Comments on: For Better or For Rain

By: S.P. Charles

S.P. Charles — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:09:39 +0000

Um… That was a joke, Gcat. Bill constantly rants against the “global warming” misconception (re here), and he was making fun of his own little obsession.

By: Gcat

Gcat — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:01:51 +0000

Cidu Bill
“I’m about the same age you are, and I also had to walk a bit over half a mile to school. Snowing just meant leaving the house a bit earlier. I would have killed for some of that global warming stuff…”

So, you would have rather walked in heaver snow? People like you are the reason the term “global warming” had to be changed to “climate change”.
Very very very simple definition of “global warming” Hot places get hotter, cold places get colder.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:36:30 +0000

bullthistle: The Pattersons don’t live “20 years ago” any more. They live in some vague and undefined year, due to Lynn Johnston’s desire to remove any chronological references from the new-run/repeats. See http://www.fborfw.com/fun/blog/archives/003462.php for comments on this; Lynn inserted a reference to “Shania Twain” in a strip that originally ran in 1980 or so.

By: Jeff S.

Jeff S. — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:37:09 +0000

Kaitlyn said, “This is also kinda weird, because it’s raining today here and elsewhere, I’m sure. I know it rains somewhere every day…”

There’s a weatherman here in Oklahoma that says something like, “There’s a 100% chance of a 20% chance of rain somewhere in the state today.” I want to punch him 100% of the time when he says that.

By: Cedar

Cedar — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:46:06 +0000

In defense of today’s horrible, fat, lazy brats, I think one of the reasons why kids don’t walk and play outside all the time is due to the increasing suburbanization of our country; even cities are developing suburban qualities like sprawl and strict zoning. When I was a kid in the early 80s, I couldn’t really go anywhere in my neighborhood–my school was too far away to walk, and there weren’t any grocery stores, mini-marts, libraries, etc nearby to walk to–I lived (at least at that time) in a strictly residential neighborhood. And even if I did want to walk somewhere, we lived off of a major road with no sidewalks. I wouldn’t feel safe as an adult biking or walk on that road, much less let a child do that.

I live in a big(ish) city now, and once you get out of the downtown core and the few neighborhoods surrounding it, it becomes more or less a suburb. With a few exceptions, I wouldn’t want to let my kid run around with no supervision in these areas–it’s too car-centered, with too many major roads with high speed limits, and no where really to go.

By: Size

Size — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:12:49 +0000

Mark in Boston - Friend, no one told you that you were growing up in a slasher movie!

Seriously - I think Bill is closest to the truth here. We focus on safety in areas that are completely unrealistic, like child abductions. Charlene, that is a terrible tragedy, but at any point in American history, a statistical outlier. We also ignore safety in areas that may turn out to be critical, like physical fitness.

Like Kaitlyn said, we will learn from out mistakes and face different problems than our parents did. As someone from the “MTV Generation” I’m a little tired of hearing about how awful kids are these days. (Not that I’m convinced that was even MiB’s original point, I don’t know him well enough to read that much into it). But yes, our kids will be dependent on technology, but what generation since the ancient Greeks hasn’t been in some way or another?

By: Mark in Boston

Mark in Boston — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 01:56:48 +0000

Survivor’s Fallacy? You know, I always wondered why every few weeks another kid in my class would disappear without a trace, until finally I was the only one left. Now that I think about it, I guess they wanted to spare me the horror of knowing that one was hit by a car, one was eaten by a dog, and so on.

By: Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:02:15 +0000

My mom used to say things like that, and part of it is the “current generation’s” attachment to cell phones.

Of course, we should take ours with her and let her know where we are and if our plans change… she survived without cell phones, but her kids better have them.

One of my “favorites” had a bit about how “our” generation (born before 1970) developed all these great things. No one saw the irony in bitching about how those developments changed things.

Comments like that always seem to blame the current generation, the kids. I’m sure they’re not meant that way - after all, a kid doesn’t choose whether to walk to school or ride the bus, grown-ups do. The same grown-ups who won’t shut up about how much we coddle kids today.

My mom grew up in a teeny town, pretty far away from a city. I did not. So even if we both grew up in the 60s and 70s, we’d still have lived different lives.

Not everyone living in the “good old days” had the same experience.

By: eeyore19

eeyore19 — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:57:01 +0000

As a child who loved to play in the rain like this, I get what Ellie’s getting at. She knows that Michael’s going to get a little wet from the rain but doesn’t want him splashing around in puddles and getting soaked.

By: Howabominable (aka Lindsey ^_^)

Howabominable (aka Lindsey ^_^) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:30:02 +0000

Parenting is a work in progress. No “generation” did it perfect. As a society we’ve learned a lot about raising kids and keeping them safe, but a lot of the time we still do things wrong or go overboard. That’s how we learn and innovate and raise our children to progress society like they do - if we never made mistakes or had problems with our parenting styles, we would never figure out how to fix them. So glorifying one parenting style as the best is silly. Obviously parents today aren’t perfect. We’ve made some advances in some areas and need to work in others. But honestly, I don’t think having to walk a mile and a half to schcool is one of them. I had to walk a mile and a half to my bus stop, but I don’t think I’m a stronger or better person for it.