[Mr 5 0]

PKRWUD:

You sound a bit like Andy Rooney here but I can sympathize with most of your complaints and observations, Chris.

We have a drought here in the Northeast, too. Rainfall is way below normal and water rationing is right around the corner if we don't get some real heavy rains, real soon. The forecast shows rain for Sunday so we'll see, but we need a week's worth or more of steady rain (or a blizzard or two).

I hate the 'ghetto talk' so many use today. Not just the foul language but the slangy, often unintelligible sounds made by young white guys trying to sound 'black' and often too young to even realize that what they sound like (mostly, unintelligible).

As for accents; I've lived and traveled around the country and there are accents everywhere that you kind of adjust to. I grew up on Long Island, N.Y. (just outside Manhattan) and had a thick 'New Yawk' accent as a kid. When I went to broadcasting school, a speech therapist helped me get rid of it and speak accent-free, which I still do.

However, in the south, (Atlanta, GA) I recall a lady asking me for - what sounded like - a 'ca-cala when I was working in a restaurant there.
Of course, she just wanted a Coca-Cola and a native Georgian co-worker 'translated' her request for me. I eventually got into the speech pattern and could understand most everybody, even when they 'axed' me something.

Living near Boston, I hear the 'Kennedy' accent all the time.
"Paaaak ya kaaaar" (Park your car) is a good example.
It's kind of fun to hear and discern different accents. Midwesteners always pronounce 'insurance' with two syllable's ("IN-surance") and of course, Canadians say 'about' as "a-boot'' and so on.

As for the barely-teen girls pushing makeup; I dislike makeup (a personal perference my wife shares, I don't care much what anyone else does) so I hate to see young girls selling it and using it but that's America, I guess.
We've sexualized our kids, especially girls, at younger and younger ages until childhood ends at about eight and we're making pre-teens into little 'women', way, way before they have a clue how to deal with it (but like to think they do, of course).

No wonder kids rebel at 13 and really think they should 'run their own lives' - as if they have the maturity to make life-changing decisions (sex, drugs). Adults push kids into a false maturity. Needing a bra doesn't make a 14-year-old a 'women' and two facial hairs don't make a boy a 'man' but adults act as if it does, then are shocked when the 'boy' or 'girl' wants the freedoms of a self-supporting adult. Dumb.

Danny Pearl as a classmate? Wow. Yes, weird. A classic case of seeing your own mortality in another's death.
A tragic situation...no one deserves to die like that...but he did put himself in the situation in order to get the 'big story' and his gamble cost him his life. Someone needs to hang for that, and they probably will, but it won't help Danny.

Finally: ER. For years, our favorite show. Beautifully written, real depth of characters and well-acted.Now, it's faltering as all long-running TV shows do. The main actors are leaving for new challenges and the show is wheezing, although I'm half in love with the character of Abby Lockheart, the RN played by the brilliant (and appealing) Maura Tierney and will watch it just for her.

I have a very good idea of how the season ends so no real shocks there, but if ER fades out, I still have CSI, a great new show about Crime Scene Investigations with a cool theme song and great visual effects that help explain the science and keep the show interesting. Great cast, including the non-hunky but intelligent and interesting William Petersen as Gil Grissom, the lead investigator (O.K., he reminds me of me) and the lovely but tough Marg Helgenberger as his senior investigator, Catherine Willows. Great show and just before ER. Check it out if you haven't already.

Thanks for sharing, Chris.