Common Sense

B

Big Unc

Dedicated Member
Something I just picked up on Facebook - not new but very much worth repeating and desperately in need of being to the forefront of our minds. In a sense it sums up the BBC ridiculous attitiude to LOTSW and its continuous toadying to the coarse, the vulgar, the snide and the blatently untalented - essentially to the lowest common denominator:

Obituary printed in the London Times.....Absolutely Brilliant !!

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense , who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- And maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death,
-by his parents, Truth and Trust,
-by his wife, Discretion,
-by his daughter, Responsibility,
-and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 5 stepbrothers;
- I Know My Rights
- I Want It Now
- Someone Else Is To Blame
- I'm A Victim
- Pay me for Doing Nothing

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing
 
Amen to that!!! As a daughter and granddaughter to 3 teachers I fully agree, and also with the rest.
 
My daughter works in school as a teaching assistant and is a very "caring "person. Woe betide if she forgets "the rules" and tends to a crying child . She could be fired just for a few kind words such as she used to her own 3 sons when they were that age. :eek: She has told us of the crazy regulations regarding what she can and can't do. ::) She cannot put a plaster on a child without permission :-\
 
I can't begin to tell you how tied up we are with politically correct clap trap. An incident today typified the whole situation. I wish I could tell you about it, but I can't. The laws are there to protect the idiots who make rules no one can follow. It's getting so hard to do the job. It'd be a doddle if we didn't care.
 
Common sense and respect are my favourite words. I don't hear enough of them.
 
This to me comes in same category (but I do admit to having a warped sense of the proper). I was researching John Mortimer (Rumpole) for another thread and came across this quote indicating just how ridiculous folk can get;

"He told The Times: "One of my weaknesses is that I like to start the day with a glass of champagne before breakfast. When I mentioned that on a radio show once, I was asked if I had taken counselling for it."

In case of doubt, my accusation of ridiculous is aimed at the pathetic interviewer.
 
This is an old one also but carries some wisdom. In many ways its thoughts tend to fit our heroes' attitude to life. Don't agree with it all but quite a lot of it:

"Congratulations to all who were born in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank sherry while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, bread and dripping, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then, after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose, not from a bottle.

Takeaway food was limited to fish and chips, there were no pizza shops, McDonald’s, KFC, Subway or Nando’s.

Even though all the shops closed at 6pm and didn’t open on a Sunday, somehow we didn’t starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and no one died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy toffees, gobstoppers and bubble gum.

We ate white bread and real butter, drank cow’s milk and soft drinks with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because . . . we were always outside playing!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day, but we were OK. We would spend hours building go-karts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

We built treehouses and dens and played in riverbeds with Matchbox cars.

We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo Wii and Xboxes, or video games, DVDs, or colour TV.

There were no mobiles, computers, internet or chatrooms. We had friends and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. And we ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, too.

Only girls had pierced ears.

You could buy Easter eggs and hot cross buns only at Easter time.

We were given air guns and catapults for our tenth birthdays, we rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or just yelled for them.

Not everyone made the school rugby, football, cricket or netball teams. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that. Getting into the team was based on merit.

Our teachers hit us with canes, gym shoes and threw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we weren’t concentrating.

We can string sentences together, spell and have proper conversations now because of a solid three Rs education.

Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road.

Mum didn’t have to go to work to help Dad make ends meet because we didn’t need to keep up with the Joneses!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Parents didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like Kiora, Blade, Ridge and Vanilla.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

You might want to share this with others who grew up in an era before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives.

And while you are at it, forward it to your children, so they will know how brave their parents were.
 
And another in keeping with LOTSW philosophy:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a man, my son!
 
My grandfather used to remind me of his good ol' days and I've often wondered
the same thing, Sue.
 
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