The Beastie

Turns out, Oprah (in a kind of pre-"Oprah" Oprah mode) and Tipper Gore revealed the true turning point in society in 1986.  It was the Beastie Boys.

Yes, even in 1986 it was impossible to raise Christrian children in our X-rated society.  It's sad that so many of those now 30 yearish old kids have all turned to Satanism due to our society and are wildly accepting of whatever denigration is put in front of them.  So much so that children these days have no boundries or rules and essentially run wild in the street in their rag clothes, clutching knives to their chests - but only when they can't afford guns.

Kim Kardashian as the downfall of society; Or not.

Simon Doonan at Slate.com pisses and moans on and on about how as a society we are all fetished up with the Kardashians.  It isn't like in his day - or that of his parents or grandparents - when accomplishment and talent was truly respected, he says.

I've blogged so much about this type of thing, I doubt I even have to make most of arguments again.  Doonan ignores two hugely important facts:

A) every society and culture and time period has had its "cupcakes."  Way back when it was gladitorial fighting, then it was coming out parties and Queens and Kings and Barons and courts and then it became movie stars and comic books and on and on.  Most if not all of those "cupcakes" are forgotten about 30 years on, so of course today's offerings appear worse.  When you compare Bieber or Spears to only the best of what survived from decades ago, of course today is going to pale in comparison.  But was Elvis really so much more accomplished?  One of the few really insightful comments is from a reader of Victorian novels who notes that even in those works - written in the 1800s - people complain about the disrespectful youth and downfall of culture and society.

B) As more and more people learn to read and have access to television, of course the interests of those people are going to dominate the media more.  This isn't a dumbing down of America or the world or a refutation of science, its just that people who 100 years ago would have gossiped in pubs can now read, and so they read People or US or watch the Kardashians or Real Housewives.  To this extent, TV now more closely represents what the U.S. always was.  When rich, educated people have 90 percent of all the televisions you would expect the fare to be tailored to them.  It stands to reason that when they represent only 10 percent of the viewership, the programming is going to be less tailored to them.

And some of the commenters are the best.  They run about 80 agreeing, 5 percent contradicting Doonan, and 15 percent saying "don't lump me in with 'those people'"  This last group posts things like: "Kim who?" "Sports schmortz, we don't watch them."  "When people ask what us about the game we say 'is there someone playing something'" - as if not knowing about pop culture somehow makes one smarter or superior.  But its not as if one can't know both who S. Hawking or R. Dawkins are while at the same time knowing of K. Kardashian or Fletcher Cox (Eagles draft pick).  I know of all four.  I also know that - contrary to many of the commentors - there is plenty of good television programs.  And lots of it doesn't appear on PBS.  Channels like Science, Discovery and the like produce shows like "How Its Made" and shows featuring science giants like Hawking and Machu.

Some other comments I like: 80 of people are idiots (excepting, I'm guessing, the commentor and his friends, who probably don't follow such mundane things as sports and television stars)

As one of the commentors noted, there is an entire South Park episode dedicated to S. Hawking - how much more pop culture, Red Carpet, can you get?

Hop on Mom and Pop

You hear a lot about buying local these days. Buy local food. Avoid Wal-Mart and shop at local Mom & Pop stores. In the later instance, I guess you spend a day going to 15 different stores, but whatever.

Meanwhile, over at PointofLaw.com, the site notes a story involving a guy complaining about Amazon's new push to have people post price information. The guy complains on Facebook about the policy and and says he will boycott Amazon. One assumes the guy is upset that the prices at most local stores won't beat Amazon, thus hurting those businesses.

PointofLaw notes that Facebook itself has put a couple businesses out of business (Friendster, anyone?), and couples with Gawker to put the squeeze on local newspapers.

Further, many of the localavores (at least on my Facebook) use Netflix, which essentially killed local Blockbusters, listen to music on iPods that helped kill local record stores, etc. etc. etc.

I'm expected to raise my kids in this world?

Two Florida school children suspended after they were caught... doing drugs? No. Having sex? No. Vandalizing property? Again, no.

Hugging. Yes. Hugging. According to Reason.com the principle "admits it was an 'innocent' hug, but the school has zero tolerance for hugging."

Wait. "Zero tolerance for hugging"? What?

I'm generally an enthusiastic supporter and believer that the times we are living in now are better than any time in the past; and that my kids' future world will be an infinitely better place than today.

Sometimes though, I have to wonder. To the extent that things like this make our world worse, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

And be careful, next time your teen kid smiles at someone, they could end up married, pregnant and full of STDs.

Only 37% of all people have a freezer; really?

Is that possible? According to this chart that I borrowed at the every fascinating Bleeding Heart Libertarians, it is:


That just jumped out at me as an odd stat.

The point of the post was that if you look at how the poor have fared since 1984, things aren't really so bad. Almost none of the poor had computers, cell phones, microwaves or clothes dryers and less than half had air conditioning. Not all of those are life changing. But computers almost certainly are. Computers - hand in hand with the internet - open a vast world of education and knowledge to the poor that they would have almost certainly been locked out of in the past.

Microwaves, clothes dryers, and cell phones, while not life changing in the same way, certainly are time savers, allowing the poor to work longer hours, or to have more leisure time while working the same hours. Air conditioning, although largely taken for granted, is a life-saving invention. And I'm not being dramatic. It literally saves lives.

The author of the post also notes that while many "experts" lament how wages have been largely stagnant over the last 20 or 30 years, that isn't the whole picture. As computers and cell phones and microwaves have become cheaper we now live better lives, even if we make the same money, than we did 30 years ago. Not only that, but thanks to microwaves, VCRs, the internet and things like dryers, we have more free time, and more entertainment options available to us.

So it's not really fair to simply lament that wages have largely remained the same over the last 30 or so years, because in the big picture, our lives are vastly easier than they were 30 years ago, and we have access to a much wider array of entertainment and educational options.

"The hardest job kids face..."

Fred Astair lived from May 10, 1899 to June 22, 1987. For the purposes of this post I'd like that 1987 to be a bit earlier (no offense Mr. Astair), but it will do.

At some point during his life, he said the following:

"The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any."

It's important to realize that he died in 1987. So at the very latest, he must have been talking about "kids" in 1986 or 1987. Given this, the "kids" he was talking about would now be between 20 and 40 years old (roughly ages 0-20 in 1986). Again, this is assuming the latest possible date he could have made this comment.

Why is this important? Well, next time any one between those ages tries to tell you about the lack of "manners" kids have these days compared to their day, keep in mind that Fred Astair thought the same thing about them way back when they were kids. And any time some one over those ages tries to tell you how parents don't set good examples for their kids... well... guess who was "not setting" a good example for all those kids Astair is talking about.

Just another example of how things really aren't worse today than they were back then. The good old days weren't always good, and (today or tomorrow) ain't as bad as they seem.