IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, AND YOU SHOULD FEEL FINE! (PART TWO)

Last June, I wrote a piece entitled: "IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, AND YOU SHOULD FEEL FINE!" It was mainly a piece about how things might hopefully never be the same in our financial system as a result of the collapse caused by all the greedy malfeasance of the last 30 years.

Interestingly, from a completely different perspective, the Republican leader, John Boehner, recently said: “People are scared to death that the country that they grew up in is not going to be the country that their kids and grandkids grew up in.”

Well, let's hope so, John. Unless I am such a frightened child hiding in an adult body, mentally and emotionally frozen in time, why would I want my kids to grow up in the same world I grew up in? You mean the good old days when blacks and women "knew their place?" Or when doctors accepted big money to be in cigarette commercials? Or when Pop Tarts and Cool Whip was considered food?

Yeah, I do miss those days!

I can't believe that today, my kids have black friends and don't think twice about it, or that my daughter imagines she could have any job she wants when she grows up, and that we refuse immune-system destroying antibiotics or toxic vaccines from doctors that insist our kids need them, or that we eat mostly organic, pesticide and hormone-free food in our house. It's just a terrible loss, isn't it?

Yeah, in fact, I was reminded of the good old days recently when a relative of mine forwarded to me what was supposed to be a nostalgic look back at life in an Italian family once upon a time. The person who initiated the chain e-mail even said "it brought tears to my eyes." In talking about the enormous amounts of meat we consumed in one meal back then, the writer said: "We are Italians; we don't care about cholesterol." On the appropriate way to sadistically make sure no one in the family ever gets too articulate, the writer said: "If anyone EVER says ES-CAROLE, slap 'em in the face -- it's SHCAROLE!" On the roles of men and women, when things were being done right, he says: "The kids go play...the men go to lay down. They slept so soundly you could do brain surgery on them without anesthesia... the women clean the kitchen."

Yeah, I do miss those days.