The general decline in standards today

[STEVIEBOY1]

school in the UK right up to the mid 1980's was still very Victorian with punishments to suit....I remember having the board rubber thrown at me, being clipped around the ear was a regular bit of fun for the teachers as was kicking students up the jacksie, in woodwork our teacher Mr Wood (seriously) used to hit you with a piece of 3"x2" until you took woodwork as a subject then you just got clipped around the ear for a change, cane was often dished out with the same names in the caning book over and over....1' rule was quite nice when used edge on across your finger nails but the greatest leveler I remember was in junior (primary) school when we were in class and were allowed to use pastel sticks for the first time( the ones you can dip in water) it didn't take us long to discover that when one was dropped into the water that it would dissolve, result at the lesson end was a jam jar full of brown sludge and me and 3 mates all with empty pastel packets and brown slime all over our faces and clothes....our teacher was a canny fellow from the North East of England and his punishment to us was for us all to line up facing the pile of wooden milk crates that were near the door/corner of the room he then took a good run up and kneed eacj and every one of us up the derriere resulting in us all ending up in a crumpled heap on top of each other, the class found it hilarious us less so but it kept us in check for a while!

We had teachers also that often threw bits of chalk at us aiming for our ears, they were very good shots I seem to recall. Board rubbers were also thrown to get our attention too. Having to line up outside the dentention room or headmasters office was also rather nerve wracking, I am sure they kept you waiting longer than really necessary.

 

[Big Bertie]

Postal rates for first class mail are going up a penny again to 46c.

That's really cheap. In the UK first class letter post costs 60p (about 96c). Overseas is much more.

 

[Edward]

That's really cheap. In the UK first class letter post costs 60p (about 96c). Overseas is much more.

Very true.... though I've never had an ounce of the hassle with Royal Mail that I've had with all the privately-run commercial alternatives, for all they might occasionally be a touch cheaper. I dread the day when they privatise the Post Office and ruin it.

 

[scottyrocks]

That's really cheap. In the UK first class letter post costs 60p (about 96c). Overseas is much more.

When I was in northern England many years ago, I found most things more expensive (after conversion) than they'd be even where I live in the U.S., which is fairly expensive area in which to live.

 

[Big Bertie]

When I was in northern England many years ago, I found most things more expensive (after conversion) than they'd be even where I live in the U.S., which is fairly expensive area in which to live.

I think most things probably are more expensive in the UK, but perhaps not everything. Stating the obvious, it's more densely populated, so land is expensive, and some things such as petrol are very heavily taxed as well. Healthcare, on the other hand, is 'free' (well, not really).

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I read somewhere that the UK's National Health Service (NHS) is the fifth largest employer in the world employing some 1.7 million people.

 

[Big Bertie]

I read somewhere that the UK's National Health Service (NHS) is the fifth largest employer in the world employing some 1.7 million people.

That may well be so - it's somewhere just behind China's PLA.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

That may well be so - it's somewhere just behind China's PLA.

Top Ten World's Biggest Employers

1. US Department of Defense (3.2 million)
2. People's Liberation Army (Chinese military) (2.3 million)
3. Walmart (2.1 million)
4. McDonalds (1.7 million)
5. China National Petroleum Corporation (Sinopec) (1.7 million)
6. State Grid Corporation (China) (1.6 million)
7. National Health Service (UK) (1.4 million)
8. Indian Railways (1.4 million)
9. China Post Group (900,000)
10. Hon Hai Precision Industry (Taiwan) (800,000)
Headquartered in Taiwan, Hon Hai manufactures Apple's iPhones and iPads in their Mainland factories

 

[LizzieMaine]

Walmart needs to get cracking there if it intends to fully subjugate the Pacific Rim. Another 200,000 should do it.

 

[Gregg Axley]

Walmart needs to get cracking there if it intends to fully subjugate the Pacific Rim. Another 200,000 should do it.

Should see that number from the day after Thanksgiving until the day after Christmas.

 

[Needsun]

As a kid I was taught to essentially show my approval with my wallet. You payed attention to where the products you bought were made. If you wanted a better product for your money you didn't buy junk from china. I refuse to shop at certain mega-stores for the same reasons; I don't like the way they treat their help and all of their junk comes from china. I do the same with certain actors who insist that their opinion is more valid than anyone else. Well, I refuse to put MY money in their pockets.. I support those who, in my humble opinion, do it right and I refuse to support those whom I disagree with. My Grandparents taught my parent's who taught me and I've made it a point to teach my kids... You have the option, more so now with internet shopping, to buy the goods and services that are right for you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Teenage delinquents hold up cabbie at knifepoint -- in front of my house.

