Civility

We read the NY Times over the quick breakfast that we share together, She gets the front, I get the business/sports, we kick the Arts back and forth. And so this morning, when She stuck the front of the paper over my cereal, folded to the editorial page (which I only read if She finds something She thinks I should read) I left the business travel and moved on to the editorial about Serena.

Everyone should read this editorial and learn from it...learn how not to behave, learn how not to make amends, learn how to point their children in the exact opposite direction. The phrases that jumped out at me in block caps included I WAS IN THE MOMENT (as an excuse for not remembering what she said), I'M MOVING ON (as a way of leaving the event behind her) and I JUST WANT TO GIVE HER A GREAT OLD HUG (as if that would make everything as it was). In a sport that prides itself in its civility, where the audience is told to be quiet and they obey, in a sport where there is absolute silence during serving, the image of a player raging at an official and threatening to shove a tennis ball down her fucking throat (good lip reader that I am) is unconscionable. And to learn that whatever additional punishment against her may be mitigated due to fear of loss of television viewership is deplorable.

The outburst during President Obama's speech last week initiated this past week of uncivility, and the Congressman who blurted out the comment about lying should be punished as severely as possible. There doesn't need to be any reference to the race card here, as President Carter posited. This was just misbehavior and disrespect of an individual and his office.

And then there's Kanye West's bizarre stepping on poor Taylor Swift's toes, in his inability to understand why someone else's choice of music might be different, let alone better, than his.

All in all, a sad week for civility and manners and decorum.