Oh The times They are a Changing

We bought a Bob Dillon CD at the weekend - yes folks, we do still pay for music and movies, quaint I know. It's good listening but it also started me thinking how different life is now.

I read the on-line newspapers most days so you can imagine my shock when I clicked on to one of the "overseas" papers only to be confronted by silly schoolgirls baring their boobs.

Why do they do that? are we moving back in time to when girls were so undervalued?  I read an article, probably 15 years ago, about the scantily clad singers of the day. Well, they were quite modest compared to modern standards although I hear there may be a return to the less revealing styles.

Over the years I watched Sally Fields campaign for a tampon machine in the ladies restrooms, Charleze Theron being dumped in pooh, the ladies of the Ford factory striking for equal pay. What do we have now, after all the real effort put in to equality? silly girls who place no value on themselves, eager to do anything to get a boyfriend. Sad.They seem only to aspire to be another fat-ass reality star. As if the world needs any more.

I imagine that's how Madiba feels, years in jail being rewarded by greedy upstarts who think only of themselves.

We watch reruns of That 70's Show. It's good fun and illustrates how turned around modern times are.. Respect for elders, respect for others and respect for self are really high on my agenda and I get really angry when I hear of young girls doing the stuff grungy old porn movies were made of as easily as buying a new tshirt.

Or so I'm told.

We had a big family function recently. Rowland's Mom's 90th Birthday. A sit down lunch for 38. I was immensly proud when one of the guests praised our grandchildren

"I've never seen such well behaved teenagers at a do like this, well done"

"Well done kids, we're always proud of you"

I hope that there are many, many more level headed youngsters than stupid ones like the bare boob girls, our future needs leaders of substance who can live a fun life but still have the sense to think before they act and consider the consequences of their actions. I'm fortunate to know many fine young people, hard working, intelligent, silly sometimes but seemingly honest people, I salute them and hope that the few won't spoil the future for the many so, cover that chest and get on with life - it's well worth living.

Colour Me Disillusioned

Or naive.
I had assumed that the competitors in the Olympics, talented thought they may be, were all amature sportsmen and women. In fact I had bemoned the fact that professional tennis and soccer players were entered, it seemed rather unfair, why not allow the young amatures a chance?
How wrong I am. It seems all the contestants can be classed as professionals, they receive pay for what I had foolishly believed was the honour of representing your country.
This morning on our local radio station the opinion seemed to be that if the cricket and rugby players earn so much, why not the athletes.
My take on that is why do the sportsmen earn so much money to begin with? I consider it shocking that a man is paid upwards of $1 000 000.00 for playing a round of golf and as much as I love Man United really, what outrageous wages.
I understand that coaches are needed to help the young athlete and that coaching may be his bread and butter, what I don't understand is the absurd amount of money it take to raise a swimmer (for example).
Does it, in fact, boil down to  the country with the most money  always being the winner? or the country that directs more of it's resources toward sport?
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see nations direct their spare cash toward sport rather than war but what happened to the glory of wearing the green and gold, the pride in representing your nation, 100 000 British Pounds is a cool bonus but I didn't expect to see such large "prizes" going around.
O.K. I'm off to brush up on my shopping skills, perhaps one day it'll be an Olympic sport.

Guilty as charged

Well, Susan is right, I have fallen off lately and Rowland was the one to point out her blog to me last night. Congratulations Susie, well deserved. Actually, well deserved doesn't quite cut it because Susan's blog is more like a chronicle of her and Jake's life which should surely be printed and put onto the bookshelf. You know I'm not totally into this newfangled cloud storage stuff - what if it rains?
I was going to do a blog last week, "to tweet or not to tweet" but sadly life took over and now it's another 7 days  just gone in a flash.
Where do people find the time to email, blog, tweet, watch UTube, read all their contacts on Linkedin, catch up on Facebook, read (as I do) IOL, Sky News, Perth Now, check the weather report, delete junk mail, read newsletters from various worthy causes - Treehugger, Greenpeace, Avaaz, Hempster, Green Times, Rawlicious, Reiki News - and still get on with the job they're being paid to carry out????
I resolve to be a good blogger, I shall post at least once every ten days and will do my best to do my duty to the blogging community.

Really I will.

But don't expect photos, I'm not in Susan's league :-)