As a resident 'old person', sometimes the changes in our society alarm me. They seem to come from all directions, and a lot of them are not necessarily good. If you want to look at where some of our culture has gone consider that Annette Funicello was a mouseketeer in the late 1950's and Britney Spears was a mouseketeer in the 1990's. The contrast between the two is obvious.
One of the other areas that has changed drastically is political civility. Ronald Reagan used to spend time with Tip O'Neill routinely after hours, and the men reportedly got along very well despite their political differences. Things, unfortunately, have changed. New York's CBS 2 reported yesterday on a memo that went out from the leader of the Bergen County (NJ) Teacher's Union. The memo was rather simple.
In the memo, the writer stated:
"Dear lord,' this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor."
The author of the memo, Joseph Coppola, did apologize for the memo. He said that it was intended as a joke, but did admit that it was in very poor taste. He also stated that it was definitely bad judgment to send it out.
This isn't even a question of civility--it's a question of common sense and who people trust to be in leadership positions. This is the sort of thing high school students occasionally say about their teachers (but only to each other), and they don't write them down or email them. Mr. Coppola should be long past that level of maturity. The union might want to consider who they elect as their leaders.
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