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Millions of dollars are spent annually researching ways to get you to watch today's television offerings. News outlets are no different than the latest sitcom when it comes to pursuing ratings. All consumer hot buttons are studied, not the least of which is fear. If you are a professional channel surfer like I am, you know your attention span is short. If, while flipping, you happen to get a glimpse of words like tragic, disaster, epidemic, or catastrophe, you automatically navigate to that channel for a closer look. This is no accident. The words were carefully chosen to reel you in regardless of how accurate they were. Countless times I have fallen victim to these tactics only to find the story was not that interesting.

Unfortunately, the average person gets very negative after being constantly bombarded with this material. You will soon become cynical and see only the bad in life, when, in fact there's more good news than bad in almost any subject you might want to consider, although you can't tell it by listening to the mainstream media. The powers behind the constant barrage of "bad tidings" give no thought to the consequences of what they do. The sole purpose of these programs is the pursuit of ratings. They have learned that most of us are intellectually lazy and largely uninformed. "Scare tactics and sensationalism" work well in such an environment.

Those of us who are "50 something" remember the eras in which the most change occurred in the American culture. The 1950's were a time when honesty, integrity, and respect were very apparent in everyday life. Of course it was not a perfect world, but people worked hard, played hard, and still had time to "smell the roses". It seems as though, all that was held in high regard by the majority, suddenly exploded in the "60's". Those of us who had been raised in the typical middle class home were suddenly in speechless amazement at the antics of the hippies and others who had totally rebelled against all authority, morals, and restraint. It was at that time I predicted a confused and chaotic society would emerge when my fellow "baby boomers" were in control. Fast forward to 2007.

When morals died in the "60's", we suddenly lost any solid base for anything. The biggest casualty was and is, the truth. Politicians have a tendency to lie, but we expect that. Occasionally, we used to question news outlets. We never questioned science. Unfortunately, much of the information we used to hold so dear, is now very suspect.

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