Surely the answer is obvious and staring us in the face - these children are being brought up in the age of the offended. Children are no longer taught how to research, disseminate, and understand what they see and read, but to instantly be offended by what they dislike.

Two recent events come to mind. In the UK a TV station that broadcast the movie Grease was inundated by people offended by scenes that depicted racism, bigotry, misogyny and sexism. Before being so offended they failed to check that the movie was made over 30 years ago, depicting life in the fifties over 70 years ago.

People in Melbourne are objecting to a development, just because they are offended that the design of one building was inspired by a structure built in 1937 during the Mussolini era and are offended it might inspire Fascism.

So you see children are not brought up to be happy and carefree, they are taught to find something that offends them. If they find something that doesn't offend them personally, then they must be offended on behalf of those who never saw the article, film, or heard the spoken word, but might be offended if they did.

It's no wonder children are turning to antidepressants when their adult mentors make a career out of being obsessed.

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In 2004 I received a pen for the letter of the week. After driving through a few towns in South Australia which were proudly displaying their "Tidy Town" status, I had expressed the frustration of seeing randomly discarded rubbish, it mostly being aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, cigarette packs, and take away food wrappings.

Now 17 years on, as I regularly walk my local streets and adjacent bushland, nothing has changed, alas, the situation is worse! There is also blatant dumping of large household items, building rubble, discarded toys - the list is endless.

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Clean up Australia Day started in 1989 and is scheduled for March 7 this year. My words back in 2004 reflected a hopeful desire that it would not be necessary to have such a day in the distant future.

I again encourage everyone to find a bin or take the rubbish home, lets show pride and respect for our fabulous city and its citizens.