This is so #@!$*^ Rich!

Why I ought...

When I was five I uttered an obscenity in front of my parents. It wasn't one of those run of the mill swear words, it was, as Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" says, it was the queen mother of all words...it was the f-word. I had heard some of the older guys in the neighborhood (8 year olds!) saying it, so I didn't think it was a bad word...this was 1965. My Dad, God bless his soul, didn't get angry. He took me aside and explained that the word I had said was a "bad word" and not appropriate to be saying at my age. Then he added, and not very appropriate when you get older either because it tells people that you are not very educated.

With that in mind I went all the way up to the 9th grade before uttering another curse word. That's when my friend Ernie decided to make it his life's work to make me cuss. He harassed me to no end. Even cornered me in woodshop once and attacked me with a 3 foot long 1" dowel.

Finally, one day, in front of my locker, he slammed the locker door shut on my hand and I had had enough. I let out a whole string of cuss words, every one that I had had catalogued in my head, including those in espanol. He laughed and laughed...and eventually so did I.

But not before a teacher overheard me and called me an imbecile...so my Dad was right after all.

My college journalism professor was more blunt when he said, and I quote (cause it's drilled into my mind): "I will not tolerate obscenities in your articles. You are all educated adults. If you are not smart enough to find another word for s--t, d--n, or f--k, you are a moron, plain and simple, and I don't want you writing for me or this paper."

That's not to say I'm prudish about these things...I'm known to sling the words around freely when I'm with my friends on the golf course and every once in a while the s--t word comes rolling from my tongue when something unexpected happens, but for the most part I'm pretty clean on the vulgarities.

I bristle when I hear people say them as though they were saying hello. And worse yet is when you hear the offspring of these imbeciles having a conversation in the same language as their parents, with their parents!

Being a parent in this day and age when you can't go anywhere, I mean ANYWHERE (once while at Mass the priest, in mid-consecration, cursed because he didn't feel we were responding to the prayers as enthusiatically as we should have. Yes I called him on it, it was the most holiest part of the Mass of goodness sake, at a catechist meeting, telling him that he was way out of line. He was unrepentant. We never attended another of his services), that is free from obscenities.

It is very difficult when your trying your hardest to instill some values into your kids...but we live in a world in which smoking is banned but the dumbing down of the culture is allowed to continue unabaited.

That's the long way around the barn...because here is what started the tirade:

Less Swearing on TV, Demands Former Sex Pistol
Fri Mar 4,12:00 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - "Wanna be an anarchist?"

At least one of the Sex Pistols, now middle-aged and a father of two, no longer does.

Former Pistols Bassist Glen Matlock has called for swearing on television to be curbed, nearly 30 years after the provocative punk rockers sent shockwaves through Britain by using derivations of the dreaded "f"-word on live TV.

In 1976, the volley of abuse, chiefly from the punk band's Steve Jones, catapulted the group into a media firestorm that ended the career of TV interviewer Bill Grundy.

"It's pathetic when people swear for the sake of it," Matlock told a television show to be broadcast Sunday. "Something ought to be done about it."

Matlock, 48, also told "X-Rated: The TV Shows They Tried To Ban" that he hated it when his young children heard obscenities on the airwaves.

As a teen-ager, Matlock co-wrote some of the Pistols' most enduring anthems like "God Save The Queen" and "Anarchy In The UK." He left the group early in 1977 and was replaced by Sid Vicious.

Matlock was taking part in a Channel 4 program which looks at how attitudes toward swearing and censorship have changed to the point where profanities are broadcast nearly every night of the week.

Hmmm...let me quote Charlton Heston from the "Planet of the Apes"..."DAMN YOU!!!!"

One of the signposts for the decline of a cultured Western Civilization can be linked directly to these slobs and this bucket of bilge water has the temerity to cry foul! Yes Mr. Matlock, it is pathetic when people swear for the sake of it. Thank you for opening THAT particular pandora's box with your mates...hmmm...what were their names again...oh yeah, Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten...

So your 48 now, and you have children and your perplexed about the language...bastard punk!

Funny, but it's bloody typical. If he had the ability for self-reflection he ought to be apologizing for his behavior to us all...but don't hold your %$#@!* breath.

Sorry...I'll go wash my mouth out with soap now.