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[Stock Lobster]

Xanadu, we've seen that it's nearly impossible to teach values and morality in school. In fact, that seems to backfire.

The only place these things can happen is in the home...but it needs to be an unbroken chain, grandparents to parents to children. So many households barely spend a few waking hours together, so many are broken with little contact with older generations. Much gets lost in the wreckage.

Recently I hear many public service adson Bloomberg radio trying to suggest that parents spend spare time with their children to teach them things like groceries, or the value of money.

Good grief...has it come to the point that people don't know these things on their own?

Meanwhile, the electronic media - television and the internet replaces the influence of parents on growing children. Unless you live on a boat in the middle of the ocean, or homeschool your children on a ranch, it's nearly impossible to avoid.

And what are the values taught? Nice guys finish last and it's the rulebreaker who wins the girl and the money, never mind the many shows that dwell on the multimillion dollar homes and lifestyles of celebrities.

Can you blame kids for thinking that money is all that matters? They don't see many being punished for breaking the law, let alone merely acting unethically. I think most people have realized that the only real crime is getting caught.

There was a very insightful screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, written in the mid 1970s, which was made into the movie "Network". In it, he was trying to draw attention to the destructive influence of television, and the worrisome takeover and transformation of television networks by large conglommerates...which was accelerating in the 1970s. The movie follows the story of an old fashioned WWII era newscaster who is fired when a big conglommerate takes over the network and starts changing the evening news, with the goal of transforming it into something more entertaining and capable of bringing in higher ratings and a young audience. The newscaster, Howard Beale, has a nervous breakdown on television, and the ambitious young woman (Faye Dunaway) hired to re-package the news decides to exploit his breakdown and turn it into a variety segment.

This is an important point, because right until the 1970s, news was meant to be informative, and wasn't populated by blonde bimbos and well groomed talking heads. There were still newscasters who had idolized Edward R Murrow. Now most wouldn't even know who he was

The disturbing message of the movie is that even if someone attempts to behave with integrity, or speak honestly on the media, the marketers will find a way to twist it or subert that person's message until it's simply another sideshow and incapable of actually reaching people or changing their behavior.

I've noticed that the few friends I have left who are capable of holding a varied and critical conversation for an entire evening, are usually the ones who watch little to no TV. A coincidence?

Anyway, here are two clips from that movie...the first one is the scene where he has his nervous breakdown, the second after he has been packaged into a News "entertainment" segment....but the speeches given are some of the most powerful heard in the history of film, imho.

Scene 1:

Scene 2: