WARNING! DANGER OF ILLEGAL PARKING IN A HANDICAPPED PLACE

I guess we all feel annoyed when we see a non-handicapped person parked illegally in a handicapped space.  Since my husband IS handicapped, it’s especially irritating to find the only available  spot taken by an able bodied person.

But, let’s face it.  Most of us who aren’t handicapped have been guilty of it once or twice.  As an example, you go to the post office on a rainy day and all the spots are empty.  Realistically speaking, you probably aren’t depriving someone of their rightful parking place if you’re just popping in to mail a letter.   On the other hand, parking in that space at a busy supermarket on a hot day shows selfishness and a lack of caring for disabled people.  It also could be hazardous to your health, if someone who has  never heard of anger management decides to take you out.

The parking lot shooting in Florida last week was an alarming explosion of road rage, but not surprising, in this era of volatile emotions gone wild.  The media and POTUS routinely participate in ugly name calling contests.  Civility is an old fashioned word that younger people can’t even understand.  Comedians and celebrities use four letter words to describe the president’s family on national television.  Peter Fonda called for someone to murder the young Trump boy.  The president himself calls a woman a dog if she criticizes him.  Where will it all end?  What has happened to our core values of respect, responsibility, honesty and caring?

A DISTURBING LACK OF CIVILITY

Yesterday, the media giddily reported that a tenured college teacher in California had called the late first lady a “witch” and that she was glad that Barbara Bush  had died.  The media also gave plenty of coverage to someone I never heard of called Roger Stone, who said the woman was a vicious drunk and she deserved to rot in hell.

Appalling.

Not just the fact that these people were so lacking in respect, but that the media would even cover such rot and give these rude people any voice at all.  Weren’t we always taught that you don’t speak ill of the dead?  Especially when they’re not yet cold in the grave? But then, of course, we have the former head of the FBI calling our duly elected president a “liar,” And said president turning around and calling that same man a “slimeball,” among other things.

What has happened to the YMCA core values of caring, honesty,  respect, responsibility? Name calling has always been the sign of a bully and a guttersnipe.   Respectable people kept such thoughts to themselves or shared them privately.

And how in the world can we explain all of this to our grandchildren?