Hell in a Handbasket?

Question

When I was in first grade, we'd get in trouble for saying "shut up" to each other. No lie.If you said 'hell', it was instant time-out.

I graduated high school last year. First graders now, at my old school, are dropping f-bombs on each other frequently, while the teachers (the SAME teachers) look the other way.

What the hell is going on? This is the crap that makes me think the media, the rap, the video games, are a really, really bad influence.

The rap, I mean, not only for the language, but for the content, and the fact that it's so mainstream now.

Bad parenting + mainstream drugs & misogyny = disrespectful hoodlums.

Answer 1

Well, as one who grew up at a time when you could have prayer in schools and the Bible was read at assembly, and children were encouraged to attend church and obey their parents, we allowed some people like Madelyn Murry Ohare, to take charge and tell us that we were discriminating against others. We let this happen, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Answer 2

You'll get no argument from me.
I also grew up in the days when it was "time-out"
just to say "shut-up!"
Of course, you're quite right about rap: and when
it comes to music, it's not just a bad influence, it's
also what's known as an "oxymoron." (Try saying
that really fast 2,007 times. Its definition? Suffice
it to say it's a conflict of interest--such as, e.g., ...
"government intelligence."
But, as for "all the crap in the media," about all I
can tell you there is "Welcome to the real world."

And as for "going to Hell in a handbasket"-- I've
always kind of liked that expression-- well, that'd
also be a good way of describing a much bigger
pair of problems (which are interrelated): namely,
global warming and littering cities.
It amazes me that people these days are actually
daring to deny that global warming exists. But they
are. (There even those who deny the Holocaust
ever happened.)
And the city where I've lived for more than 25 years
was once beautiful. But, even though the garbage
trucks say on the back, in big black, bold, capital
letters: "DON'T TRASH CALIFORNIA", there is
litter of every sort, everywhere in Los Osos I look!

To coin another common phrase: "Go figure!"