When botho is lost

Even a few years ago, it would have been impossible for anyone to ask such a question of someone older than themselves - whether they were well-endowed and respected or poor and on the margins of society.

I am not sure now whether my surprise derived from the freedom with which the question was asked or from the presumption in asking the question that the answer might be yes or no, or simply from an understanding on the part of the questioner that the involvement of middle-aged men with ma-14 now commonly occurs across the entire country?  It would not have occurred to me at the time, however, to touch on such questions until I was again made to sit up by two recent newspaper headlines.