Letterman: You can tell a man by the jokes he tells

It is one thing for a slimeball like Letterman to be blackmailed and be forced to reveal on national TV his multiple sexual forays with his staff. It is one thing for Letterman to frame his “confession” in a manner that makes light of his behavior.

But It is quite another for his depraved audience to laugh and enter into sustained applause during his public disclosure.

What a wonderful, faithful audience they are, lending their “moral” support to a man in his hour of need. Haa, haa haa! Isn’t he funny!

What a picture of our perverse, misguided American culture. I can’t decide whose behavior is worse, Letterman’s or his audience.

The perverseness of the audience reminds me of when a female neighbor some time ago wore a tight top with skeleton fingers grasping across her breasts, not to a party, but out in public. Ha, ha, ha, isn’t that clever! I didn’t laugh. But then, I am such a sanctimonious prude. Her “audience” was her mother who complemented her outfit. I wonder if she would have complemented her husband if he wore tight drawers with skeleton fingers grasping his crotch a la Michael Jackson, RIP.

Our Problems: More "Us" than Obama and friends

Rick Newman has an excellent article documenting many themes I have presented in Muccings over the years.

• We (our younger people especially) don’t want to work – we think we are too golden for that
• A larger proportion of us than in the past don’t want to sacrifice
• Too many of us are uninformed – and informed only by our uninformed pop cultural icons
• Too many of us feel “entitled”; entitled to the “best” and entitled on someone else’s dime

Read the excellent article below and see if you agree.

4 problems that could sink America

American ingenuity has solved daunting problems before and could again. But it would be a mistake to assume that American prosperity is on a preordained upward course.

[Related content: financial crisis, Barack Obama, recession, health care, China]

By Rick Newman, U.S. News & World Report

If we're lucky, the recession is winding down, and life will start to feel a bit more comfortable before long. But that doesn't mean things will go back to the way they used to be.

The global recession that began in America's housing market has shaken the world's economic order and possibly knocked the United States down a notch or two. The spendthrift American consumer is out of money. American wages are flat. Despite some hopeful signs, the U.S. economy could muddle along for years.

Meanwhile, actions in China -- rather than in the United States -- may have been the trigger for a global economic recovery. Many other nations will grow faster than the United States over the next few years and command an increasing share of the world's resources.

"The message to Americans," says Mauro Guillen, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, "is you need to redouble your efforts to be more competitive."

American innovation has solved daunting problems before and could again. But it would be a mistake to assume that American prosperity will continue on some preordained upward course. Nations rise and fall, often realizing what happened only in retrospect.

Here are four problems that are undermining our future prosperity:

We don't like to work

Sure, now that jobs are scarce, everybody's willing to put in a few extra hours to stay ahead of the ax. But look around: We still expect easy money, hope to retire early and embrace the overly simplistic messages of bestsellers like "The One Minute Millionaire" and "The 4-Hour Work Week."

Unfortunately, the rest of the world isn't sending as much money our way as it used to, which makes it harder to do less with more.

Kids in Asia spend the summer studying math and science while American mall rats are texting each other about Britney and Miley.

White-collar jobs are now migrating overseas just like blue-collar ones. Kids in Asia spend the summer studying math and science while American mall rats are texting each other about Britney and Miley.

"We need a different mind-set," says Guillen. "People need to invest more in their own future. Instead of buying stuff at the mall, spend the money on evening classes. Learn a language or skills you don't have."

I recently interviewed entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, who transformed his father's neighborhood liquor store into a $60 million business anchored by the Web site winelibrarytv.com. An overnight success? Hardly. Vaynerchuk has big plans, and he works at least 16 hours a day to achieve them. "If you want to work eight hours a day," he says, "you're going to get eight-hour-a-day results. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't want to hear you bitch about money if you're only willing to work eight hours a day."

Vaynerchuk is only 33, but he has something in common with John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard mutual fund company, who's 80 years old. I talked to Bogle recently about how Americans need to change their approach to work and money. He told me this: "We need more caution, more savings and we may have to work harder. Maybe we need more people who like to work and don't count down every day till retirement."

