Disobedience and Misbehavior

I am working on a post titled, "The Lesson of Obedience." The main inspiration comes from Book of Good Manners by Frederick H. Martens (1923). This will be another in a "series" of posts on manners and civility. Here are the previous posts:

The Lesson of Consideration

Mind your Manners

4-Way Civility vs. Roundabout Impoliteness

Meanwhile, I ran across two examples of human misbehavior in my morning travels around the world wide web. 

Tip of the hat to Kris at Shout First, Ask Questions Later-- whose subtitle is "Politics and one mother with a keyboard. Because in front of every informed voter is a frightened politician"-- for the first example. It is a video shot by the mother of two young boys who have thrown/are throwing a five pound bag of flour all around the living room. 

Some questions come to mind. Why is she video taping this instead of disciplining them? Did she already have the camera or did she allow them to continue while she went to fetch it? When is she going to start stopping them? And why-- why??-- would she put this video on-line? This is the equivalent of me catching Rocky doing something unacceptable in the living room, taping him, and then uploading it. "Look! I can't teach Rocky not to poop inside! Aren't I cute? Oh no! Poop. What am I going to do?"

The second story takes us into a future where the two boys, above, have grown up* to become staffers for Mississippi Congressman Steve Palazzo. (H/t Majority in Mississippi) The boys and their fellows throw

a two-night party in Annapolis and tried to impersonate the Congressman after getting a call from local police.

Occupy the Condominium. From the Roll Call (at The Hill) account:

Neighbors say it became clear on that Friday night that the weekenders next door were looking for a good time.

A neighbor returned home around 9:30 p.m. Oct. 7 and discovered a “frat house” scene at the rental property, with people carousing outside.

The neighbor shrugged it off until about 11:15 p.m., at which point he stepped out on his deck and asked the revelers to settle down.

“Who the f--- is that?!” one partygoer barked. The neighbor reiterated his plea for peace and quiet at 11:30 p.m. — with the caveat that the cops would be called as a last resort. That persuaded the party attendants to retreat inside, where they kept at it for at least an hour and a half.

The following morning, a young man who introduced himself as “Jason” went to the neighbor and “profusely” apologized for the disturbance. “He must have said sorry about 11 times,” the neighbor said.

As part of his mea culpa, the young man divulged that the occupants were all overzealous Hill staffers who had gotten a little crazy because their boss had never materialized.

“When we found out that he was not coming down with his family and kids, we decided to let our hair down,” Jason said, according to the neighbor.

The young man insisted to the neighbor that it would not happen again Saturday night.

When the good times resumed that evening — “There were bottles on the front stoop, bottles on the bumpers of the car … and a young man wandering around out front in his boxer shorts” — the neighbor gave the out-of-towners one more warning, at 11 p.m., before phoning the police.

Meanwhile, after being blindsided by noise complaints Friday night, the property manager called Donald on Saturday and demanded an explanation. Donald feigned ignorance, insisting that she, Palazzo and his family had been asleep at the house by 10 p.m.

When the property manager went Sunday morning to formally evict everyone, Donald said Palazzo had caught a flight that morning. Later, Donald’s story shifted again when she swore Palazzo and his family flew out Saturday to tend to his sick mother-in-law.

*I kid you not, two of the staffers have the same last name. Brothers?