Read Cockeyed Optimists in a Crybaby Culture, a post by Robert Stein on his blog, Connecting the Dots. Using the wonderful old Rogers and Hammerstein South Pacific song, I’m a Cockeyed Optimist as a metaphor, Stein looks at the way our American culture has changed and lost its focus on fairness while chosing the most helpless as our victims.
Sunflowers keep me optimistic.
Most thought-provoking comment:
Political megatrends aside, this is a significant shift in American values from ideals of fairness and justice for all to rage over being victimized by efforts to care for the poor, the aged and helpless.
Let’s hope we can find a way to once again place these values — justice, kindness, respect, fairness — at the center of American life. I am a great fan of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. In fact, I never tire of watching them, again and again, because these stories portray universal values and principles that never age.
Interesting to me, as an outgrowth of this post and my own thinking, is the way people leave tasteless, rude, and even vulgar comments on blogs, newspapers, and other Internet websites. What about commenting at in the digital world makes people want to leave these permanent digital footprints for others in the world to see?
Here’s a post, Conversations about Commenting, that I wrote for my other blog, MediaTechParenting.
On YouTube watch Mitzi Gaynor sing Cockeyed Optminist — from one of the original movie productions of the musical.
As Our Parents Age So Do We 