Oh, but they'll tell you there's no violent crime in small towns. And I'll bet a crisp dollar bill that drugs were involved.

 

[jamespowers]

Teenage delinquents hold up cabbie at knifepoint -- in front of my house.

Oh, but they'll tell you there's no violent crime in small towns. And I'll bet a crisp dollar bill that drugs were involved.

Did you shoot him?

 

[LizzieMaine]

i was at work, chasing drunken punks off the sidewalk out front of the theatre. Never a dull moment.

 

[sheeplady]

Teenage delinquents hold up cabbie at knifepoint -- in front of my house.

Oh, but they'll tell you there's no violent crime in small towns. And I'll bet a crisp dollar bill that drugs were involved.

What sticks out to me is this:
1. The girls aren't being charged.
2. The emphasis is on the fact that as 17, he's a juvenile.

It would be interesting to see what the courts do with the case in your town. In a lot of cases here, the courts are either far too lenient or far too harsh with juveniles.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My brother got into some trouble when he was 18, and the judge gave him a choice -- a year in the jug or join the Army. He chose the latter, washed out of boot camp in five weeks, and went on his merry way. Not a particularly useful lesson for him.

We had a case here this past summer where the son of a well-known local figure killed a girl while driving eighty miles an hour in a 35 zone. He was convicted of manslaughter, sentenced to the juvenile-detention-center until he turned 18, and then turned 18 two weeks later. People are still up in arms over that one -- a lot of people are convinced his daddy bought him off. Such is small town justice.

 

[jamespowers]

i was at work, chasing drunken punks off the sidewalk out front of the theatre. Never a dull moment.

Looking at your area from the satellite photos, I would think that it is a nice quaint neighborhood. I suppose it is what is behind the doors that is the problem. Darn that is a shame. You are close to the water and the whole nine yards there.
Then again, I have always said that water attracts nuts(I know, I am close to the water here too) so that could be part of the equation.

 

[jamespowers]

My brother got into some trouble when he was 18, and the judge gave him a choice -- a year in the jug or join the Army. He chose the latter, washed out of boot camp in five weeks, and went on his merry way. Not a particularly useful lesson for him.

That was lenient. If that was here he would not have gotten off so easy. Then again, they let out some petty criminals a while back due to jail overcrowding so I might be wrong.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Looking at your area from the satellite photos, I would think that it is a nice quaint neighborhood. I suppose it is what is behind the doors that is the problem. Darn that is a shame. You are close to the water and the whole nine yards there.
Then again, I have always said that water attracts nuts(I know, I am close to the water here too) so that could be part of the equation.

It's a nice quiet neighborhood except for the playground and the big house a couple doors down from it -- the playground is a popular trysting place for all sorts of vice, and the big house has hosted a series of drug labs. They had crack in there for a while, and then meth. It's getting to be like Scollay Square in Boston -- "Always Something Doing."

The big problem here is that there's no jobs for the working-class kids anymore. Used to be they could work in the canneries or the coat factory or the snowplow factory, but the plow place is the only factory left, and they don't have many openings. So they work at Burger King and hang around on the streets and get into drugs and booze and trouble, because all the decent jobs have been shipped to Korea and China and Bangladesh.

 

[sheeplady]

My brother got into some trouble when he was 18, and the judge gave him a choice -- a year in the jug or join the Army. He chose the latter, washed out of boot camp in five weeks, and went on his merry way. Not a particularly useful lesson for him.

We had a case here this past summer where the son of a well-known local figure killed a girl while driving eighty miles an hour in a 35 zone. He was convicted of manslaughter, sentenced to the juvenile-detention-center until he turned 18, and then turned 18 two weeks later. People are still up in arms over that one -- a lot of people are convinced his daddy bought him off. Such is small town justice.

Urgh, that poor girl's family. It seems that around here any driving crimes (the worse, like DUI or DWI combined with high levels of negligence) are totally not prosecuted fairly for victims- there's been multiple people who have had many DWI arrests who go on to kill people (sometimes many times) and rarely see the inside of a jail for more than 2 years. We had a guy who had 8 DWI arrests over 10 years, and he repeatedly chased down another man in a car (ramming the other man's car for miles on a state highway) while drunk until the innocent man died. I think he got a few years in jail.