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The New Normal and Old



Every single day we hear of the "new normal."  It is a salute to the old adage that, "Times, they are 'a changin.'   I long for the "old normal," where teachers were capable and respected, where the USA was mostly a force for good in the world, where folks felt a sense of duty to their family-employers-country, where parents understood their role, where kids went to school because it would help them in life, where songs of love were about emotion and not copulation, where an opinion could be freely expressed, where police were respected,  where politicians represented their constituents, and where the pastor had wisdom. 
 
Am I wrong to want this, or is this a fiction that never was?  I do believe I'm not quite ready for our new world of equivocation and unmitigated consumption, where common talk is replaced by newspeak, and where everything is reduced to class struggle. I'm not quite ready for a world of competing and conflicting values, having no firmament beyond the edicts of the articulate.  I’m definitely not ready for a world where every thought must be expressed in 140 characters or less, where a “gone viral” video speaks depth and content, where understanding is equated to acceptance. 

Wrong or right, I prefer the old normal, fictions and all.

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