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NOVEMBER 2016 AND OTHER POPULAR OBSCENITIES

I might as well just admit it up front...! I find today's world of relentless hype and hustle downright obscene. Maybe you've noticed too. Hollywood marquees promising us films that are always 'brilliant,' 'epic,' 'legendary.' Washington always promising us jobs, joy, endless prosperity. Silicon Valley forever promising us the next-greatest-thing we absolutely must have in our lives.

OK, none of this nonsense is exactly new. However, we lately we've come upon a new bit of nattering nonsense. So very very seriously debating who will run for president in 2016. We haven't yet survived 2012, but now the gotta-keep-finding-a-new-headline pundits on television are fixating on the likes of Hillary, Biden, Perry, even the Big Dog himself. The madness of it all is downright obscene.

Einstein always liked to advise pundits, be they politicians or physicists: "If you can't explain it to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it yourself." Seems to me he was talking about Clarity. Instead, today's talking- heads on the news channels are far more interested in Captivating. What and who can we talk about that will captivate our audiences and therefore our ratings. Pretty much what 'West Wing' writer Aaron Sorkin is addressing in his angry new TV series 'Newsroom.'

Making a career out of predicting the future is nothing new. The Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece, the firebrand prophets in ancient Israel, and self-anointed seers like the Mayans, Nostradamus and Pat Robertson are among the perennials. Take your choice.

But come on, folks, no one knows the future. It's not something you own, you simply survive as best you can. Not only is it obscene to exploit people's fears about it, it's more than a little outrageous for anyone to presume they or their latest headliner will even live to see that future!

Much better that you and I and our syndicated profiteering soothsayers focus on living the best today we can. In doing that, we'll be doing more for our future than anything else at hand.





 

TODAY'S YOUNG MOTHERS HAVE WOMANIZED TODAY'S YOUNG FATHERS

It's been a well-intentioned process by the more compassionate female of the species. And so it is that here in the 21st C, fathers have largely joined mothers in immunizing their children from failure! from defeat! from loss of any kind!

Now look, when mommy hugs the boo-boo's, that's perfectly natural and wonderful. But lately, mommy has convinced daddy, teacher, cop and neighbor that kids must be protected at all costs. For only then can they grow up to feel loved and valued and fulfilled. What's come of this conviction...?

PE classes where no one loses...contests where everyone wins...grades in which there are never any F's...life in which there is always a hand to immunize the little tyke from the pain of pain. The more  sophisticated the parents, the more likely pain has been flushed out of those protected lives.

So far the results are not yet in. If the old harsh, no-pain-no-gain culture bred a legion of John Wayne's and Clint Eastwood's, this current no-pain-all-gain ethos is bringing us a generation of sensitivity. Empathy. Accessibility. What for heaven's sake could be wrong with that...?

All I know is my old football coach and master sergeant wouldn't like it. Or understand it. But then I also know their culture of ass-kicking linebackers and missile-firing warriors has left my grandchildren a much lousier world than it might have been. If you're raising kids, guess that makes you "The Decider!"

WHO'S CHECKING THE FACT CHECKERS? YOU MAY NOT LIKE THE ANSWER

We Americans love nothing better than the next catch-phrase. We've got one: Fact-Checkers. Suddenly these unseen, un-vetted authorities have been elevated to a new pedestal in our pantheon of folk heroes. But who the hell are they anyway!

Think of it this way. We are Dorothy trembling before the Great & Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Seeking answers, we stand here before his mighty words. But then the curtain falls, and everyone sees it's only fussy lovable Frank Morgan.

Frankly, folks, our heroic Fact-Checkers are comparably fussy and lovable. As in nameless backroom academics trolling through pounds of facts & stats. You know, like that snotty kid who sat next to you in 8th grade always shouting out the answers.

Nothing wrong with studious academics, only there is a second curtain. Behind this one is the party or the committee or the corporation or the CEO who's paying this Fact-Checker's salary. We can be pretty sure this guy wants his academics to come up with the facts that help make HIS case. I mean, otherwise what good are facts anyway...!

Fair enough, only now there's a third curtain. Ahh, you may have forgotten about this one. It's that curtain of personal biases our minds have been wearing all these years, and through which we continue to see and understand our world. Not an evil curtain. Simply a veil we, everyone, tends to weave over time

Call it genes or memes or whatever you will, our veiled perceptions are our virtual reality. We can't and probably don't wish to change that. It's baggage that's part of the package I call Me. But because there are so darn many Me's out here, there's darn  little chance any of us are hearing the exact same facts...

"WHO ARE YOU NOW?' AND OTHER AMAZING QUESTIONS FROM HARDCORE ROCK

There's a hardcore rock band that calls itself 'Sleeping Sirens.' Heard them once and am only now recovering from a trip to hell. And yet they sing a song with a powerful question: 'Who Are You Now?'

If you've never asked yourself that question, you should. Only be prepared for different answers. Like the Hope Diamond is always the same jewel, it will always be understood differently when seen from different angles to the light.

You too have been very different You's. As a child...a student...a lover...a parent...a worker. In the football stadium...at a party...in a speeding car....lying in a hospital bed...standing in line at a wake. Each You is the authentic You, yet existentially living a different facet of your Youdom.

The dawning of this fact is sometimes known as the Sophomore Syndrome. About that time when your college sociology and psychology professors challenge you to excavate the real You after all these pubescent years of simply getting up every morning and being the you you were yesterday morning.

It's what men song-writers love to write about singing the mysteries of figuring out  a woman. Although any woman will tell you she finds the same maddening multiplicities to the men in her life.

Last year more than 732,000 foreign students were enrolled in U.S. universities, a 32% jump since 2000. The number of Saudi Arabian students alone spiked from 1000 to 66,000. One wonders how many professors will be challenging them to grapple with this cosmic question. Just last night I spent a few hours in a wondrous little private college in the heart of Chicago's suburbs where I watched students in classes, in book stalls, on the Quad, and yes binging. Time Magazine reports 1700 fatalities from college binge drinking last year.

Could it be this gnawing dawning new question in their young lives has something to do with this? The research shows it is "status" more than "insight" that is involved in binging. I suppose. But then this is a perplexing question, once raised hard to ignore. I know, because I'm still working at it,

YOUR HAND -- NOW AND FOREVER TRANSCENDENT

Ever study your hand...? We tend to take our body parts for granted. Oh sure, it has anthropologically distinguished us from our monkey ancestors, but that's not news anymore.

However here in the 21st C, here's what is.  Our hand has become both the symbol and the instrument of the limitless powers of the human mind. Think about it. In your small everyday hand fits your entire everyday world. Whether it's holding a television remote with its 101 power-buttons, or holding a smartphone with its 1001 features, 21st C man's hand can now instantly access data, photos, movies, newscast's, satellite feeds, and virtually any book ever written or virtually any TV series ever syndicated.

Whoa...! Now you no longer need go to the world, now you can bring the world to you. Want last year's Oscar Awards ceremony...last month's Oval Office interview... last week's NFL game...last night's presidential convention speech...tomorrow's itinerary for the Madonna global tour? It's yours, baby, with just a click of that transcendent hand. You remember the old, "The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world"? Now it's, "The hand that rocks the right widget rocks the world!"

At first blush what could be wrong with this picture...? I mean, now our hand is in effect holding the divine scepter of power once held only by emperors. Better yet, having access to anyone, anything, anywhere, anytime makes us virtually God-like. Is "Wow" too mild a word!

The one chink in the armor of this transcendence may be this. Now much of what we experience is no longer actual. It's virtual. The events of our life are being filed into a gigantic events-box to be accessed and experienced not in the moment or in the flesh; rather, in some convenient but dispassionate virtual reality. Instead of hands injecting needles for a high, today's hands can select whatever highs it wants between, say, afternoon appointments or just before bed tonight.

To paraphrase John Lennon: "Life is what happens while you're tuning into other events..."

LIFE AFTER DEATH...? THE PROOF IS FINALLY IN

The aging streets of Philadelphia are not where you'd think to find the answer to this ancient question. Yet here it is, in this run-down section of town inside this run-down building with the peeling name: "Joe Frazier's Gym."

You all know the name Mohamed Ali. But you don't all remember the name Joe Frazier. Only the best heavyweight fighter Aii ever faced, but who never caught a piece of Ali's fame. In fact, Ali and the sports media taunted Joe in their title bouts because he was all guts and no glitz. So Smokin' Joe went to his death last year as one of history's legions of forgotten also-rans.

But now, ladies and gents, gather round the City of Brotherly Love, for it's planning to honor Joe. Belatedly...! That rotten little word, belatedly...! Meaning, gee we didn't notice you when you were here, but now we're going to belatedly pay you the tribute we denied you when we had the chance.

Oh my, but history is crowded with folks who have found -- more accurately have been given -- life after death. An enduring life in words, music and especially recurring retelling around the tribal campfires.

Let us count the ways: Moses...Socrates...Jesus...Francis of Assisi...Joan of Arc...Ann Boleyn...Galileo... Paul Revere...Robert E Lee...John T. Scopes...Wendell Wilkie...Adlai Stevenson...my Uncle Joe. Well, Joe was a loser and there've been damn few belated anything's for Joe. But there will be other losers granted a glorious life-after-death. It's just kinda the way people are about people.

So the next time a College or Facebook discussion launches the eternal question "Is there any eternity?"
just remember. If you and I don't find it after OUR deaths, some folks may just decide to create one for us anyway. Before THEIR deaths. It's a nice way to say I'm sorry....

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU MADE A CONTRACT WITH THE DEVIL?

When was the last time you made a contract with the Devil? Initial reactions: I don't believe in the Devil! I wouldn't deal with him if he did exist! I'm not into weird stuff!

I beg to differ. You and I are forever bargaining in our lives. Gambling on goals that are important but elusive. Occasionally it's done in public. Football teams praying in the huddle... congregations praying in church ...families praying in hospital chapels...kneeling along side our children at night. And, if you're not into God and Heaven, we find handy substitutes. Fate, luck, odds, algorithms.

Ever since Goethe penned 'Faustus' a century ago, Westerners have returned to the narratives from the ancient Persians and Greeks in which humanity deals with the dark forces of the cosmos. Forces which go by different names, but always there in the shadows into which we slip whenever desperate enough.

To be sure we Moderns -- save the occasional Exorcist -- avoid those primitive specifics like Devil, Hell, and Soul. And yet, peel off the educated veneer, and you'll usually find a tragic despair crying out to anyone or anything that can help.

OK, I can't marshall any empirical evidence to close the case. However, I do I have this crawly feeling that both political parties have just signed a contract with whatever devil fits their current ideology. Asking he/she/it to help them win this November. What does the contract read...?

Each Party knows it can deliver virtually nothing it's promising, because neither winner is likely to have the Congressional and Court majority to deliver. So the contract reads: "If you will keep this secret from the voters until November, we will pledge you the soul of our Vice-Presidential nominee for eternity!"

I mean, what's another Veep or two in Hell....?

WHO WANTS TO LIVE TO 116?

Besse Cooper of Monroe Georgia just celebrated her 116th birthday. Inevitably the local newspaper asked the inevitable question: "How do you explain such a long life?" Besse shrugged: "I mind my own business and don't eat junk food."

Another centenarian explained it this way: "I've lived a long time, seen a lot of changes, and was against everyone of them."

I leave it to my eminent psychiatrist son to fathom the subliminal messages in these answers. As a layman huffing and puffing here 19 years short of the mark, here's my take: Who would seriously want to live that long if some of our current trends persist?

I'm not referring to the obvious -- persistent wars, terrorism, unemployment, street violence, drug abuse and presidential elections. None of those are new; been-there-done-that. Instead I'm thinking of three recent reports:

* The Parents Television Council reports it found 76 incidents of full nudity on prime-time network last year, an increase of 407% from the year before. My reaction...? If they're going to keep this up, can they at least find better bodies with less grunting!

* The Natural Resources Defense Council  reports 40% of all food in the US ends up in the trash, which comes to 20 pounds per person per month. My reaction...? Can anyone explain then why we're so fat!

* CNN reports US weapons sales more than tripled in 2011. We sold $66 billion worth of arms, up from $21 billions the year before. My reaction...? We do we keep calling weapons of attack a defense budget!

I don't know anyone who wants to rush their own death. At the same time, I don't know anyone who finds statistics like these a reason for prolonging this sort of life. I look at it this way. Until the politicians fulfill their pledges to "improve Medicare as we know it," I may still have a shot at 100. However, once they get their hands on it, well ~~~~~

WHY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS AND EDWARD ALBEE LIED TO ME

I once had the chance to ask these two gifted playwrights the same question: "How could you write plays with such mature wisdom at such young ages?" I have since judged their answers to have been lies. Perhaps lies of modesty, but untruths nevertheless. If I could have asked other young playwrights the same question -- Shakespeare, Chekhov, O'Neil, Miller -- I suspect they too would have sidestepped the full truth.

Lets remember how Shakespeare defined life ["A tale told be an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing."].  Chekhov ["Life is a tragedy filled with joys."]. Very much the same way Williams portrayed his characters in "Streetcar Named Desire" and Albee in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Someone equally young once wrote: "History is the sum total of all the things that could have been avoided." Each in their own unique way, our finest playwrights might have agreed. And yet In some redeeming way, history is also the sum total of all the remarkable artists whose insights into human nature and human society have lit the way for the rest of us. Lit it with illuminating truths about our penchant for pride, greed and power somehow side by side with our pursuit of good, tenderness and love.

So here's one man's guess about the gifts of insight among the great writers, composers and singers in our midst: That's precisely what they are, gifts...! Gifts granted them from somewhere outside them. Case in point. Every time Luciano Pavarotti sang Puccini's 'Nessum Dorma,' the opera lovers in my family would gasp, "A gift from God." The older I grow and the more gifted people I meet, the less I can find any explanation better than this.

TOU SMILE BECAUSE YOU'RE HAPPY OR YOU'RE HAPPY BECAUSE YOU SMILE?

It's the classic James Lange Theory of Emotion. His 19th C psychological research suggested our emotions are triggered by the way we respond to events, not the other way around. Recently psychologist Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas tested his theory by measuring volunteers' heart beats while they performed stressful tasks.The subjects who generated a full smile during these tasks reported feeling better than those who did not. Suggesting to her, "The act of smiling -- even divorced from feeling of joy -- can indeed help us relax better."

I tested Lange's theory while throwing out today's lawns cuttings and assorted garbage. I'm here to tell you I didn't feel at all better! However, I did feel considerably better when I scanned another scientific report this summer from Hunter College.

Anthropologist Herman Pontzer writes in BBC.co.uk that exercise isn't all it's cracked up to be. He studied the West's sedentary lifestyle along with the svelte Hadza Tribe in Tanzania who forages over many miles each day. "The big reason Westerners are getting fat is not lack of exercise, but simply because we eat too much processed sugars and fats."

Truth be told, I'm one of the sedentary Westerners who dislikes vigorous exercise. Sorry, I know what you think of me! However, I'm willing to waddle with this extra waistline feeling a sense of calm rather than wriggle through hours of weights being told "no pain no gain." And may I say this with a great grinning smile...

ANXIETY ATTACKS ARE ATTACKING AMERICA

So what's all this about the National Institute of Health reporting, "More than 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety each year, many in the form of anxiety attacks." What's with this label 'attack?' I can understand a shark attack, a heart attack, an attack of indigestion, but how does anxiety attack...?

If you can't answer that, be glad. You don't want to know! It's defined as a a sudden onslaught of symptoms that can unexpectedly paralyze you with an inexplicable mix of fearfulness, self consciousness, depersonalization, dizziness, sweating, nausea, and a cold crawling panic about your immediate surroundings.

Case in point this last summer. A well-known Broadway actor suffering from chronic anxiety attacks was rushed from backstage to an ER with these symptoms. The staff told him it was a mild heart attack. He remembers sitting up and telling them, "Thank god, I thought it was going to be an anxiety attack!"

Two schools of thought about psychiatric illnesses. One is the traditional, up-by-your-own-bootstraps bravado which dismisses these as "it's all in your mind." Ironically, that's the point! The mind still remains largely a mystery to us, and so too its many diseases and cures. You can keep a smile-on-your-face and whistle-a-happy-tune from here to forever, but that won't change either here or forever. Panic attacks have been plaguing the human species since the beginning but cavalierly dismissed as: weakness, foolishness, or the work of the devil.

