Substantial Dinner

O frabjous day! I just came back from a dinner where seven of us talked about ideas all night. No gossip, no sports, not even music. The word "blog" never came up.

The term "blowjob" came up a lot though. We spent a long time on the extent to which mass media affects kids and their attitudes toward sex, and the political climates that first fostered and then resulted from the oversexing of the juvenile population. C. posited that TV is our collective Id. If that's the case, then the FCC is a poorly matched superego, considering what that Id is up to. We get what we pay for, and we get what we came for. Here's a little-known fact: NBC's Dateline is no longer doing any stories on sex in any shape or form. Like all the networks, NBC is just too scared of FCC fines to risk anything in that sphere.

And I'm still trying to find the current percentage of the US population that identifies itself as "born-again." The current political climate is much more easily explained when you consider the enormous base the Right has to work with. OK, a 2003 Gallup poll puts that number at 43%, but it fluctuates every year. I'm not saying all born-again Christians or Evangelicals vote Republican -- no, let the gloriously frank Gov. Howard Dean taste that foot -- but they do generally support anti-choice candidates.

And leaving the off-limits topic of politics aside again, I'll just note that Johnny Tutorseed here had to wax rhapsodic on the joys of tutoring, in the vain hope that one of the intelligent beings in the room would leap to the bait and show up at St. Agatha's (Adams and Mansfield, 2-4pm) this afternoon. I'm very disappointed in all of you who profess an interest in the future yet eschew an opportunity to affect it. It's just two stinkin' hours on Saturday! Crikey! I'll buy you an exotic beverage down the street if you show up. I'll draw stripes on my face again. I will stand upon my head to beat all deals. Don't make me beg. It's so unseemly.

It's also unseemly to be up this late. I'm typing all kinds of nonsense I'll regret in the morning.

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