The Glade 4.0

*Disclaimer: I am of Italian descent and I live in NJ.

So. Yesterday we took our three and a half year old son Ethan on the Polar Express. For those who dont know it's a children's story about a magical train that takes kids to the North Pole to see Santa. There is an actual 1950's era train in a few places around the country, we went to the one in Phillipsburg NJ. The premise is cute. Ethan loves trains, what kid doesnt love Christmas, and you get to tell a fat guy in a red suit all the toys you want. You dress up in Pajamas as per the story and the even give you hot chocolate and cookies. Cute. So why is this in Rants?

Enter the utterly spot on negative caricatures of every **** douchebag italian-american you've ever seen on TV. I believe there were six adults, based on age not maturity level, and a brood of untold number but no less than 8 children. The adults were barking, literally, out the window. As in loudly making sounds like a dog for no discernible reason other than it amused them to do so. When they eventually stopped the kids picked up the barking, because that **** never gets old. The men were certainly drunk, and they stopped the hired performers on the train (who were trying to entertain kids) to video themselves slurring the lyrics to Christmas carols with them. The heavily made up wives were busy yelling across the entire car to the various kids who were also yelling about fart jokes, Santa fat jokes and whatever else. My son was miserable and it was torture for us too. I tried to salvage a little of it by trying to ignore them first but eventually trying to catch some of the idiocy on camera. I'm afraid to put it on youtube because they might get a reality show out of it. I find it very difficult to restrain myself in those situations but I thought escalating it might make it much worse.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Stereotypes come from somewhere, they are rarely made up from whole cloth out of a detractors imagination. No matter how determined the majority of the people from the population that the stereotypes are about act, all it takes is one clown, or in this case one group of clowns, to act in accordance with the stereotype to reinforce the image in every observers eye. This is why shows like Jersey Shores have such a negative effect on the people they "represent".

Sorry you and your family had to experience that Dash.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Sorry to hear about that Dash. I don't know if they do any Polar Express type stuff, but you might want to check out the Strasburg Railroad in Strasburg PA which should only be an hour or two from you if you'd like to try another steam train ride. They are definitely operating during the summer.

You also remind me all too vividly of too many trips to downtown Philadelphia or NYC as a kid with my mother or school. I swear I met that family at the Philadelphia Zoo before.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Everyday I am amazed at the way people act. It's sad that they have no manners or self restraint.

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

The cleanse will come.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Heh yeah. I mean i enjoyed watching the Sopranos sometimes but they just add to the problem.

Reaction shot of my son:

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I cannot say that I have ever met any non-stereotypical italians. Maybe it is because Little Italy here in Cleveland is so over the top insular that it just reinforces itself generation after generation, or maybe I'm racist.

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I was talking with a couple of co-workers about it. One who is also Italian, but one of the good ones , and one black guy. We all decided each group has a lot of shitty representation in pop culture and that bleeds out to the mainstream douches, further encouraging them.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe