JUST WHO WOULD YOU LET IN YOUR FRONT DOOR?

In these days of locked doors, we don't let just anyone in the house. Wasn't always this way, but that's another story. Yet for all our care and cunning about safety, we let in a legion of strangers every night.

We welcome them in all their Hi-Def glory. We, comfortably situated with drink in hand and slippers on feet; they, energetically roaring through car chases and bedroom sheets. Who are these strangers? Our televised traveling companions along that brief way from our world-of-work soon now into our world-of-dreams.

In selecting these companions, are we not giving expression to a subconscious galaxy of dreams and fears, heroes and villains? This WHO question is easy to answer. Not so the followup WHY question. Why these particular characters? It's a little like taking your own Rorschach Test. Try it.

Fifty years ago, in a somewhat safer if not more repressed time, the cast of characters in our living rooms was generally made of softer stuff: Happy Days...Marcus Welby MD...Leave It To Beaver. Today's counterparts: Jersey Shore...House...The Housewives of New Jersey. A few years back, we howled at Allan Funt's Candid Camera catching people off guard in silly moments. Today's cameras catch people off guard in their bedrooms, bathrooms, back seats of Taxi cabs.

Times change and all television can do is mirror its times. Happily. sometimes those mirrors have turned into headlights. Helping lead the way to new and more refreshing social values. Pacesetters come to mind like the Bill Cosby Show ...Will and Grace...Modern Family.

Like any Rorschach Test, there are no correct answers. You and I invite in whoever pleases our eyes and sates our interest. Still, that nightly guest list of subconscious preferences may warrant some conscious scanning. Look at it this way. If our newest definition of "reality" has shrunk into the size of The Biggest Loser, Shark Tank, Undercover Boss, America's Next Top Model, and the eternal re-runs of the Jerry Springer Show....

...well, I rest my case. And next proceed to double-lock that front door.

A WARNING FROM OUR COLD-DEAD-HANDS STILL GRIPPING OUR GUNS

Something terrible is happening to our America. The land of the free, home of the brave, headquarters of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, and pride of the NRA. We're suddenly being sissified! You heard me. The mothers and schoolmarms of America have risen up to tear down our national right to bone-crushing sports, men-only clubs, guns galore, and poking fun at ballet, gays and fat people. This isn't a good sign. Why at this rate, great all-American traditions like take-no-enemies in business, free-for-all-bleacher-brawls, and a new-war-every-10-years could eventually disappear!

Now that's not right. That's not American. That's not a good thing for the biggest military power on earth which has already been infested with too damn many gays. At this rate, the world will start thinking of us -- well, as over-civilized like those French dandies. That's no way to run an empire.

Oh, this sort of national demise begins in small subtle ways. Just like the once-mighty Roman Empire. I mean just look at the evidence all around us. Mammas trying to protect their babies from all-American sports like football, soccer, and boxing. Do-gooders babbling about more safety helmets and gun controls. Trouble-makers looking to have homos getting the same rights as the rest of us Americans.

Where does it all end...? I'll tell you where. With the little-ladies-that-lunch and the queer-fringe calling the shots. Hell, the only shots I want to hear are those tearing through the woods so I can get me a few more antlers for my den. Haven't these sissies ever read their Second Amendment? Or checked out some of our great legends like Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, George Custer, and Charlton Heston?

That's all I have to say. My work here is done. Now it's up to you to fight the sissification of America wherever you can. Maybe starting in that next bar where you and the boys toast our great country......

JOHN EDWARDS MEETS WILLY LOMAN IN A GREEK HELL

If you care for polls -- you know, untrained callers asking uninformed people what they think about unrelated topics -- only 3% of us have a favorable view of John Edwards. The ancient Greeks would call this a classic tragedy. The high and mighty falling low because of their own character flaws. But then there's Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" which is also considered a classic tragedy.

How so? Not only because Willy Loman falls, but because his fall represents the fall of an entire class of humanity. You're going to be hearing a lot about this class. The Middle Class, who both presidential candidates claim to be its only savior in sight.

At one time -- Willy and my time -- America was not split 99:1. More like 20% at the top, 20% at the bottom, and the rest in that fabled Middle where Willy, my Father, and your Grandfather worked hard and respectably at jobs they tended to believe might someday turn into the American Dream. Unlike most other nations where the poor periodically revolted, here few people actually thought of themselves as "poor," and therefore they could always feel they too had a chance at the Dream.

How Willy and America's prospering post-WWII Middle Class faded from history has a lot to do with history; but also with the "flaws"  inherent in their "dreams." For generations the dream of making-it was kept alive by the many second-chances built into our national narrative. After all, we've been a second-chance country personified in each new wave of dreaming immigrants. Also a hundred years of wide open Western frontier continued to lure us with second-chances [the West's favorite game of draw poker made the point every time a player could draw another three cards]. And then there's been Hollywood's grand second-chance movie classics from Louis B. Mayer and Frank Capra ["It's A Wonderful Life" and "Gone With The Wind" leading the parade].

But once the waves of immigrants thinned, and the Western frontier came to an end at the Pacific, and the rich got richer while the poor got children....well, the dream shrunk and the number of dreamers like Willy did too. All of which has slowly but inexorably brought us to the social tensions of today's 99:1. And to the tragic fall of dreamers from Bernie Madoff to John Edwards.

If there is to be a new and better American Dream for the Middle Class to dream, dreamers can now sort out the dreams of two candidates whose own dreams have been realized in very different ways. Which reminds me how Uncle Harry always cautioned me: "Kid, the biggest problems of life can't be solved; they can only be outgrown!"

Tick, tick, tick....

EVER STEP INTO A CORRAL OF SNORTING STALLIONS? YOU'RE IN ONE NOW

We live in an age of facts. Coming at us faster and more furious than ever. It's been estimated the total of human information first doubled by about 1800. But then that doubled by 1900. Again by 1950. And now, with a deluge of daily digital data, it's doubling exponentially. Leaving the human brain's storage capacity far behind.

Still, one of the facts that never seems to change is each country's myths.

Myths are not always lies. They are a country's collective beliefs about itself which have the power to move and motivate entire populations. Like most myths, America's trace back to our early days. Like the enduring myths we're an exceptional people [see colonies like the Puritans for details], we're destined to lead the world [see Native Americans and Mexicans for details], and we're rugged individualists [see strong silent icons from Davey Crockett to Clint Eastwood for more details].

Myths -- something like mysteries and magic -- can energize an entire people, helping channel their national energies. So many myths, large and little, dot the lands of the world. The pyramids of Egypt ..the Olympian gods of ancient Greece...Stonehenge in England...Mecca in Saudi Arabia...Lourdes in France ....Fujiyama in Japan....even the Teutonic racial mythologies exploited by Hitler in Germany.

What to do with the great myths?

Some of us saddle and ride them for all they're worth [watch a Fourth of July celebration, a national burial at Arlington Cemetery, a Notre Dame football game]. Some of us see some myths as dangerous broncos to be broken [consider the myths Blacks, women, gay, and handicapped are inferior].

In the great national corral, America has this herd of myths snorting and pawing. Either they need to be ridden for all they're worth, or broken for all their evil. What are you planning to do, pardner...?

RIGHT NOW MARTIN LUTHER KING WOULD WEEP

What the hell happened in just one generation...?

Reverend King brings down the house of Segregation only to have his successors help dismantle Integration into whole new generation of Segregation. The reasons are complex. But the reality is not. Whereas Blacks & Whites work together and often even live together, try finding large numbers of them being entertained together.

Not likely, as the crowds in ball parks, concert halls, movie houses, comedy clubs and theatres are as racially segregated as ever. No, there is no restricted seating. There's simply only a few of the other color there to be seated!

Blacks have their venues; Whites have theirs; and lately the twain hardly ever meets. You can quibble with some of the stats, but your eyes will tell you the story. Does this mean King was wrong when he envisioned the races living side by side...? Or dos it mean Lincoln was right when he believed that in freeing the slaves, their best freedom might be found in their own lands...?

I was there for the marches. I was there with King's followers. I don't know where you were...but I do know this. If you're White you're still being entertained mostly among White audiences; if you're Black, you're mostly being entertained among Black audiences.

As I said: What the hell happened in just one generation???

WHEN DID THE HERD START WRITING THE HEADLINES!

Comedian Milton Berle cracked: "If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands." And if the law has really evolved, why could this have occurred? A traffic cop pulled over a completely naked woman riding a motorcycle at high noon. But because the law didn't  think to address the situation, the only thing he could do is issue a ticket for failing to wear a helmet.

We don't want to blame evolution's shortcomings for all our problems, but something seems wrong with a culture in which the herds often determine the headlines. Instead of objective truths setting the standards, we all subjectively decide what's right or wrong, wise or foolish, taste or dreck. In the name of democracy, the inmates take over the asylum!

TV hits like "American Idol," "The Voice," and "Dancing With the Stars" have panels of objective judges, yet allow subjective voters from the far corners of TV's cultural wasteland to decide what is talent. Not to be outdone, TV news often does the same thing by what they call "pull" journalism instead of "push" journalism. In effect, ratings-minded networks opt to "pull" from the masses what they WANT to hear rather than what the journalists may believe they SHOULD hear.

Movies, music, celebrities, theatre, literature, fashion, along with pop psychology increasingly become more a mirror-to-the-masses instead of a beacon-from-the-trained. In an age which boasts the role of experts, most of the one being quoted and paraded are chosen more for their image than their intellect. Consider the many TV "doctors" and "judges" being paid big bucks to play expert.

Writers like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley warned us of the danger from the state [a popular obsession with millions of Americans]. Ahh, but perhaps the real danger comes from we the masses more even than the state. Ever watch a vigilante in action.......?

THREE BALLPARKS WHERE THE GAME IS FOR KEEPS

Everyone's looking for just the right catchphrase. Words that leap off the page and grab both your head and your heart in a spectacular stranglehold of conviction. Pols are big players. Remember: "Walk Softy And Carry A Big Stick," "The New Deal," "The New Frontier," "It's Sunrise in America."

But anyone can play this game. So here's a new one: "Think Small!"

Sounds counter-intuitive, but actually it's been an idea in play for generations. Played inside three different ballparks or realms of thought. Theology. Psychology. Now Biology. For centuries theology was the playing field on which we tried to win an understanding of ourselves  [there exists some first-cause-higher-power ]. Beginning with Freud, psychology emerged as a more tangible playing field  [our mind is the higher-power we must examine ].

Recently, however, Western Civilization has found evolutionary biology the best playing field on which to figure ourselves out [ basically we're evolved matter whose various genes, chemicals, and circuits are what we need to understand to understand ourselves].

Advancing from theology to psychology to biology, sounds like progress. Only there are those theologians and psychologists who wonder if in our progress we've left something important behind. What's happened is that we are thinking smaller and smaller. Rather than how we may fit into some cosmic grand design, psychologists focus narrowly on ids and libidos, while biologists even more narrowly on synapses and lobes.

None of us yet know for sure all the answers. And yet, doesn't it make sense this game of knowledge  be conducted on all three fields of play? Our lobes operate within our id which operates within whatever first-cause started all this. So while today's excited evolutionary biologists see only biology at work, psychologist and theologians still belong in the game. I mean how else do you complete one of the game's biggest payoffs -- the triple play?