I Think It's Tragic That We Have

... There Hasn't Been A Serious Life-style Trend Since The Couch Potato Was Sighted, In About 1986, On One Of Its Rare Forays To The Video Store. Cocooning Remains A Significant Mass Enterprise, Encouraged By The Availability Of Five Hundred New Cable Channels And Microwavable Popcorn.

But Our Culture Is In Truly Bad Shape If We Have Come To Define Respecting Something As The Failure To Set It On Fire.

From The Point Of View Of The Pharmaceutical Industry, The Aids Problem Has Already Been Solved. After All, We Already Have A Drug Which Can Be Sold At The Incredible Price Of $8,000 An Annual Dose, And Which Has The Added Virtue Of Not Diminishing The Market By Actually Curing Anyone.

The Failure To Think Positively Can Weigh On A Cancer Patient Like A Second Disease.

Even Healthy Families Need Outside Sources Of Moral Guidance To Keep Those Tensions From Imploding--and This Means, Among Other Things, A Public Philosophy Of Gender Equality And Concern For Child Welfare. When Instead The Larger Culture Aggrandizes Wife Beaters, Degrades Women Or Nods Approvingly At Child Slappers, The Family Gets A Little More Dangerous For Everyone, And So, Inevitably, Does The Larger World.