Modern societies have learned otherwise; however, this learning has not always seeped down to where the boys belly up to the bar and the ladies who lunch scoff at their suffering peers. There are many plagues across the land. The terrible ones you can see like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. Then the even more terrible ones you can't see.

It took a war to finally recognize post-traumatic-disorder. Now what's it going to take...?

AHA! NEW RESEARCH SHOWS DEPRESSION AND WORRY HAVE AN OFF SWITCH

Night after night you're stretched out in front of the great luminous eye. Americans spend up to eight viewing hours a day, with some researchers claiming each hour shortens our life by 22 minutes...!

You can take those stats for what you think they're worth, but here are two facts that seem indisputable:

* Sitting in front of a glowing television, computer or cellphone screen puts you at risk for depression. 'Science News' reports, "Nighttime exposure to light from gadgets has already been shown to contribute to insomnia, cancers, obesity and diabetes. Now there is evidence screen glow can also cause mood related changes in the brain." Over the last 50 years depression rates have increased dramatically as artificial lighting at night has grown more common. If there is a causal connection, there's an off-switch to every gadget

* Watching television means allowing into your living room thousands of hours of warfare, gang violence, fireballs, homicides, rapes, child and drug abuse. And all that even before the news hour. Researcher Tom Russ of the University of Edinburgh tells Health.com, "Taking the bad news to heart is bad for your heart." One out of four people experience anxiety of that sort that distracts them, depletes their self confidence, and keeps them awake at night. "Not enough for actual medication and therapy, but enough to have less quality of life." Once again, the avalanche of these disturbing images still has an off-switch

Hiding from reality like this won't make it go away. But with pre-scheduled TV-cations, those off-switches may prove downright curative.

Afterthought...! Even without those heart-pounding screen images, there are still those things known as books. Read a few best-selling sci-fi works like 'Blade Runner,' 'Eye in the Sky,' 'How to Build an Android," or 'Solar Lottery' and chances are you'll be too scared about the future to ever turn out the lights for television again...!

 

INVITING VAMPIRES AND ZOMBIES INTO OUR BEDROOMS! BUT WHY?

Two ancient diseases grew up side by side -- Leprosy and Rabies -- consuming millions of lives all through history. Today both have been cured, yet one somehow still lives on. What's more, against all good sense, we keep inviting it back into our stories and into our lives. 

Rabies -- the plague that passes on from the bite of the infected -- has come down to us in the form of the terrifying 19th C vampire. The gone-mad sufferers appear as far back as ancient Greek tales, work their way through East European legends, reaching their apex with Bram Stoker's classic 'Dracula' in 1897. Like all great myths, the vampire is rooted in facts (Rabies) morphed into fiction (Dracula).

Hollywood -- always ready to turn any creature into a cash-cow -- has been sucking the blood out of the vampire as voraciously as he's been with his victims. However, never ready to say never, the studios picked up the vampire's undead cousin, the Haitian Zombie, and added him to the mesmerizing mix.

What is there about us civilized, rational creatures that happily pays money to be frightened out of our primitive wits? To answer, we could travel one of three paths: Biology...Psychology...Theology:

* the biologist will find genetic hard-wiring that helps explain how our evolved physicality has learned over time to anthropomorphize our primal fears in order to better identify and confront them

* the psychologist may find the same by way of our psychic hard-wiring

* the Biblical theologian will probably begin with a very different beginning -- the fallen nature of humanity forever condemned to do battle with evil in the world

It's not likely any of this is on the minds of most viewers. They're here for other reasons. One, as with all tales of evil and horror, is the chance to confront our fears knowing all along we will survive them from the safety of our seats.

"See," we reassure ourselves, "we always come out all right!" That said, we then have to step out into the blackness of the real night. Where safe endings are far more chancy.

BEING AN OLDER FATHER HELPS YOUR KIDS...AHH, UNTIL IT HURTS THEM

Fellas, there's this brand-new study about fatherhood with equal parts good news & bad...!

