S: Is for a bankrupt society!

Continuing yesterdays column I woke up at 11:00 after having tossed and turned all night from the bruising and sore muscles from my fall. I immediately went to my phone, then to my e-mail, no messages. So I logged onto Duane Reade's website. I called because the store manager's report should of been filed and I sent two letters. Both now have case numbers and yet nobody had contacted me which I found strange. I was given to customer service but when I explained I wrote about this I was given to legal. To the stores credit both their legal and claims department were courteous and seem concerned, though oddly not surprised. I continue to write about this because without fighting for ones rights they are being diminished. Which brings us to tonight's column.

Since I was laid up in bed and bored out of my mind I turned on a new CBS series called "Swingtown." I figured it was about the sexual revolution by it's name, but I was not prepared for how far they would go. A "Traditional Marriage" in this show is romantically shown by seducing the neighbors and who ever else comes into eyes view. Sex in a marriage is enhance by sleeping with someone else either in an orgy situation or an added partner to the mix and then the couples sexual appetite is ferocious. The people who are opposed to such values are shown as boring, non interesting prudes. What kind of message is this sending? The converted neighbors are intrigued and enticed, by quaaludes as they open their eyes and participate in the taboo-shattering environment. Orgies in the basement, coke, pot, recreational drugs, stealing, a student about to seduce a teacher, a graphic depiction of a child being beat up for spreading sexual rumors about a girl and the multiple sex partners was just in the first episode. One has to ask, what's next. This is a summer replacement on at 10 and I'll tell you I would not want a teenager watching this because it is all glamorized. I knew people in this scene and this lifestyle made them emotional zombies, put some in mental institutes, broke up marriages, left a lot of sexually transmitted diseases and left them in ruins in every way a person can be left. What was CBS thinking? More importantly what were the sponsors? I look back on the 70s, and I'm embarrassed: Coke addictions, the white-collar-robbery and the junk bonds that led to the Savings-and-Loan meltdown, herpes and HIV infections, polyester double-knit leisure suits and platform shoes (ok they were cool). Don't forget the shirts open to the navel with gold chains and mullets. My biggest problem with this show is it morally bankrupt. What ones morals are just that ones morals and behind closed doors, what consenting adults do is just that.

My problem is if you want to create a world of desensitized people who do your bidding, you show them the things that make us feel and care, don't exist. Coke, pot, medications and alcohol dull and shut off the feeling portion of our brains. Unless it's psychedelics, which are meant to expand our visions but again people who did them a lot are no better off than someone who is mentally challenged. Easy to control. People who are into sexual addiction become dulled to the experience and need higher and higher stakes to reach that high. Again easy to control. I was never one to play well in the sandbox and I am not one to blindly watch as the world I know becomes the science fiction novels I've read. Wake-up before it is too late and add your voice. For it is one thing to believe in freedom but it is beginning to be used against us and that is a scary F.A.C.T.