that kids could attend alone at any age, dive off the high dive 25 - 30 feet above the deep end of the pool, and drown if the lone "lifeguard" happened to be flirting with a pretty girl at the time. Not to mention being basically kicked out of the front door with a backpack of sandwiches at first light and not allowed to come back (even had we wanted) until after dark. I lived next to a large copse of wild woods with many wild animals, such as nutria (think rats on steroids - they could take on a large dog and win). there were streams to cross on a fallen log, trees to climb to serious heights, ropes strung across the trees to swing on like Tarzan or make a rope bridge. To build tree houses we had to "borrow" from our garages machetes, axes, hammers, ten-penny nails. saws, etc. - all of which we were never taught how to safely use - we either figured it out or lost a piece of finger. Any less serious injury was treated with spit and a mud pack (it's amazing how few infections we had - I guess we built immunities pretty quickly). I sometimes think that we were still practicing "evolution in action" in those times. Anyone smart enough to live through a childhood like that had the privilege to grow up to marry and contribute to the gene pool. I walk past the playgrounds of today, with their moss and wood chip ground cover - nothing high, nothing steel, everything a very light plastic, no monkey bars, no see-saws and more often than not totally deserted (how could kids possibly have fun on those unthrilling, vanilla "toys"). And children have to be accompanied by parents, they're not allowed to venture anywhere on their own now-a-days (even if they should desire a few minutes away from their Nintendos and WIIs). It's all pretty sad really. And I'm sure it's why so *MANY* of our children in the US are seriously overweight and having *HEART ATTACKS* in their *TEENS*!!! That was unheard of when I was young. There was maybe one poor child in the whole school whose single mother coddled into overweight and that poor child was teased and hounded to misery (there weren't any awareness programs about the damage this did). I can say, righteously, that I was not a teaser - having lost my dad at age 4 and being brighter than my peers caused me enough teasing and grief from my peers that I could empathize all too well. Most of that is due to the culture of suing if a child gets hurt. If local councils choose to put in play areas for children, they have to be as safe as possible and have signs all around saying that children have to be supervised at all times and that any use is solely at the user's risk. Combined with the general culture that sees 'outside' as a big scary place and that 'unsupervised' children are 'neglected', and you have an indoor culture. According to current wisdom over here, children should not be left unsupervised for any length of time until they are at least 12. I was walking to and from school which was just under a mile each way by the time I was 7. Sometimes I walked with friends, but often I walked alone. I knew how to cross a road, and not to talk to strangers /unless it was an emergency/. I knew how to dial emergency on a public phone, and knew my next door neighbour's phone number (we didn't have a phone) if something happened and needed to contact my parents. I fell over and grazed verious bits of me more times than I could coung, got sunburnt, got beat up by a boy I liked once, and was even approached by a stranger once (I don't know if he was dangerous or just 'not right in the head' - I ran home). I went to the shops for Mum to pick up milk and bread and like you had the kicked-out-in-the-morning, be-home-by-dusk curfew. WOuldn't, and couldn't, happen now though - that would be considered neglect. Unless crime in Australia has lagged behind the U.S., it's not a question of "neglect", it just isn't SAFE! (When I was a kid, little boys were never seen in the ladies' lav in department stores, either, but nowadays it's not really safe to let them use the mens' with no attendant parent or companion.) Is it more common, or do we just hear more about the cases that do happen? Or do we have a mistaken notion of 'safe'? Nothing in life is 100% safe. There has probably been sexual activity in public toilets back before any of us were born; there was certainly abuse of children whispered about in the idyllic small town I grew up in. I knew women who were sexually assaulted as very young girls - a good 40 years ago now. But it was never mentioned on the radio or in the newspapers (later on TV) for fear of stigmatizing and further harming the child victim. We were taught not to talk to strangers (ironic when most abuse is by a family member or close family friend), to talk to someone we trusted if 'anything' happened etc - but we were still permitted to play and walk outside. It wasn't 100% safe, but we didn't expect it to be. And I'm not sure that today it's any less safe - assuming you don't live in a street with street-level drug dealers living down the road. I'm not at all sure that the modern approach - encouraging children to be afraid instead of teaching them to manage their fears and avoid common dangers - is an improvement. -- Cheryl |
OT - Fireworks?
On 3/07/2011 11:38 PM, Lesley wrote:
On Jul 3, 6:05 am, wrote: Would you Adam and Eve it? I would have never believed you were a cockney me old china Australian slang is full of rhyming slang, perhaps because Australian slang is mostly a descendant of the working class dialects of the UK & Ireland. Yowie |
OT - Fireworks?
On Jul 3, 4:33*pm, Yowie wrote:
On 4/07/2011 1:03 AM, CatNipped wrote: *wrote in message ... On 3/07/2011 8:47 AM, CatNipped wrote: I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place of such history - any longer than a couple of centuries' worth. You, like I, live in a country with many thousands of years of human history. Its just not Western history. Yowie Got me there! *; * And it's more an oral history than a written one. *And seeing that I'm part native American I shouldn't have made that gaff to being with!shame faced You are a smart chickadee - how about finding out more about that NA part of yourself? Yowie I can see that neither Lori nor Evelyn have clubbed in any raves lately. There are some up-to-the-minute stuff you just can't google up the right answer to, LOL. Did you get rid of your lurge, Yowie? |
OT - Fireworks?
"Yowie" wrote in message
... On 3/07/2011 8:47 AM, CatNipped wrote: I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place of such history - any longer than a couple of centuries' worth. You, like I, live in a country with many thousands of years of human history. Its just not Western history. Yowie Actually, your human history goes back much further than ours, as far as anyone knows so far. The Aboriginal people of Australia are by far the oldest group of people known on earth. Joy |
OT - Fireworks?
