Seemingly Simple
We hear the phrase all the time: It was a simpler time. Things were very different back then. Back then can refer to anything from 20 to 100 years ago these days. But, for the most part, we do live in a different world than mere decades ago. One easy way to compute and visualize the differences is to simply turn on the TV. As a culture, we seem to be fond of looking at family sit-coms from the 50s and 60s as a way to gauge social change. The black and white images of squeaky clean 50s families with perfectly coifed mothers and business-suited fathers seem ridiculous by today's family units. Take the color out of TV and we find a land where nobody is gay, neighborhoods are lily-white, and the language...oh the language is ever so proper. These Pleasantvilles weren't always so peaceful and perfect. But the arch of early TV sitcoms is both predictable and benign compared to today's fare. Sometimes, while watching TV these days, I imagine myself a 10-year-old again wa