America's kids are soft

I was getting my haircut today and a ten year old adjacent to me was also getting a hair cut as well. Needless to say he was sneering more than Billy Idol having to do a performance in front of a retirement community. The lady cutting his hair had to tell him to not jump out of his chair. When she asked him if he wanted a lollipop he shouted no and stormed away like a gung ho civil war reenactment participant. I wouldn't have been surprised if she had yanked the hair spray bottle top off with her molars, and tossed it overhead at the kid like it was live and had 2 seconds until detonation. Now I could blame the softness and whiny attitudes on the parents but that is too easy. No I blame television. These kids growing up young in the last ten years have been exposed to Barney, The wiggles, Spongebob, Blues Clues, and bananas that giggle together and never wear business suits (aka Bananas in Pajamas). My generation grew up on bugs bunny and Tom and jerry. From them you learned sharing, caring, scheming and whooping ass in addition to learning how not to catch a road runner.

We better hope that this war in Iraq doesn't last a 100 years cause we are going to get our ass kicked. The next generation is going to bring nerf guns to a gun fight. Influenced by television the kids will try to stop the violence by performing a peachy keen dance number from High School Musical. I think its great to keep children as innocent as long as you can but they got to have some toughness too. Being in the real world sometimes is the equivalent of being a ninety year old boxer with arthritis fighting Jet Li. You're going to get knocked on your ass sometimes and you have to learn to deal with it.

Update: My M. Night Shyamalan theory has been proven correct. His movies do get worse and worse 20 percent rating on rotten tomatoes. Heres a quote from salon.com
"Shyamalan's such an eager recycler, grinding out the same ideas and images again and again. The man who showed such promise less than a decade ago has been leaving a diminishing creative footprint ever since."