That elusive middle ground is hard to negotiate sometimes!
That elusive middle ground is hard to negotiate sometimes!
I think my post may have triggered Lenco. I can see the emotion start to kick in when my reference to school took him back to his school days, so you can thank Nora Big Gob. I'll take some responsibility here, for sure. I know school's a trigger for him (as it is with me), I just wasn't thinking when I posted...
A thought is harmless unless we believe it.
I don't think so, Nora. I don't think you should take any of the "blame". We all have triggers regardless of diagnosis.
Nora, it really isn't you. I know that you empathise with him, but he's a grown man and he has to bear some degree of responsibility.
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Sometimes, it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. - Terry Pratchett
I've just thought of another couple of things that I forgot to add to this list earlier this year.
Food poisoning, especially Salmonella (late 80s-90s).
MRSA (2000s). Highly politicised at the time, especially by those on the Right.
And before I get shot down in flames by certain individuals on here it's hardly 'crime of the century' to talk about these things.
I’m very interested in discussing what your referring to -maybe not talk with ‘normies’ about any of this stuff - as Im sure your aware it’s all being talked about on YouTube & on peoples own websites who also have an interest in what would probably be considered ‘conspiracy’
My above list isn't necessarily all what one might consider 'conspiracy theories' though as they seemed to be genuine causes for concern by many at the 'height' of their extensive media coverage and everyday conversation, even though they were sometimes exaggerated/sensationalised by the media on occasions, where they sometimes in turn became 'self-fulfilling prophecies'.
But then again, most things generally move on.
I still can't stop wondering as to whether or not MRSA is still a thing, which I'm sure it still is in some form or another.
Not that I'm necessarily scared of catching it myself, but it's just interesting that during much of the 2000s (especially pre-GFC) it was frequently a hot politicised topic but almost never mentioned in the media nowadays.
But the real irony is that so far guring the post-2000s era the NHS and the like have been faced with seemingly relentless cutbacks which could very well lead to bugs and viruses like MRSA and various others proliferating all the more in places like hospitals, etc, especially as cleaning staff are even harder to come by now than back then, both due to lack of such people willing to do such jobs and due to funds in general being tighter now than ever before.
I mean, look at the recent Covid pandemic and all the chaos that unleashed on our already struggling NHS, but for some strange reason (and for better or worse) the MRSA 'superbug' that the media and various Right-wing politicians were constantly putting the fear of God into us over some 20 years ago (and often treated as one of the 'Covids' of the time) barely ever seems to get a look in today.
BTW, MRSA was one of the things that finished off my maternal grandmother in November 2000 after being confined to hospital since around June or July of that same year with seemingly nowhere else to go at the time (e.g, a care home), but I also put it down to multiple elements of bad luck, such as the proverbial 'wrong place(s) at the wrong time(s)', etc.
I know I already covered this very briefly at the start of this thread but yesterday I was thinking that I don't notice people talking about 'kids today' as much now as back in the 2000s (and sometimes before), whether in face-to-face conversation, online forums, lengthy news articles in response to specific incidents involving them, etc.
Not sure if they're now generally better behaved, worse behaved, or about the same as in most previous decades, but there doesn't seem to be the same intense moral panics about them now like there used to be, which is probably a good thing as it can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies and the like.
I surmise that there were also certain political agendas involved back in the 2000s, especially from the likes of Cameron and his 'Broken Britain' lark post-2005, plus people saying stuff like 'bring back school corporal punishment', 'bring back borstals', 'bring back the death penalty', blah blah blah, all of which sayings thankfully seem far rarer now.
I also reckon that it could be because many of those who were at the forefront of the so-called 'permissive society' are (dare I say it) ageing themselves now, so therefore most 'deviant' behaviours in general from the younger generations (apart from the likes of knife crime, certain dubious online-enabled activities, etc) probably aren't quite so unusual and shocking to them as they were to previous older generations.
People generally have a very short attention span for big news stories, which I think is part of it. Another part is that some things have actually improved. Teen pregnancy had dropped 77% since the 90s (at least in the US). Growing up in America we were also inundated with anti-smoking ads, but smoking has become far less common as well. HIV/AIDS is so much better controlled now with medications that it's no longer a crisis that needs to be in the news. But, I would say that international affairs - against at least in the US - drop off quickly as Americans are so uninterested in the rest of the world generally. I did just come across something about the Zika virus yesterday and it reminded me of that hoopla a few years back. I looked it up and there was another epidemic of it in Brazil recently, but I haven't heard a word about it.
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