"Lesley" wrote in message
... On Jul 2, 5:16 pm, hopitus wrote: .. Am I the last remaining reader of newspapers? Would like to think not. Far from it- I read the 2 free papers every working day then I also buy a couple of national papers (depending on what gets my attention) most working days and also buy my local paper and sometimes weekend papers (although I loathe those supplements and the fact I have to pay extra for them I always hand them to the newsagent and say "Got a bin behind there? If I wanted a glossy magazine I would have brought one") Dave reads them online Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furball *** I subscribe to two local daily papers and read them while I eat my breakfast. I also get, and read, a free weekly one. Joy |
OT - Fireworks?
"Cheryl" wrote in message
... On 7/3/2011 7:47 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote: Yowie wrote: On 3/07/2011 3:32 AM, CatNipped wrote: LOL! Your post sent me back to a childhood of playgrounds set in concrete. Bones had to be sticking out of skin before anyone was sissy enough to go home crying to mom when we fell off the top of the monkey bars or "tightrope walking" on the top of the extra tall swing set - not to mention trying to get the swing to go completely around in a circle and more often than not banging into the steel posts instead. Then there was the ever popular child's game of "Lawn Darts" where children stood on opposite sides of the lawn and threw very large steel spikes at the target at one child's feet - can't tell you how many times I had to pull a dart out of my leg. There were public pools that kids could attend alone at any age, dive off the high dive 25 - 30 feet above the deep end of the pool, and drown if the lone "lifeguard" happened to be flirting with a pretty girl at the time. Not to mention being basically kicked out of the front door with a backpack of sandwiches at first light and not allowed to come back (even had we wanted) until after dark. I lived next to a large copse of wild woods with many wild animals, such as nutria (think rats on steroids - they could take on a large dog and win). there were streams to cross on a fallen log, trees to climb to serious heights, ropes strung across the trees to swing on like Tarzan or make a rope bridge. To build tree houses we had to "borrow" from our garages machetes, axes, hammers, ten-penny nails. saws, etc. - all of which we were never taught how to safely use - we either figured it out or lost a piece of finger. Any less serious injury was treated with spit and a mud pack (it's amazing how few infections we had - I guess we built immunities pretty quickly). I sometimes think that we were still practicing "evolution in action" in those times. Anyone smart enough to live through a childhood like that had the privilege to grow up to marry and contribute to the gene pool. I walk past the playgrounds of today, with their moss and wood chip ground cover - nothing high, nothing steel, everything a very light plastic, no monkey bars, no see-saws and more often than not totally deserted (how could kids possibly have fun on those unthrilling, vanilla "toys"). And children have to be accompanied by parents, they're not allowed to venture anywhere on their own now-a-days (even if they should desire a few minutes away from their Nintendos and WIIs). It's all pretty sad really. And I'm sure it's why so *MANY* of our children in the US are seriously overweight and having *HEART ATTACKS* in their *TEENS*!!! That was unheard of when I was young. There was maybe one poor child in the whole school whose single mother coddled into overweight and that poor child was teased and hounded to misery (there weren't any awareness programs about the damage this did). I can say, righteously, that I was not a teaser - having lost my dad at age 4 and being brighter than my peers caused me enough teasing and grief from my peers that I could empathize all too well. Most of that is due to the culture of suing if a child gets hurt. If local councils choose to put in play areas for children, they have to be as safe as possible and have signs all around saying that children have to be supervised at all times and that any use is solely at the user's risk. Combined with the general culture that sees 'outside' as a big scary place and that 'unsupervised' children are 'neglected', and you have an indoor culture. According to current wisdom over here, children should not be left unsupervised for any length of time until they are at least 12. I was walking to and from school which was just under a mile each way by the time I was 7. Sometimes I walked with friends, but often I walked alone. I knew how to cross a road, and not to talk to strangers /unless it was an emergency/. I knew how to dial emergency on a public phone, and knew my next door neighbour's phone number (we didn't have a phone) if something happened and needed to contact my parents. I fell over and grazed verious bits of me more times than I could coung, got sunburnt, got beat up by a boy I liked once, and was even approached by a stranger once (I don't know if he was dangerous or just 'not right in the head' - I ran home). I went to the shops for Mum to pick up milk and bread and like you had the kicked-out-in-the-morning, be-home-by-dusk curfew. WOuldn't, and couldn't, happen now though - that would be considered neglect. Unless crime in Australia has lagged behind the U.S., it's not a question of "neglect", it just isn't SAFE! (When I was a kid, little boys were never seen in the ladies' lav in department stores, either, but nowadays it's not really safe to let them use the mens' with no attendant parent or companion.) Is it more common, or do we just hear more about the cases that do happen? Or do we have a mistaken notion of 'safe'? Nothing in life is 100% safe. There has probably been sexual activity in public toilets back before any of us were born; there was certainly abuse of children whispered about in the idyllic small town I grew up in. I knew women who were sexually assaulted as very young girls - a good 40 years ago now. But it was never mentioned on the radio or in the newspapers (later on TV) for fear of stigmatizing and further harming the child victim. We were taught not to talk to strangers (ironic when most abuse is by a family member or close family friend), to talk to someone we trusted if 'anything' happened etc - but we were still permitted to play and walk outside. It wasn't 100% safe, but we didn't expect it to be. And I'm not sure that today it's any less safe - assuming you don't live in a street with street-level drug dealers living down the road. I'm not at all sure that the modern approach - encouraging children to be afraid instead of teaching them to manage their fears and avoid common dangers - is an improvement. -- Cheryl There are a lot more people now, so most likely there are more such incidents. Also, as you say, more of them are known than were in the past. I'm opposed to teaching children to be afraid. OTOH, I think it's common sense for children (and adults, for that matter) to be aware of their surroundings and to take sensible precautions. Joy |
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