America’s epidemic of rudeness

When my oldest friend, a baseball historian, visited last summer, we spent a pleasant afternoon at Nationals Park watching my beloved Washington Nationals lose to the Miami Marlins. Pleasant, that is, until we left the ballpark on a packed escalator. Halfway down, a young man threw up on my friend’s leg. He laughed uproariously and, without a hint of an apology, walked away. “Unbelievable,” my…