Here is a story loosely based on reality: A 50-something college professor was walking in the middle of campus one bright sunny day.  The birds were singing, flowers blooming... and students were gleefully shouting expletives at each other at the top of their lungs, heedless of his presence. "They never did that in my day," he kvetched.  His colleague, a humanities prof with a 70's burnout persona then complained that students at the campus gym  loudly proclaim their sexual exploits in graphic detail and it makes his ears burn.

Imagine for a minute that these colleagues might have dodged the draft and floated through the 60's (and maybe the 70's and 80's) on mighty, tie-dyed clouds of marijuana and free-love glory, and that part of their drive to become professors was to perpetuate the mores inherent in their past lives to future generations.  They might then be the kind who take a young person's drive to seek truth and twist it into a posture of "enlightened" and bemused moral confusion. If so, is their dyspeptic response to these situations  poetic justice?  

Welcome, Dash, 

I'm new here, too....  I enjoyed your opening post, hope for more, de temps en temps.

Hey, abortion's a right of passage - just like STDs.... it's the price "adventurous"  women pay for their adventuresome ways. Adventure. Used to be a word lined with fir trees and camping and s'mores -- now you get the clap and fresh start for you and no start for your baby!  And pop culture will wink and nod and give those young victims of ... their own "adventurousness" a  heartfelt grin that says, "we've come a long way, baby,"  from the days when we were under the thumb of "the man."  

Well said, brava!!! 

"The Shaggs"  My Pal Foot Foot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9d4ESlpHY ,  sounds like it's being played backwards until you hear that the lyrics are being sung forwards, doesn't it?

Weirdo Rock also-rans: The Jickets (less popular contemporaries of TMBG) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHELB5E1ac0

and of course "The Residents" and, going way back,  Yma Sumac.

But maybe I know too much about this.

Chilling and unfortunately, apt.

Miss Pennington and Liberty Dude... I agree with  you.  I'm interested exploring this idea of "wussification" as Mr. Riddle put it.  Yes, we're becoming/have become  a culture that avoids hurt feelings at any cost.  What's underneath that - what motivates that? Anyone have an idea? It's not really about hurting people.  If it were,  Mr. Riddle's feelings would also be gently handled.  Clearly, the feelings of hard-working talented people don't matter, they must keep mum about their achievements.  What say you? What happened to the concept of the graceful winner?  Is the only way to make a graceful winner to muzzle him?

From your lips to God's ears.