This one comes from my old Alma Mater, Northwestern University, something like those pill commercials where the good news is portrayed in beautiful people running beautifully across beautiful green meadows, while the bad news is shared by off-camera speed-readers rattling off the side effects. Ahh, you've seen them!

Anthropologist Dan Eisenberg tells Time.com: "The children from older fathers inherit a genetic boost that will help them live a long life. This happens across at least two generations..."

That's the good news. But come on now, you don't expect the professor to stop there. In science there's this thing about hedging your bets. Comes from its built-in skepticism of all those centuries of pre-scientific absolutism. He adds: "But while older fathers do offer a longevity advantage, previous research has shown they're also more likely to father children with a genetic predisposition to autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder..."

Say what...??

Eisenberg not only sounds like my own on-the-other-handing doc, there's a distinct touch of politician and general to him. Like when those fellas tell us what to expect when they recommend that new energy policy or their latest deployment of the Fleet to the South China Sea. Sliced-and-diced, their pronouncements leave enough room for error you can shove an 18-wheeler through it.

Lets face it -- we can't skip through a dangerous world believing whatever we most want to believe. Still, don't you miss those summer nights when you fell asleep in the backseat of Dad's car, waking up to find yourself all tucked into your bed...?

HEY HEY BABY -- IF EVE COULD ONLY SEE YOU NOW!

Lets face it. Eve got a bad rap in the Bible. But then the Bible was written almost exclusively by men. After centuries of bondage -- at first kept barefoot-and-pregnant, then later kept on powerless-pedestals -- the women in the 19th C West  started to say enough. By the 21st C, kitchens have emptied and pedestals replaced by conference rooms.

Numerically speaking, this could be history's largest revolution.

The female of the species in the West now outsizes the male in the number of voters, college students, med and law graduates. And just this week the 'Atlantic' reported: "Of the 1.2 million books published since 1900, the proportion of male pronouns to female pronouns has now fallen from 5-to-1 down to less than 2-to-1."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is very big news indeed. Olympic gold is being gathered and glass ceilings being shattered faster than ever before. Eve -- along with Helen, Cleopatra, Beatrice and Susan B Anthony -- would trumpet in their graves.

The ascending female of the species still may have a few kinks in their armor. I mean, they still have to account for Phyllis Schlafly, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. Their variegated remarks on life, love, and laundry have raised eyebrows and Prozac sales even in some of the Red States.

But then there's that other female voice. Marilyn Monroe liked to put it this way: "Women who are trying to be equal to men lack ambition!"

TO ALL YOUNG PARENTS -- BIG BIG SPOILER ALERT

If life is like a movie whose surprise plot-twists you don't want to know upfront, that's fine. For you young parents, this then is a spoiler-alert. Don't read any further, because there's one plot-twist up ahead that will blow you away...!

If you're still with me, lets put that into context. Remember the joke about the 16-year-old who, when she turned 26, exclaimed: "Amazing how much smarter my parents got in just 10 years." Well, my fellow travelers on the parent itinerary, that lesson will apply to you too. For the rest of the trip.

Here's why. We're all traveling across the same bridge at the same time. Kids, parents, grandparents. It's the bridge from-here-to-there. Only each generation is crossing it at a different point in space & time.

The 16-year-old is just on the first part of the bridge so they can't really see -- much less understand -- what's up ahead and eventually what's at the far end. The young parents is further along, so you can look back and see what's still ahead for the kids [AKA, "been-there-done-that"]. Finally the grandparents who are nearing the end of the bridge, so we can look back and see almost the whole journey.

We're all on the same bridge at the same time. But we're all experiencing and dissecting it differently. Each of us from our own particular age-angle. Seeing its structure, strengths, and sanctities as differently as the man who built it in contrast to the man who's falling off it.  Which is why when the elder says to the younger, "when I was your age," the advice falls on ears that cannot hear. After all, they have about as much idea of what you're talking about as they do of the day and the world into which you first brought them.

Now here's why this was a spoiler alert from a grandparent to a parent. Surprise...! The very same thing is still true about you...