Nobody wants to sacrifice

Why should we? The government is standing by with stimulus money, banker bailouts, homeowner aid, cash for clunkers, expanded health care and maybe more stimulus money. And most Americans will never have to pay an extra dime for any of this. Somehow, $9 trillion worth of government debt will just become somebody else's problem.

When he was campaigning, candidate Barack Obama dabbled with the "personal responsibility" theme, and in his acceptance speech in November he called for a "new spirit of sacrifice." But now that he's in office, there's less interest in such quaint ideas.

During Obama's prime-time news conference about health care reform in July, a reporter asked the president if ordinary Americans would have to give up anything in exchange for better, more widely available care. Obama's answer: "They're going to have to give up paying for things that don't make them healthier." Hooray! Something for nothing! He may as well have said, "Here's a magic pill that will make all your problems go away."

Obama's plan is to get a tiny portion of the American public -- the wealthy -- to pay higher taxes for the benefit of the majority. Hey, while we're at it, let's see if we can convince 1% of the population to bear the entire responsibility for fighting two open-ended wars that are supposedly in the interest of every American. It would just be too uncomfortable to tell the middle class that if they want something, they need to earn it themselves.

We're uninformed

The health care smackdown -- sorry, "debate" -- is Exhibits A, B and C. The soaring cost of health care is a problem that affects most Americans. It's shrinking paychecks, squeezing small businesses, bankrupting families and swelling the national debt.

Yet outraged Americans seem most concerned about fictions like death panels and government-enforced euthanasia, while clinging to the myth that our current system of selective availability and perverse incentives somehow represents capitalist ideals.

But let's take a break from that burdensome issue to examine the likelihood that President Obama was born in a foreign country and hoodwinked America into believing he was eligible to run for president.

People who lack the sense to question Big Lies always end up in deep trouble. Being well informed takes work, even with the Internet. In a democracy, that's simply a civic burden. If we're too foolish or lazy to educate ourselves on health care, global warming, financial reform and other complicated issues, then we're signing ourselves over to special interests who see nothing wrong with plundering our national -- and personal -- wealth.

The iCulture

We may be chastened by the recession, but Americans still believe they deserve the best of everything -- the best job, the best health care, the best education for our kids. And we want it at a discount -- or better yet, free -- which brings us back to the usual disconnect between what we want and what we're willing to pay for.

Rationing is a dirty word, so we can't have a system that officially rations something as vital as health care or education. Instead, we have unacknowledged, de facto rationing that directs the most resources to those with the best connections, the most money or the savvy to game the system.

What keeps the rest of us content is the illusion that we, too, will eventually be able to game the system -- as long as the government doesn't interfere.

Solutions that serve some public good -- like Social Security and bank deposit insurance in the 1930s and Medicare in the 1960s -- usually require everybody to give something to get something. If it works, the overall benefits outweigh the costs.

Good programs leave individuals the option to pay more if they want more. Bad programs promise more than they can deliver. But often we don't know that until it's too late.

___________________

Update: Just a day after posting this, the veracity of this article was confirmed in a small way via a brief conversation in a restaurant with a recently retired couple and their 30-something daughter. During the course of conversation about current events, the trio showed vague understanding and no insight, and the daughter was entirely clueless as so many of us remain.

Why Do We Do the Things We Do

We rented a movie the other night - "The Family Stone" http://videoeta.com/movie/72706 Actually my two daughters and step daughter rented it. It's rated PG-13, so most people would not find it offensive.

I did, of course. I'm a prude. I'm old fashioned. The review on the above link doesn't sound bad at all - "love" ties up all the loose ends for the dysfunctional family Stone.

I didn't watch it all the way through. I rebelled. Here's the problem I had with it. It focused on a dysfunctional family - two sexually disoriented men, a couple of selfish egotists, and a couple of other generally confused people. With a personality deficit disorder prevalent in most of the characters throughout the movie, any coming together in the name of "love" at the end must certainly be a fleeting event. The point is that the movie focused on really screwed up people. Maybe that makes those of us who feel similarly depraved feel better about ourselves - as in stupidity loves company - or is that misery loves company.

