What's Happened to Us?

I watched a great interview with a guy I regularly drool over. A Gladiator. Master. Commander.



Russell Crowe. I think he's a fabulous actor, and he's a perfect subject for a romance hero. But the thing that got me about the interview with Mr. Intensity was his answers to the inevitable rehashing of the Phone Throwing Incident.

Don't get me wrong- grown people should be able to control their tempers, at least to the point where they don't throw things. Especially at other people. I am not condoning Russell's actions, no matter how personally appetizing I find him.

When the interviewer- Steve Croft, 60 Minutes, I think- questioned him on the matter, Russell said something along these lines: "Where I come from, we would have thrown a couple of punches, gotten up, shook hands, apologized, and that would have been the end of it." Instead, police were called, charges filed, and so much press over a third-degree misdemeanor that called for a $160 fine you would have thought he was Hitler incarnate confessing to mass murder. Add to that the concierge who had the phone chucked at him sued him for several million dollars for pain and suffering. Russell made some not-too-nice insinuations about the American legal system and how easy it is to abuse it.

As a patriotic, proud, bleed-stars-and-stripes American, I have to agree. I can remember a time when two guys might have let their tempers get the better of them, and yes. After the fight, they would have stood up, shook hands, apologized, and that would have been the end of it. When did Americans get so pissy? The image we all like to have of ourselves- the John Wayneish pioneers, tough, hardy, honorable- has fallen to the wayside. There are people like that still around, of course, but those noble souls are being outnumbered and outvoted by brats who think they are actually worth hundreds of millions of dollars if they spill their own freaking coffee in their own freaking laps.

I get infuriated when I think of how much time and money is taken up in our courts with frivolous stupid lawsuits that, in time gone by, would have been settled with a handshake, or, at the least, with an arbitrator. And for no more reason than this- many Americans have become pissy little whiners with a horribly inflated sense of what they're owed in this life. How many people who truly need judicial intervention have to practically forsake it because the courts are so clogged with these spoiled children?

Granted, we're all so money-hungry I'm sure there's a ka-ching factor at work here too. You can't slip on a grape in the grocery store without three ambulance-chasers trying to convince you that you don't just need money for the doctor or time off work, but compensation for your pain and suffering. Yes, I let my two year old loose in the store and he threw the grapes on the floor and I didn't stop him, but I have pain and suffering, you heartless corporate conglomerate! This is your fault, somehow!

I remember the old Bloom County cartoon that depicted a lawyer suing a camera company because they were negligent in not warning customers Do Not Photograph Psychopathic Paparazzi-Hating Celebrities For Injury May Result.

Which brings me back to Russell Yummy Crowe. I suppose he could sue the hotel for the psychological pain and suffering they inflicted on him by their inferior phone service preventing him from contacting his family, right? Or he could have done what he did. Accepted responsibility, apologized, paid his fine, and, I'm sure he wishes, that was the end of it.

That used to be the American Way. Too bad an Australian has to remind us of it.