NO KIDDING...! IT'S BACK TO THE FIFTIES AND DRIVE-IN MOVIES

Fonzie, Ferris Bueller, Grease, American Pie! Hollywood images that ignite giddy recollections of what we are told in convenient retrospect were America's 'happy days.' Trouble is I was there and, given our daily duck-and-cover threat our Cold War could turn atomic hot any minute, they weren't all that happy.

However, through the gauze of time, they do look simpler. And much of their simplicity can be found in the simple fare on our drive-in movie screens. More than 5000 of them in the country back then. A little sub-culture all its own featuring over-sexed teens looking for their own dark place, and over-populated families who found it easier to gather the kids in cars rather than balconies.

Here's the point.

Right now there's a resurgence of these drive-ins, replete with the individual car speakers and walk-to popcorn stands. You say you hadn't noticed...? Well, pretty soon you will because the media loves to talk about the media. In this case, a 50-years-later revival.

That's the point. Revival. Life is lived in cycles. Be it the economy's booms-and-busts or the surprise discovery stay-at-home-moms can be a good thing or the hemlines, hats, hairdos, shoes, and elections. Everything, I mean everything, eventually comes back.

Like cliches? Researchers usually dismiss them, but here's one you can take to the bank: "The more things change the more they're the same!" This slightly battered species of ours really has only so many roads through time it can take. And while we often take them boldly, almost as often they end up ending pretty close to where we started.

What's fun about this is how each time our descendants think its the first time. Drive-in movie anyone.

HOLLYWOOD KILLED VAUDEVILLE, NOW YOUR SMARTPHONE IS KILLING HOLLYWOOD

No actual bloodshed to these homicides. It's money they're shedding. The live stage shows of Jack Benny, George Burns and Al Jolson died in the 40s when Clark Gable, Lana Turner and Marlon Brando started to hit the silver screens. Hits like 'Gone With The Wind,' 'The Godfather, and 'The Exorcist ' were social events. Lines packing downtown movie houses with crowds dressed to the nines.

Now? What are you crazy...? Any night of any week dressed in any hard-scrabble outfit I want, my phone can instantly access movie scenes, cast interviews, with entire rundowns of box office results and reviews. The days when some days were special days, when people met people, when you might even take a cab or a limo somewhere are sorta gone. I mean, you've got it all in the palm of your hand, baby!

Sociologists and psychologists study this, but you can pretty much figure it out for yourself. When Mohamed-can't-go-to-the-mountain your key pad can now bring any mountain to any Mohamed it's told to. On the asset side: Immediate access to anything anywhere anytime. On the debit side: No longer as many reasons to reach out and interact with many other Others.

Call it cocooning or whatever you choose, our technology is changing who we are. It always has [the first wheel, printing press, radio]. It always will [the first 2-hour jet from NY to LA, the first commercial space shuttle, the first beam-me-up-Scottie].

Ready..? Set...? Oh wait a minute, the human race has never been really ready! We just hang on tight.

SHH, RIGHT NOW WE'RE LIVING IN THE SEXIEST SEASON

Maybe you already knew this, but late summer and early winter are the sexiest seasons of the year.  Who says so? Those sexy scientists at Villanova who have actually taken time away from sex to graph it. As in the number of Google searches with the word 'sex' in them.

Study author Patrick Markey reports birth records, condom sales and abortion rates all suggest, "a heightened pursuit of intercourse during these months." He theorizes one reason may be, "we are around more people more often during these vacation and holiday months." He goes on to say, "perhaps humans are hardwired to copulate at those times, because then giving birth in early spring or autumn presented an evolutionary advantage for our  earliest ancestors."

Whether sex is in the air right now or not, I kinda hate being advised human love is largely animal genetics at seasonal work. Professor Markey may be correct in his data, but there are those of us who'd still like to believe love is more than lust. That people are attractive for their values as well as their bodies.

OK, OK, that dates me! But with more than 3 billion people on the planet under the age of 25, the mind boggles at the thought of what these next few months might be like. Starting this very week in Tampa, Florida where the strip clubs are expecting big business during the GOP Convention. Club owner Don Kleinhans says he's been told to expect, "two to three times the trade a Super Bowl would mean."

Or as the popular night cub Scarlett has on its marquee: Come on down and party like a liberal!