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Random Play: @fltfoxz. Gr8. C u 2moro

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  • Rich of Observationz,

    talking at gigs is just wrong!

    Proper Rock and Roll is loud enough that anything quiter than gunfire cannot be heard above the music.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Yeas, but there is little doubt that the level confrontation across the USA (and Australia) was dramatically heightened by the thought that either your or your brother or boyfriend might shortly be forced into uniform and shipped across the Pacific for a year or two into harms way and do do harm to others for no good reason.

    This was a factor in college protest in the late sixties and early seventies, but not a big one. College students were eligible for college deferments. In the early stages they had to take a test, which most passed, by the late sixties all undergraduates were eligible automatically. The students at Kent State were personally only at risk when they graduated. Despite what was often claimed about the draft system leading to a lower class army, protecting middle class kids, Vietnam was a well-educated army as a percentage of the population - lots of college students volunteered, and the ROTC led a lot to Vietnam.

    Students got much more radical when there were either changes to the deferment, or it was threatened to be removed. That brought lots of non-traditional protesters out onto the streets. Kent State was part of a wave of protests that happened that week after Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. I visited the campus in 1995 - the bell shown in the youtube video is still there, but now mounted on a simple pedestal, and wandering around campus there's almost nothing to mark what happened there that day for the casual visitor.

    After Kent State (early May) there were massive protests about the shootings, and most campuses closed early for the year, and didn't open again until the Fall semester. The Presidents were (rightly) terrified that their campuses would become unmanageable with student protest.

    The primary motivation, particularly by 1970 when Students for a Democratic society had fallen over into the Weather Underground, and the Democrats had failed them in 1968 at Chicago, was a moral one - they really hated what their country was doing to Vietnam, and Cambodia and the people in it.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Bob Munro,

    My original comment about conscription was more related to it being one of the reasons there is less opposition to the Iraq war today than it being a particular reason for specific demonstrations in the U.S.

    Even in New Zealand there was a kind of draft. In 1969 I was in the birthday ballot (missed out thankfully) where if your date came up you did three months basic training and then several years of annual training camps. While in hindsight we can see that only volunteers went from New Zealand to Vietnam, at the time no-one knew what the future held and with Australia sending conscripts, who was to say New Zealand would not follow suit?

    There was a great feeling of solidarity amongst young people across the Western world in those last couple of years of the sixties: fuelled by music and fashion for sure, but also in opposition to such a stupid war that their generation was fighting. Whoever had heard of a war where the side with all the firepower imposed an artificial line they would not cross (the border with North Vietnam) and thereby guarantee the conflict was unwinnable?

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 418 posts Report Reply

  • Mary Margaret Schuck,

    <quote>All circumstance under which, I'd respectfully suggest, the world will not end if you take a moment to remove yourself from the social occasion and receive/make/respond to your call in seclusion.<quote>

    The question is then, which is ruder--to disturb others by leaving or to distress them by texting in their presence? I'd assume that texting causes less disruption than having to excuse onesself through a crowd, particularly since leaving means that many people will be disturbed, while texting will physically inconvenience no one.

    It is better manners to do the polite thing, if that disturbs more people?

    One of the advantages of texting is that it allows one to decide on the spot which conversation is more important (something which call waiting, for example, makes difficult). If I receive a text, I can check whom it's from quickly, and if it's from someone like the babysitter I can read it almost as quickly. If it's urgent it can be dealt with on the spot. I see that as no different than someone coming up and interrupting a conversation with a message, which I can then decide to respond to or wait till later. Once I had my brother summoned out of a theatre because a family member was dying. Now I could text instead.

    <quote>Now you've raised a very interesting question in practical etiquette -- do manners exist as a mechanism to gain social approval, or do they exist as an expression of intrinsic regard for others.<quote>

    Good question. I think that they exist as an expression of intrinsic regard for others, but there needs to be a social consensus on what is a meaningful expression of that regard. As the technology changes this quickly, consensus on what is meaningful is hard to reach.

    On Oct 7, 2007, I was disturbed to find that quite a few people attending Sunday morning Mass at my parish had received and read texts during Mass regarding an event in Cardiff. On the other hand, the texting itself hadn't disturbed me at the time--I'd had no idea it was going on. Was it poor manners to text if no one noticed? Interestingly, few of the people who'd received the texts passed the devastating information on until the end of the service--they considered whispering in church to be poorer manners than receiving texts.

    It will be interesting to see what is considered polite or rude 10 years from now.

    Since Jan 2009 • 2 posts Report Reply

  • Patricia,

    I can think of lots of legitimate reasons to text at odd times such as during a concert.

    Yeah I am not so sure. I think it goes to the new phenomenom that I have noted that has crept in with all this new fangled, high falutin' stuff - cell phones, computers - we can now tend to think the world is hanging on our every word. And, in some cases maybe it is. But, I managed to negotiate my teens, 20's, 30's, 40's without a cell phone and/or texting. But having said all that, aside from the fact that I have been heard to mutter that I would die before I would ever text, at age 52 I did take up texting. Strangely the wrath of the heavens have no rained down on me. But, I only text simple stuff, like I am the cafe, where are you? What time is dinner?

    Texting at the movies in my opinion is just lame, rude, spectacularly unnecessary and plain ignorant. So that is my rule no texting at the movies. Or masturbation for that matter. I tend to get grumpy!

    behind the couch • Since Dec 2008 • 17 posts Report Reply

  • Kerry Weston,

    I've managed to resist having a cell phone at all. Even though I acknowledge their usefulness, I'm resisting as long as possible. I think it's the fragmentation of attention that bothers me.

    We just had a series of performances, resulting from creative workshopping - 90 minutes or so - and we were asked to turn off/leave phones outside. It was the first time in ages I'd been in a theatre where there was total silence and focussed attention. It was amazing. A very unifying experience.

    Manawatu • Since Jan 2008 • 494 posts Report Reply

  • FletcherB,

    So that is my rule no texting at the movies. Or masturbation for that matter

    No texting during masturbation?.... damn!

    West Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 893 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Elvis Costello wrote "Shipbuilding" about the Falklands War. There wasn't any conscription for that. I think it may have been suggested by some, but realistically the British military didn't have the ability to train thousands of kids and ship them halfway across the world in time to be of any use.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Conscription really is a pre-modern war concept. In America it largely comes up for political point-scoring rather than any chronic shortage of volunteers.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • linger,

    train thousands of kids and ship them halfway across the world

    Well, that would be another Costello song...

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • WH,

    One of the Guardian's music writers blogged an interesting piece about the non-ironic enjoyment of oestensibly bad music which reminded me of one of your posts:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jan/13/phil-collins-non-ironic-revival

    A French friend recently introduced me to Noir Desir, which you probably heard of long ago. I think its good, made better by not understanding the lyrics.

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6EKmYhFk42M
    I'm told this is about France's far right.

    Since Nov 2006 • 797 posts Report Reply

  • WH,

    On second thoughts maybe that one is too political.

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hIkXK6rxt4c

    Since Nov 2006 • 797 posts Report Reply

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