Rude: Where are our Manners?

I'm always being shocked. No one signals, people don't say hello back when you pass them in the park, people walk three abreast on the sidewalk and don't move for anyone. Who says excuse me or sorry or thank you anymore? -Valerie Pringle

Rude: Where are our Manners? is a one-hour documentary exploring our ideas of modern civility, or lack thereof. 

Valerie Pringle walks with civility expert, Benet Davetian, on a P.E.I. street. 

 

People's perception of our world is that we've become increasingly uncivil - kids are out of control, people talk on their cellphones everywhere and the f-word is a standard greeting. 

But hasn't every generation since time began worried that their world was becoming less tolerant and less civil? And isn't change sometimes for the better? Not too long ago a woman wearing pants could be seen as uncivil, and for that matter so was an African American person using a public water fountain.

Valerie Pringle interviews Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners. Read more of the interview online.

Rude: Where are our Manners? will take a journey through the past and into our present while asking difficult questions - are we more uncivil, where did we go wrong, did we go wrong, and is it possible to change? 

Our guide will be Valerie Pringle, she wants answers to why our world seems so rude. She tracks down the experts in her quest for a 21st century guide to manners.  Watch the full episode at CBC Doc Zone

Thrown Over the Fence — Infanticide, Canadian Style

Mark Steyn hit the nail on the head when he accused a Canadian appeals court of allowing for a “fourth-trimester abortion” — that’s right, the killing of a baby that is already born.

The case emerged from the Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta, where a judge faced the fact that a woman had been convicted of strangling her newborn son and then throwing the baby’s body over the fence into her neighbor’s yard.

A CBC News reported, the woman was given a three-year suspended sentence and will spend no time in jail for the killing of her baby. Katrina Efferts “will have to abide by conditions for the next three years but she won’t spend time behind bars for strangling her own son.”

JudgJustice Joanne Veit, whose name should now go down in legal and moral infamy, tied this woman’s act of infanticide to Canada’s lack of legal restrictions on abortion. The judge’s decision stated that “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”    Keep Reading...