WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH PEOPLE TODAY?

     "Every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing, he never tells himself he wants it. He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have got the thing he wants."
                                      George Bernard Shaw, 1897



     Amazing, is it not that something said in 1897 still works in today's world 118 years later. It does not apply only to the defunct British Empire but also to the world of today, macro and micro. Everyone believes he/she knows what's best for one's particular world and claims to have the best way to get there and is oh, so unselfish in the goals one maintains. This corruption just oozes and seeps into the deepest and darkest corners of our world and there it remains, oozing back out when the time is ripe or perhaps I should say rotten..
     And the time is ripe right now in all our worlds. Here we have a man who is clearly deficient in  human interactions, whose behavior flows right along the lines Shaw has delineated. Yesterday's Officer's meeting was a prime example of that. Lately it seems as if David Israel likes to hold meetings where few people are around, the easier to ram his wants thru the process. No fewer than three of the officers were not there - Fausto Fabio and Barbara Cornish the two VPs and Pat Sealander, a Secretary. What was the rush and the need to hold this meeting now and why not call it off, but no, just like the recent DA held on a day of religious importance to most of the delegates, David stormed on.
     The necessity? To push thru a request by the two incompetents, Joy Vestal and Myron Silverman, to allow the paper to now pay out $12,000 more a year to a graphic artist because they cannot seem to manage the ads to the paper. They are obsessed with the ads to the point of excluding all else, such as information the Village needs and deserves, of meetings held, of opinions voiced, but nope, these people want MONEY and for what? For a paper that is losing readership? When the advertisers find out how many of these papers are tossed in the recycling bin after lingering for weeks, unread, turning brittle in the sun, they will cut their ad money and then what will we have? I dunno. Ask the two incompetents.
     Advertising manager after advertising manager was thrown under the bus, fired from the paper or quit and why, because they dared to disagree with the policies of the paper or expressed an opinion that crossed those held by the editors, shills of David Israel, puppets for him, turning the paper into a rag. It is good for stuffing boxes though when prepping for shipping.
     This paper that did not turn over $24,000 it was supposed to, to UCO, now wants to spend more money? The sign of an inefficient organization is the bloating that goes on, hiring more people to do less and less and expending more and more funds to reap less and less. The actions speak for themselves. It also does not help or seem right that a VP hold the position of editor and then vote on giving it allowance to spend more freely. Conflict of interest anyone?
     Then we have the chair of the committee who giggles inanely during odd moments instead of answering questions asked, such as why has the beautification committee not met for over two months? Why had the fence situation along Avon Road, by Salisbury on the Haverhill side of the Village been neglected so much that it is barely standing, perhaps held up only by the vegetation around it? Shall we inform the residents that they should be prepared to welcome unwanted tourists who will come a visitin' when our gated community becomes a partly gated one? Oh, and the half blind infirm guard over there in Miami will not be worth anything as he tries to figure out with rheumy eyes just who or what that is coming from Haverhill into the Village and not thru a gate either. A lot of help the cameras are!!!
    But by the words of Shaw, we have a head who sits there and wants what he thinks HE needs and then goes after it, be it broadband, no term limits, wasteful spending, ignoring crisis areas of the Village and the list can go on and on. The circle of volunteers has grown tighter and tighter and it is now mostly a dirty little circle of people who feed off each other, a circle of self congratulatory people who sit and fiddle along with our Nero as the Village burns or goes down or choose your own metaphor. The lone volunteers who are still there must circle their own wagons for survival.
    Now the macro world. Yesterday there was an op-ed written by Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, that oh so enlightened state. He does not understand why people think that the laws passed in Indiana and Arkansas are violating any civil rights. Of course, what is the matter with me and others thinking that it is not okay to refuse to serve someone because of one's religious beliefs?Truly? What if one's religious belief said not to serve African Americans, or Jews, or Christians, or Sunnis or Armenians or people with parts on the left side, or people with a physical impediment or a mental one and the list goes on.
     If one disagrees with a law on moral grounds then protest, run a campaign, but obey the law unless the law itself is immoral. Then, one cannot comply with a clean and clear conscience and by the way, in America church and state are separate and it the blending of these two in more recent days that is leading to the question of what is the matter with people today? Why can they not let people alone to live a life they choose. If they are happy, causing no harm to anyone, being productive citizens, adding to society, then what exactly is the problem? It is not our right nor in anyone's best interests to go creeping into the bedrooms of others nor to question another's leanings or whatever.
     But this nastiness creeps more and more into our lives and into our dealings with fellow humans. Why is a transgender inmate, Ashley Diamond, being tormented by being incarcerated in a men's prison and her treatments denied. She was clearly transitioning but is now a prisoner and victim of rape and brutality. Should we violate and harm all that we disagree with? Think that was called Nazism! Nor should one think that the line stops anywhere that is safe for all. It tends to creep more and more and take over life.
     It comes from the top, be it here in the  Village or in the country. Yesterday Obama goes on TV to say how sorry he is for the death of two hostages, one of whom was denied for years as working for the government so now he is dead at the age of 77 after spending years in a primitive and caustic situation. He was denied his rights and ignored even as he and his family suffered and finally he is dead by the hands of his own country, along with a fellow hostage. Perhaps he is better off, but where was the honesty before? Gone with the wind, that's where.
     Why can we all not remember that we are al lhumans and deserve, no, are required to be treated properly, with respect for our differences as well as for our similarities. LGBT or straight, man or woman, Jew, Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Hazara, or atheist- if we are law abiding, moral people then we are and should be allowed to function and thrive. Killing, goading to killing, threats, violence, horror and extremism have no place in the right world, the correct world, the one for which we should strive.
     What's the matter with people today? We have lost our way and given in to false gods and prophets. How sad for us all and people, that makes us morally as well as legally, in many areas, of being complicit in legal and moral crimes. Think about that.