Submitted by Sir Joshua, Sep 4, 2007 06:08

Perhaps I've lived through too much of a pendulem swing of social shift from a time when 'good' was normal in America, i.e., Spring Byington, the actress, WAS what someone's aunt from the South was really like and not a Paula Dean who was out to murder everyone with arterial poisoning. I am a child of the '50's and '60's and feel like I have been through a morality meat grinder when it comes to what is taken for normal on TV and the press. Remember American Bandstand after school? The guys wore TIES !! and the girls had dresses with necklines that circled their throats. I didn't learn what cleavage was until I was in college. The last time I saw a dance program on TV everyone was in bathing suits and the girls were all doing deep squats and pelvic thrusts like it was an exercise in a fertility clinic. Or maybe it was just an African tribal dance class and I missed the entire point...but I could have sworn they were all at the beach. The 60's corrupted the human brain in a way that I don't think it can ever be put back togeather again...and it did it on TV. The summer show, Mad Men, told us about the hip '50's types who came back from WW II testosterone charged and ready to reshape life in Apple Pie America and boy did they do it. They sold everything including the countries morals. Oh I know Henry MIller was off 'entertaining' Anias Nin, but that was in Paris and that's where that sort of thing was supposed to go on, not here in Normalville. Why would a family have to schlep off to South Africa to find themselves? Cowbell Corners, New Hampshire, with the scent of bovine neighbors could have done it too, of course the cursed TV would still be there pumping venom into Waltonville every night soon as Junior or Sis got bored with doing chores...but I must be a crank not go embrace TV the way the Mad Men want us to. Whether we think of TV as being Totally Vacuous or Totally Vicious it is something we have to contend with. Chuck the TiVo and learn to read - I think that's why Barnes & Noble is doing so well.

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