BKP: Time of Spiritual War

[_harmony]

Society is degenerating.

Be the change you would see in the world. If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

[_Ray A]

I would definitely go to Australia! I'd love to see the country, the kangaroos in the wild, the Barrier Reef, the Outback that I saw in the movie, Australia.

Still haven't seen the movie. Maybe I'll rent it tomorrow. You don't even have to go into the wild to see kangaroos. Kangaroos and wallabies inhabit forested areas 10 minutes from where I live.

Oh, and I'd have lunch with Ray...

Anytime, Harm. Although a national symbol, the kangaroo is also “fair game” for hunters. You’d have to try a kangaroo roast, 99% fat free and tastes just as good as a lamb roast.

[_Darth J]

Some things are much worse now than they used to be. For example:

A werewolf in 1981:



A werewolf in 2010:



So, today we have the unfortunate and emasculated portrayal of a "werewolf" as a Calvin Klein model who turns into a cartoon dog. On the other hand, some things are much better.

The Kraken in 1981:



The Kraken in 2010:

[_Ray A]

I can't think of any other era or place in history I would rather live. And that's as a middle-class white male.

Having lived through the late 1950s and having vivid memories of the 1960s, and contrary to the suggestion that "the old days only seem better", I really do believe that in many ways they were better. When I was a "kid", we went out to "play", to play cricket, soccer, or have cycle or running races. Today "kids" are stuck behind computers or glued to a TV set. We didn't have TV, and the computer age was 30 years away, so we made in real life friends, and we stayed up at night talking to each other, or listening to radio, not visiting video stores to get the latest "war games". And before the advent of TV we gathered around at night talking, not with everyone in the family with faces silently glued to a TV screen.

This is not to denigrate the enormous benefits the Internet and the "modern age" have given us. Without this medium, I could not express to you what I am now, but with these enormous benefits, which I acknowledge, there have also been some significant losses.

If I had to choose another era in which to live and I had to be a woman, non-white, and/or poor, all bets are off.

Have women attained equal status? Have non-whites attained equal status? Are the poor well looked after in 2010? You see this "age" as some kind of Paradise of Equality and Fairness?

We still struggle to rectify those wrongs, and I agree with that struggle. So there have been benefits, and losses, and my feeling is that the "modern generation" have too little appreciation of what it's like to have to boil water to get a hot bath, or to sell newspapers in the street at 5am in the morning to supplement your allowance.

With all of the "instant gratification" that the "push-button society" provides, it's no surprise to me that some "kids" these days think that vandalism and wanton destruction is a way of "expressing themselves".