Ashley Elizabeth posted on September 18, 2009 00:00
A few days ago while walking into a staff meeting with my co-workers, one of my cubicle-mates joked, “I’ll give someone $5 to shout out, ‘You lie’ in the meeting.” Everyone cracked a few laughs including myself; however, I started to think when did rudeness become socially acceptable?
First, good ole Kayne West decided someone gave him the right to swipe the mic from an innocent Taylor Swift. She stood there dumbfounded with no idea what to do or how to react. The camera flashed to Beyonce and Kayne ranted about how she had the best music video of all time. Beyonce looked just as shell-shocked as Taylor. Too bad Kayne didn’t do that to Pink or some other country star. He would 
have either taken an elbow to the face or a swift kick in the nuts. Have some class Kayne, really. I know this isn’t his first time having a public outburst, but I don’t know why people continue to support and buy the album of some one whose hair looks like crop circles and who feels the needs to make ridiculous public outbursts.
Then there was Serena Williams. Williams will be fined a total of $10,500 for behavior deemed "unsportsmanlike conduct" and for racket abuse after her aggressive, obscenity-filled reaction to a critical foot fault called during her 6-4, 7-5 U.S. Open semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters last Saturday night. After a lineswoman called a foot fault on a second serve, which gave Williams a double fault and put her a point away from the loss, Williams approached the lineswoman, shook a tennis ball in the direction of the woman's face and reportedly said, “If I could, I would take this . . . ball and . . . shove it down your throat.” So we have rappers and now female tennis stars making 
complete asses out of themselves and acting immature and ignorant in the public light. I understand that in sporting events, tempers can flare, and Williams literally paid the price for her outburst.
Lastly, Republican Joe Wilson yelled at President Obama in the middle of Congress. In eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency, despite huge differences on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and controversial debates over the torture policy, No Child Left Behind and immigration reform, no elected official ever heckled the president of the United States when he addressed a joint session of Congress. As Obama make his case for healthcare reform, Wilson called the President of the United States a liar. I’m not trying to get into a political debate with anyone. I have enough arguments with G and his republican lovin’ friends who like to claim I was “brainwashed” throughout my liberal arts education and my political science degree is tainted. Party lines aside, to stand up and bash Obama like that is simply disrespectful and out of line.
All of these public outbursts make me question what in the world is going on with people?!? Pardon me for bringing an issue to the STL Ladies section other than porn-stardom and the disgusting places foreign objects can fit in one’s body; 
however, after recent events I think people need to re-evaluate the proper way to act in public and the examples they are setting for others. Times are shifting and the polite ol’ days of censoring yourself in the media seems to be over.
Musicians, athletes, and politicians are some of the most admired and watched people in the country. Kids and teens download their albums and buy their jerseys. As for politicans, when you can get on the radio and say you hope the president fails, or that the president is a racist, like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, it is going to have some kind of effect. I’m not pointing the blame at one person or one group of people, but clearly, this cluster of public outbursts shows the tide is changing and “politically correct” and social taboos might be a thing of the past.