Why do people spend so much time soaking up violence, bad behavior, and downright destructive action and attitudes in our "entertainment?" Aren't there enough real life problems and counterproductive influences in life without deliberately immersing ourselves in it? It's not like we have to endure it because we have no choice. We actually pay for and spend hours of our valuable time offering up ourselves to have this crap pumped into our brains.

The same weirdness applies to some of the addictive habits we have. Smoking, for example. The facts are clear. Smoking gives people lung cancer. It stinks on people. It gives them yellow teeth. It's addictive. My brother and mom died from diseases caused by smoking. Yet "intelligent" people still smoke. Why? Do they have a death wish? Do they turn off parts of their brain that house most of their intelligence when they decide to light up? What causes them to "feel good" about smoking? And alcohol abuse and drug use - that's a whole different dimension.

If I dare suggest smoking is not good for them and encourage them to quit, of course they will point out that I eat too many brownies and oreos. Ooops. They got me there. Can't argue with reason. Although I do maintain the secret little thought that my habit is neither as anal or as harmful as smoking.

We don't realize how true the digital adage "Garbage in - garbage out" really is in all that we expose ourselves to.

Dysfunctional behaviors, dysfunctional families, and dysfunctional entertainment have become the norm. I am trying to be an oddity. My goal is to be labeled "odd" in the eyes of the dysfunctional of the world. I occasionally hear comments that convince me that I am succeeding. Yesss!

I have experienced and created my share of dysfunction during periods of my life, and frankly, I'm rather sick and tired of it.

It is difficult to understand the processes that lead up to the actual point that inappropriate decisions are made. But I will speculate - and I believe this is true - that all of the influences in our life, from the time we are little children, through the hundreds of hours of interacting with other people (most of whom we choose to interact with), the hundreds of hours we expose ourselves to various forms of entertainment (all of which we choose to expose ourselves to), and the hundreds of hours that we direct our minds to unproductive or destructively inappropriate thoughts (despite the fact that we can control these thoughts) - all of these things together form the path that we take. We have control over all these things that influence, consciously or not, the decisions we make. We can control how we react to our hormones. We can separate ourselves from destructive or negative people. Do we take advantage of the control that we do have to "do the right thing?" Sadly, much of the time we do not.

There is no greater truth than this verse from the Bible:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Philippians 4:8

Selfishness is not pure or lovely. Destructive habits are not virtuous. Spending our time being entertained by dysfunctional lifestyles is not of good report. There is no virtue in these things.

The truth in this Scripture can help us avoid selfish, perverse, degenerate, painful and destructive actions and attitudes. We cannot change the past. We have the ability to focus on the good and virtuous with each decision we make from this moment forward. Long live my disdain for The Color Purple and The Family Stone - despite the fact that our society says they are fine for 13 year olds!

Nawlins: A Twisted Fate

The article below reflects the aspect of human nature that is so maddening to me, and one reason why I tend toward being religious. It describes the allure of New Orleans to so many people, with that allure so clearly vested in corruption, decadence, filth, and the vilest aspects of human nature. This City reflects a seductively self-destructive human tendency- our love of "culture" on the fringes of accepted human decency.

Note: Words in [brackets] are my editorial comments.

Profile of New Orleans, Before Katrina
By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer Sat Sep 3, 2:31 PM ET

Beneath the frantic and putrid abyss of looters and bodies and desperation that New Orleans became last week, there's a decadent city of crawfish bisque and sparkling jazz, a ferocious city that beat back the British army, a tenacious city that has survived plague and fires, a seductive and sultry and sweet place beloved by many.

It is, quite simply, one of a kind. [Shouldn't we be grateful?]

"In terms of the big cities of this country, New Orleans is clearly one of the cities with the most unique character," said Paul Farmer, executive of the American Planning Association. "What's happened goes well beyond the devastation of one city — it's a national tragedy."

[The aspect of this event that comes closest to a "national tragedy" is the exposure of decades of decadence manifesting itself in miserable human judgment and behavior. I do not believe for a moment that the loss of the "culture" of New Orleans is a national tragedy. There is obviously a point when "cultural diversity" can go too far and becomes destructive to human survival, if in fact survival is a universal good.]

Its singular ways date back to its French and Spanish history, its Caribbean character, its geographic diversity of lake and marshlands.

The city was born in 1718, a swampy French-Canadian outpost next to the mouth of the Mississippi River. In the ensuing years it would be held by both France and Spain before becoming the largest and richest city in the Confederacy, thanks in large part to its bustling international port.

But its location also made it vulnerable to attackers on sea. In the brutal 1815 Battle of New Orleans, French and Spanish settlers joined soldiers, slaves, militia, Indians and even some pirates as they sheltered behind stacks of logs and cotton bales to defeat British invaders.

Soldiers weren't the only threats. A plague of yellow fever, spread by mosquitoes, struck summer after summer in the mid-1800s, killing thousands of residents. Fires have all but leveled the city as well, and there have been deadly hurricanes and floods, although none on the scale of this week's disaster.

Despite it all, New Orleans has always been a city that entices [just like aberrant sex and addictive drugs entice], and those who come often stay [I guess they needed the drugs!] It has more native-born residents than any other major American city, and it's not uncommon to meet families who have been there for five generations — along with their neighbors.

Those who come for short durations — and there are more than 10 million visitors a year, and 3,000 business meetings and conventions — come to experience an exotic place that has been called America's only European city [go figure].

There's the pre-Lent revel of Mardi Gras [too bad a Christian tradition (Lent) is associated with debauchery (Mardi Gras)], which generates a billion dollars in revenue every year [decadence for dollars!!]. There's the naughty fun of Bourbon Street [naughty is nice - "call evil good and good evil"]. And fine restaurants. And magnificent jazz — at the annual Jazz Fest, at jumping joints, even after funerals. [Ya don't need the crap to have fine restaurants and good music.]

In fact, much that New Orleans flavor has been exported. Mardi Gras parties are ubiquitous now; dishes like gumbos and po'boys and jambalaya are featured in restaurants everywhere. And the music — from Louis Armstrong to B.B. King, from Fats Domino to the Neville Brothers — is the soundtrack for our lives.

But beyond the historic architecture, the spice-laden cuisine and the beguiling voodoo underground, live close to 500,000 people, mostly poor (more than a quarter live in poverty), mostly black (more than 66 percent), clustered into 73 distinct neighborhoods.
Crime, even before the hurricane, was high. The murder rate has come down in recent years, but remains 10 times the national average. Last year, researchers had police fire 700 blank rounds in a city neighborhood one afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire. [Can you figure out the reason?]

"Maybe New Orleans should be nicknamed The Big Un-Easy, due to a high violent crime rate and a high unemployment rate. There's also a significant number of suicides and divorces," said Bert Sterling on his Best Places web site.

The city's school system is a shambles. The district almost went broke this past year — teachers nearly missed a paycheck — and 55 of the state's 78 worst schools are in New Orleans.

Dozens of school employees are under indictment for corruption. But then, corruption in New Orleans is nothing new — politicians, judges, the police have all been caught.

[Now we're beginning to see the consequences of a beloved culture gone awry!]

Still, New Orleans did not lose its luster. It had higher education (Tulane, University of New Orleans, Xavier). [In spite of all the crud. Think how great the City might otherwise have been!] It had the port that made it a city in the first place (fourth largest in the world, by gross tonnage). [The port is a quality of its economic geography, not its culture. It is an independent strength, in spite of the failures of the greater local society. Does a port need corruption to be great, or does corruption stifle greatness? How much better would it have been if the ignored qualities of honesty, integrity, fair dealing, and a community-building spirit were predominant?]

And it still had that quality that inspired its unofficial motto — "Laissez les bons temps rouler" (Let the good times roll). [Leave it to the French]. Though it's too tough to remember now. [Not really. Maybe it is for those who are internally confused about principle and what is good and right.]

Pableaux Johnson, a food and travel writer from New Orleans, could only reminisce about his beloved city in the past tense as he watched the destruction on television with family and friends in a nearby city where they had evacuated. [Yeah, like there goes my livelihood. All the hookers said the same thing.]

