Channeling My Inner Girl Scout

Why I'm fighting the decline of respect.

By Raina Kelley | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Oct 28, 2009

« Return to Article

Discuss

Member Comments

  • Posted By: gronamox @ 10/29/2009 9:53:02 AM

    Cut it out. Deborah Norville is a certified 10th runner up in the Miss Nowhere regionals. That anyone but her husband would publish anything dripping from her brain onto paper is a miracle of modern hucksterism. Now the fact that you are a friendly cuss is wonderful. I love chatting people up and in Oregon, people love it. When I do get a cold stare or ignored it is usually a young person who is having problems merely remembering his name. Helping people is fine, but remember, you are in New York
    City. If you encroach upon personal space or touch anything without permission, you could be attacked-no bull. Cops love to intimidate anything-you, me, birds, turds, litter. They hate everything.But if you are in trouble, they are there for you. Respect is not the core problem. Everyone knows how to behave, but the barriers came down when the idiot George Bush made the Presidency the home of Deviant the Clown Prince of Kennebunkport. His entourage of conniving and half-witted lowlives took the common decency index to zero. He himself called a New York Times columnist an *** on an open mike. That was a new low in scum Presidents we have known. Even the bald faced liar and sex addict Clinton kept a civil tongue in his head.Reagon and Nixon were brain damaged and criminals to the corps. The broke enough federal laws between them to set back the Social Conscience to the Spanish Inquisition, the bellweather of rude and lude behavior. Calling Obama a liar marked the nadir of GOP redneck ethos. They are doomed to be thrown out of this Democracy for ever. As for violence, fistfights in the house and Senate have occurred. One old wretch concussed a fellow Senator with his cane. Assassinations are the benchmark of disrespect, and thank God, even though Hillary was hoping for one, Barak is safe so far. But so many others bore the brunt of a society gone mad with brutish behavior and the American curse of the moronic gun toting murderer looking for fame and fortune. When an 87 year old lunatic bigot kills a guard in the Museum of Remembrance in D.C, for no reason other than he is a psychopathic anti-semite hunting for Jews to kill, I long for the days when cops just rounded up the bad guys and killed the mfs.

    • Posted By: S2McH @ 11/16/2009 7:41:14 AM

      Obviously, you have never written anything, or had anything published. You owe Ms. Norville respect for her efforts and for landing productive jobs, and likely the employment of others, again, all more than you are apt to do.

      You don't even have the self-respect to properly use the English language, and due to your ineptness, you succumb to using vulgarities.

      You are this thread's poster boy.

    • Posted By: zz333 @ 10/30/2009 10:00:42 AM

      You are an example of one. Mr. know it all, resentful of everyone else.

  • Posted By: CreoleInDC @ 11/01/2009 12:00:00 PM

    Gosh...after reading the rest of these comments I'm actually kind of startled. Really people? An article about being helpful and polite caused THESE type of reactions? REALLY?

  • Posted By: Jacob Freeze @ 10/29/2009 6:44:30 AM

    Apparently Raina Kelley is so ignorant about real issues affecting school-children that she doesn't even know the law in Louisiana about calling teachers "Sir" and "Ma'am" can be enforced by beatings. Call me "Sir" or I'll beat you! This is RS 17:416.12 of the Louisiana Code, and the only punishment which a school cannot inflict for "disrespect" is expulsion or suspension. Since Louisiana is one of 20 states which still allow physical discipline in the schools, allowable punishments for failing to say "Sir" including paddling, and RS 17:416.12 even applies to kindergarten.

    • Posted By: CreoleInDC @ 11/01/2009 11:57:45 AM

      I was born and raised in Louisiana and never heard of a student being beaten for not saying ma'am or sir. It's taught the same as saying "thank you." It's simply considered raising a child with good manners.

    • Posted By: downsteamjim @ 10/31/2009 9:44:30 PM

      I live in Louisiana and have never heard of a student being beaten for not saying mam or sir. Treating people with respect is a great thing. If the other person gets upset, they have the problelm.

  • Posted By: CreoleInDC @ 11/01/2009 11:55:15 AM

    I'm the exact same way and didn't realize how "different" I was until I moved to the DC Metro area from the South. I'm not going to stop being me because I love being me and hopefully it will rub off on more than a few people I come in contact with.

    People should be nicer to each other. Period.

  • Posted By: BabzPsychoBunny @ 10/30/2009 5:36:25 PM

    I hold doors for people, I smile and say hello, good morning, bless you.... I say please, excuse me, thank you, and I always tell people if they've dropped something. I often help people pick things up and I like letting people through in traffic when I noticed they've been there for a while and are desperate. I do think because it's nice, it's polite and it's the righ thing to do. No politics, no choosing where and when to do it, what's right is right. Apparently some of us are too good to just do that....

  • Posted By: zz333 @ 10/30/2009 9:59:08 AM

    This is the final by product of the 60s generation. By the way, start with the HIP HOP culture!

  • Posted By: boredwell @ 10/29/2009 10:01:39 AM

    There was a time when people stood up to allow older people to take their seats on crowded mass transit. There was a time when it was considered common courtesy to hold the door for someone behind you entering the same building. There was a time when people didn't throw trash on the street or out of bus windows. There was a time when when people didn't loudly air their dirty laundry and grocery lists (via cell phones) in the public domain. There was time when people didn't walk three across, down a sidewalk forcing you to move aside to let them pass. Those were the days, huh! Long gone though. Sigh.

  • Posted By: lion rampant @ 10/29/2009 9:01:11 AM

    Grow up Jacob. We have kids killing each other, cursing at their parents, getting pregnant as young teens. Maybe a spanking now and then would curb some of this insanity! I got my share of spankings as a child - in the fifties and early sixties with todays laws my father would have been jailed! And guess what? I do not walk on peoples lawns, I hold the door for others, I say thank yoy to the waitress at the diner when she brings me coffee, even though it is her job. In other words I believe I am a respectable human being who tries to do the right thing. If we keep going the way we are going we will eventually have war in the streets and the survival of the fittest will mean the survival of the most violent and disrespectful. And by the way, children need to be taught respect, they do not just absorb it from the atmosphere.

  • Posted By: siciliam @ 10/29/2009 8:43:27 AM

    Despite Ms. Kelley's lack of in-depth knowledge of Louisiana's education laws, she nevertheless had the courage to tackle a topic that could (or may have already) led the Politically Correct Police to take a few bites out of her (hopefully just figuratively, if at all.) I believe, Ms. Kelley, that increasing respectful behavior in others, (regardless of geography) is much like learning phonics and/or multiplication tables. It takes consistency, rote memorization, and more importantly, modelling by 'respectable' adults. You have *my* respect and admiration for taking on the topic, modelling the appropriate behaviors, periodically humping strollers, and remaining persistent in the face of 'in your face' behaviors. Stay with your plan, it's the right one, and if it helps, there are many, many more folk who share your beliefs *and* your behaviors than it may seem on certain, 'bad respect days'. Well done.

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse