Yes, kids died back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Other bad stuff happened. Like John Howard our Honourable Gnome, being born. Indonesia invaded Timor and the Whitlam Government of the 70s let him. Korea. Vietnam. My own father having his mates ask him when he returned from the war how many babies he killed, and the effect that fucking war is still having on him. Women got paid half of what men do, when they could get a job at all - right up until the mid-70s, women in the job I do now were expected to quit once they got married. Kids were abused, kids had accidents and died, kids ate lead paint and got brain damage. Kids died from cot death because it wasn't realised putting a baby on its stomach to sleep was a bad thing. I'm not forgetting that for a second. I just thought, "hey, I don't have time for a full, completely-written-by-me LJ entry, and I don't want to clutter things up with Yet Another Survey (TM), and this is kind of amusing because I did most, if not all of this stuff, and I'm amazed I survived without breaking a single bone, let alone with everything else intact. Maybe someone else out there will be amused too." No ulterior motive, no hearkening back to the Good Old Days and insisting we Go Back, Right Now, just amusement at something that hit my inbox from one of my colleagues with more time than they should have on their hands and use of the Forward button.
If I want to seriously comment on the state of the world, you can bet I won't use someone else's words. Maybe I should have put it in italics, to show it was in fact a quote.
The good parts of our past are a good thing, and should be passed on. Children should (and still do!) play outside, swim, run, climb, and be free to do all kinds of things. But not at the expense of the lives of those people who -did- die from things we discovered are harmful.
A happy medium is necessary. Not the ignorance of yesterday, not the over-legislation of today.
I'm the first to agree with you. I'm the last person to call for a return to the benighted attitudes of that period. But I still think you're over-reacting. Yeah, maybe the wording wasn't great, but honestly, mate, it's not a hell of a lot different from someone posting song lyrics because they think they're nifty, or a survey or quiz. I could get offended and upset over some of the personality quizzes people post here, like the one that determines the level of abnormal psychological symptoms one has, because it doesn't take seriously those who actually suffer from psychosis or such. But I don't, because I take them in the spirit they were intended, as amusement. And hey, if I don't want to read them, I don't. It was simply a bit of amusement - nothing more, nothing less.
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Re: The thing is.
Date: 2003-06-03 05:00 pm (UTC)Yes, kids died back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Other bad stuff happened. Like John Howard our Honourable Gnome, being born. Indonesia invaded Timor and the Whitlam Government of the 70s let him. Korea. Vietnam. My own father having his mates ask him when he returned from the war how many babies he killed, and the effect that fucking war is still having on him. Women got paid half of what men do, when they could get a job at all - right up until the mid-70s, women in the job I do now were expected to quit once they got married. Kids were abused, kids had accidents and died, kids ate lead paint and got brain damage. Kids died from cot death because it wasn't realised putting a baby on its stomach to sleep was a bad thing. I'm not forgetting that for a second. I just thought, "hey, I don't have time for a full, completely-written-by-me LJ entry, and I don't want to clutter things up with Yet Another Survey (TM), and this is kind of amusing because I did most, if not all of this stuff, and I'm amazed I survived without breaking a single bone, let alone with everything else intact. Maybe someone else out there will be amused too." No ulterior motive, no hearkening back to the Good Old Days and insisting we Go Back, Right Now, just amusement at something that hit my inbox from one of my colleagues with more time than they should have on their hands and use of the Forward button.
If I want to seriously comment on the state of the world, you can bet I won't use someone else's words. Maybe I should have put it in italics, to show it was in fact a quote.
The good parts of our past are a good thing, and should be passed on. Children should (and still do!) play outside, swim, run, climb, and be free to do all kinds of things. But not at the expense of the lives of those people who -did- die from things we discovered are harmful.
A happy medium is necessary. Not the ignorance of yesterday, not the over-legislation of today.
I'm the first to agree with you. I'm the last person to call for a return to the benighted attitudes of that period. But I still think you're over-reacting. Yeah, maybe the wording wasn't great, but honestly, mate, it's not a hell of a lot different from someone posting song lyrics because they think they're nifty, or a survey or quiz. I could get offended and upset over some of the personality quizzes people post here, like the one that determines the level of abnormal psychological symptoms one has, because it doesn't take seriously those who actually suffer from psychosis or such. But I don't, because I take them in the spirit they were intended, as amusement. And hey, if I don't want to read them, I don't.
It was simply a bit of amusement - nothing more, nothing less.