A Delicate Balance.

[retepsnikrep]

I mean:

Builders versus Breakers.

Cleaners versus Dirtiers.

Carers versus the Irresponsible.

The Self-Sufficient versus the Bloody Nuisance.

Restorers versus Ruiners.

The World seems roughly in balance (Just!), in terms of who spoils it and who makes it better. An example of the spoiling could be in a Hospital's Accident and Emergency Department. A drunken 'clubber' has cut his precious head trying to run without paying from a kebab shop. He has to wait a few minutes with a few of his foul-mouthed chums before treatment. He takes exception to the nurse, (male or female, it matters not) who tries to dress the wound. The dabbing causes the cut to smart, this and the waiting causes the drunk to assault the nurse, and anyone else who intervenes, finishing off with a kicking. I wish I could say that this is an extreme and probably isolated example for illustration purposes, but you and I know it is all too common. If it is not obvious, or you are a drunken clubber who can justify this behaviour somehow, I will explain that the drunken lout is the spoiler and the nurse the mender. Proof that there is a balance maintained between the two is that there are still Hospitals, and Accident and Emergency Departments, and Nurses dealing with this sort of thing, despite the above everyday occurence.

I saw an example of a person who called 999 for an Ambulance to take her down to Post Office to pay a Gas Bill. I leave it to the imagination how many unjustified calls are made for Ambulances. By how much do all fleets have to be overprovided for that reason? Most strange, though in the same crazy vein as the poor nurse who suffered in the first paragraph, is, why are Emergency Vehicles and their staff sometimes attacked? It would serve them dead right, anyone who did that, to be left twitching on the kitchen lino, when the great axe genuinely falls, but that is not they way our carers work.

Vandalism is a good example of jumping on the scales, trying to defeat the repairers and making the World a ruin. Is it caused by envy, anarchism, evilness or what? Who do the spoilers think is going to put everything right? Who do they think is going to pay?

I have an answer. I appeal to vandals to have pride in what you do. Have your own facilities and swagger with the 'V' badge on the jacket. Do not deign to travel or live with the namby-pambies, they are beneath contempt, all that car washing and putting litter in the stupid little baskets. There will be 'V' and 'Non-V' (Vandal and Non-Vandal) carriages on the railways. In the 'V' class, you pay three times more than 'Non-V', you sit, if you can, on slashed seats, the toilet is broken etc; but you can perform vandalism if you can find anything unbroken. Buses, the same. Bus shelters, ditto. In fact the 'V' bus shelters can be erected ready-ruined. (Two types - Youthful bending and scratching, or Strong Young Male Total Destruction.) Towns and Cities also. Gothsville and Vandalton for the proudly anti-social. The Council Tax is five times higher than normal, there is no public transport, there is barely a pane of glass intact All the keep left bollards are lying down. The tree-stump nursery employs two sapling breakers. Cars are pre-scratched and for recreation there are concrete blocks stored in convenient piles on all the motorway bridges.

Peter:(

[Rapunzel]

Peter, whilst there are certain posters whose posts I always enjoy reading, it's getting to the stage where I get a shiver running down my spine, like a thrill of anticipation, whenever I see your name by a post. It's because I KNOW that I am about to read something good, whether your point is positive or negative its written in a positive and amusingly upbeat way which is just a sheer pleasure to read! Okay, that's enough stroking of your ego! :wah:

As a btw, your post reminded me of two TV ads I like - the first is for a bank credit card where the smart/dumb balance is kept. The smart person fills in the form for the credit card, the dumb person falls out of the window! :wah:

The other ad is of the little girl who spells out 'palaentology' with her building bricks. Lol. Both fun ads.

I like your hypothesis above, but in reality the vandals don't want to vandalise already vandalised items, they want to vandalise things which are new or cared for. I think its a kind of jealousy or anger that someone has something nice which they dont have. A kind of "I cant afford one of those so why should you have one?"

I read something recently (which I think was linked to from FG) about a judge with rather avant garde views, who took all the young men who came before his

bench for committing misdemeanours, and instead of sending them to prison, he sent them to boot camp to train to be soldiers. The chap who wrote the article said that of the 16 men sent by this judge to join his army training platoon, 15 went on to become high-ranking army officers.

I think a lot of vandalism is caused by bored youths with nothing to do, so they just hang out with their mates, fool around, get drunk and egg each other on to commit foolish pranks. If their energy could be harnessed and their enthusiasm inspired, they would probably enjoy life a lot more running an army assault course or parachuting from a plane and getting paid for it rather than spending life being piston broke and hung over!

Schooling today is much better than its ever been, but so many kids bunk off that they leave school with no qualifications and no hope of any decent job. Some kids prefer the physical to the mental and would do so much better if encouraged to persue a life style that actually appeals to them!

School needs to be more 'hands on' for kids to learn. If public schools had the money and resources private schools had each child could be assessed to allow him or her to follow a path which they would enjoy and where they could blossom and fulfil their potential. But it is cheaper for our governments to put less money into schools and bang miscreants up in jail, thus giving them a schooling in skulduggery and a record which they'll never shake off whilst destroying any hope or potential for a better life!

Whew!

[retepsnikrep]

Rapunzel;497417 wrote: Peter, whilst there are certain posters whose posts I always enjoy reading, it's getting to the stage where I get a shiver running down my spine, like a thrill of anticipation, whenever I see your name by a post. It's because I KNOW that I am about to read something good, whether your point is positive or negative its written in a positive and amusingly upbeat way which is just a sheer pleasure to read! Okay, that's enough stroking of your ego! :wah:


What can I say! Thank you for those kind words, I need a cold shower and a lie down in a darkened room now for my EGO to return to normal size.

Best Wishes.

Peter :-6