THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503190051
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Paul South
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Washington socialite Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth kept by her side a pillow on which was embroidered: ``If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.''
But in America today, there's no need to sit by the gossipy relative of Teddy Roosevelt to air dirty laundry. Just let Cousin Geraldo, Cousin Oprah and Cousin Jenny do it for you, before a captivated studio and national-television audience.
It may seem funny, but it's not. The talk shows are out of control. And you need look no further than the murder of a man who admitted to talk show host Jenny Jones that he had a crush on a male friend. Two days after the taping, the man was shot dead, the object of his affection in custody, charged in the death.
There used to be a time in America when our darkest secrets would remain so, perhaps revealed only in a confessional or at a revival or on the shoulders of a trusted family member or friend.
But no more. Discretion is dead and gone.
Talk show gurus have become the parish priests on the 19-inch-square Tower of Babble. We look the camera in the eye and tell all, as people in the audience pump their fists in the air and shout, ``Go Ahead. Tell it All.''
Drowned out by the cheers and applause are the last dying gasps of human decency. It's lying in the gutter, a bullet through its head.
But it's not just the talk shows putting the hit on acceptable behavior in America. Gangsta rappers see women as ``ho's.'' Skinheads let the swastikas fly, spitting out the kind of poison and hatred our grandparents fought a world war to stop.
The trashy becomes the treasured. The disgusting is now the divine, all in the name of ``Us Against Them.''
In another time, a blind Latin-American singer - Jose Feliciano - was roundly criticized after doing his own modern arrangement of the ``Star Spangled Banner.'' Feliciano, one of this nation's most talented artists, sang the national song in his own way, but not without respect and admiration for his country. His career, sadly, was never the same again.
But today Roseanne can butcher the anthem, showing not the slightest respect, and not even the most stodgy of publications bar her from their pages.
Political debate in this country is a joke. Slam this elected official or that. Dig up the dirt. Forget about new ideas. It's money and sludge that'll get you elected.
This is not about curtailing the First Amendment, or restricting freedom of expression. It's about a climate of fear and anger in this country that is being fostered by popular culture. Shock. Shout. Shame. Hate.
And all of this, in turn, pours gasoline on the powerfully wrongheaded notion that someone else in the world is to blame for our problems. Whites blame blacks. Blacks blame Latinos. Latinos blame Asians. Children blame their parents. And on and on and on.
Dante wrote: ``In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood, For I had lost the right path.''
All of this yelling and screaming has America on the wrong path. And like children, we are left to stagger among the trees, lost, and if we're not careful, alone.
There is a simple solution.
Turn off the TV.
Stop screaming.
Start listening. by CNB