"It was a human-scale metropolis," he said. "It had its own really vibrant set of cultures, of food and music and literature and people. It had an amazingly rich tradition and it had a good solid funkiness. [A good, solid funkiness? - This is like having a good, solid nose bleed. "Funky": The word the deceived really get off on. Label any form of deviancy "funky" and you have a great dollar-generating tourist attraction.]

You could get absolutely spiritual food for three bucks, listen to absolutely amazing music in the equivalent of house parties." [Nothing wrong here. But why does it take a society and culture of deviancy, lawlessness, and corruption to enable these things? I don't think those are essential ingredients. Or do the really "artsy" among us require that culture to thrive? Do we really have a human tendency of "artsing ourselves into oblivion" as the Big Easy culture tended to do, requiring the "artsy-poor" in the nation to come to their rescue?]

Joe Lastie, a drummer with the legendary New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band, holed up in an Atlanta hotel with his family, somberly waiting to hear from clarinetist Ralph Johnson, pianist Rickie Monie and trumpeter John Brunious.

Lastie's band, named after the venerable music venue in the heart of the French Quarter, is known for its spirited shows around the world where Lastie and his bandmates, blowing their horns and clashing their cymbals, dance right off the stage and into the audience to lead a rollicking, joyful march around the theater.
"I go around the world sharing the joy that is New Orleans," he said. "And because of that joy, I know my city is going to survive. The New Orleans people are the type of people, well, you can't keep them down. Through the joy of the music and the spirit of the people, we're always going to bounce back." [I hope that aspect survives while they clean up their act.]

We become what we consume...

Are you among those who doubt or deny that what you read, what you watch on TV or at the movies, or the music you listen to has little if any influence on your thoughts, your attitudes, and ultimately, your behavior and character?

I am amazed at people who actually believe that the entertainment they regularly expose themselves to has little or no influence on the person they become. They seem oblivious to an obvious reality.

Doesn't it make sense that those who expose themselves constantly to violence develop violent tendencies? That those who expose themselves constantly to dishonesty tend toward dishonesty?

And conversely, wouldn't it make sense that those who expose themselves constantly to selfless, giving situations tend toward becoming selfless and giving?

I'm not speaking of absolutes here. I'm speaking of human tendencies that result from what we do with our lives, our senses, and our time.

One might then ask, "does that mean if I watch a show featuring terrorists that I'll become a terrorist?" No. But if you spend large amounts of time watching shows depicting terrorism in a positive light, such as from an Islamofacist perspective (or from an America-hating perspective like Newsweek) then you are likely to have a greater tendency to agree with the purposes of terrorism, if not also develop tendencies toward that sociopathic behavior.

Another might suggest that watching anti-social or immoral entertainment is a person's voyeuristic outlet - by having an outlet one could argue a person is less inclined to do such things in real life. This would argue for the thought that billions are spent on advertising so that people will NOT buy the product; that such advertising just serves as an outlet to reduce the desire for the product. Hmmm.

Newsflash: Adverstisers spend billions on advertising because advertising works! People who watch or read advertisements are more likely to buy the product!

Our practice of watching immoral entertainment and denying its effect on us is an addiction just as assuredly as smoking is an addiction. I've spoken with addicted smokers who will actually get defensive and angry at the suggestion that there is a connection between smoking and emphysema as they hack and choke with their smokers' cough.

The addict denies his addiction. In a sense we are all addicted to various things that aren't all that good for us. It is our challenge to identify them and change if we sincerely desire to be a better person, whether the addiction (or strong, controlling habit - take your pick of words) involves the foods we eat, substances we smoke, entertaining we soak in, friends we keep...

It all boils down to life priorities. What do we want to become? Just as "we are what we eat", we become what we consume, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. The book of Proverbs proclaims, "As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he." (Proverbs 23:7.)

Some don't care what they become, so whatever life makes of them is OK. Others believe they are so much in control of their lives that the negative, destructive, anti-social entertainment they consume doesn't effect them. They are above it all - uh huh, uh huh.

I have some ocean-front property in Arizona you might be interested in.