What’s a chav ???

Well, he made it across the channel 🙁

Well never been to Israel. Told him though it’s on my top list, but a bit difficult to get there because I don’t know any people living there. So he suggested this and gave me his email-adress. I hope English will be sufficient because I was not planning to take a course on Hebrew 😀 eventhough this might come handy one day.

However, they do need historians as well. So I hope to do a bit more than make coffee for the rest :). I regret though I know hardly anything about ancient Middle Eastern History, but that can be fixed I guess. I would make my Curriculum Vitae more interresting as well.

Yeah, human rights. Great Comet! :rolleyes: Now tell me how torturing people will prevent people from behaving bad. I’m sure in the 14th century, long before human rights, Brugge was a much nicer place. Bodies of executed criminals were hanged near the entrance. I’m sure you would love to drink a Sloeber while a young criminal who stole a loaf of bread is brought to the “garonne”, if you are not trialed yourself for wichcraft. Most people actually like human rights. Sad to see such things said by an educated woman. 🙁

As I said, society is made up of people. How can you expect a society to function if all people think like Comet. It’s easy to blame the rest while nobody does an effort to change anything about it. Strange, however, last time we had riots in Belgium it was not the illegal immigrants or young people behaving bad, no, it were extreme-right hooligans during Euro2000.

Ben, I do not discriminate against any particular age group, and accept without hesitation the worthy and admirable qualities in many of the ‘younger generation’.

But you can not dispute that many of the most visible problems are those most perpetuated by (say) under 25 year olds- I give you vandalism, graffiti , mugging , joy-riding, annoying ring-tones, talking loudly in libraries, carelessly-pressed trousers etc, etc.

As people get older, they usually have more of a stake in society, with families and jobs, and are less likely to have the time or the energy for petty misdemeanours. Naturally, there are always exceptions, and there will always be nasty, loony, vindictive people of any age.

The comforting reality is that all generations moan about the younger ones, but somehow most of the ‘youngsters’ come good, settle-down, and so the cycle continues.

It is just that so many of the ‘yoof’ you see around now, seem so slack-jawed and completely intellectually bankrupt, you fear they can never be anything else.

Well, in that case. Everyone has been young … just give people the time to settle down. Some “old folks” should get a lesson in discipline too you know. When I see a pregnant woman or old lady in the bus, I immediatelly give away my seat. However, I once had the experience of meeting a “little old lady” who was so furieus with the fact the bus was full of students (which happens if you go to a student town) she didn’t even ask once friendly if we would step aside. Well, in that case, screw you. Some people indeed need a basic course in discipline and social contacts. True, I also hate those annoying bell tones (especially the pop ups) but what with Mr. Middle-Class who in his spare time likes to drive around with his tuned Harley making a lot of noise. It’s not only about the yought, some people are just selfish and they will always remain like this. In many aspects though, “my” generation is responsible though: we don’t drink and smoke as much as in the 70’s or 80’s. Drunken driving? We grew up with the Bob-campaign …

I just don’t think we need to accept everything from post-war generation which has had all the same opportunities as we have (some even more) and are now intollerant towards youngsters while many of themselves were once punkes …

There is huge sector of society, mainly young (but not exclusively) , a sort of sub-working class who have grown up fearing nothing, having learnt that no matter how appalling their behaviour, there will be few unpleasant consequences, and furthermore, the state will provide all their needs, in terms of housing and low-level subsistance. What they don’t have, they can steal, and not being troubled by the need to work, they can keep busy with recreational crime, drug abuse and indiscriminate breeding.

This is what you get when you have abandoned all responsibility and all ambition.

LOL. It’s very easy to pick one group of people out and blame them. It’s those afwul youngsters who ruin “society”. Well, I think every individual is reponsible for his own life, however, sometimes, it’s better for the gov’t to intervene so that individual problems will not harm society itself (like poverty can cause lots of diseases …). Everyone should look at his own situation first before blaiming others: there’s a generation etc.

The “old farts” of today were the ones who were considered in the 1960’s to be spoiled and undisciplined. Even though they may all claim they didn’t have the same luxury as our generation, this is only partially true.

I spend lots of my life with my grandmother, she’s 86 now and she does not have the “old fart mentality”. She doesn’t blame “society” for everything which went wrong in her own life. However, I do have a friend who’s a mere 23 and is talking like the two old guys in the Muppet show, even though he has got all the chances to become happy.

Last time I looked I was like 9 and Dana International won. From then on it it only became worse and worse. And I think most countries actually don’t want to win because then they have to organise the whole sh!t. Therefor, the rule is to send candidate with a song as cliché and corny possible … world music they call it, wale whispering monk stuff etc. Last year candidate was really awfull. How do we make up 50 years of Soviet oppression? By throwing our national heritage overboard and try to come up with a mixture of cheap synthesizer djingles and fire to cover up the lousy act.

Worthless crap!!! 100%