This article is being forwarded through my grapevine.

To paraphrase someone else's quote, we truly live in a time where wise men must say obvious things.

I think entire volumes could be written about this aspect of 'personality' - or lack thereof - among the young of today.

There seems to be a self-conciousness that drives many of them to behave so robotically. The do it intentionally, training themselves through imitation. While this phenomenon may have been around to lesser degrees since the beginning of time, it seems to be the defining element of the young today, being driven by modern 'media' and pop-'culture' to conform in a way that previous generations never had to conform, at least not to such a degree.

Tocqueville thought that America was conformist in his own time. He should come back and see it now.

Your words:

"They looked sloppy or immodest, but they all looked alike and each of them probably thought they expressed individualism. They looked like little barbarians; dignity did reign among them. Ironic!"

I once taught, for a year, in a middle school, the 7th grade. The subject, the most unwelcome member of the classes next to me, the teacher, was Louisiana history, six sections thereof.

One of the "leaders" of the class was a local thug and gang member, yet in the seventh grade, but supposed to be in the 9th grade. According to the school counselor, he had already fathered at least six children by six different girls. Apparently getting pregnant by him was a status symbol. He was "a right of passage" for many girls in the community, so it would seem.

With that information on background, I decided to attempt to coopt him to my group of two: the subject and me. The attempt failed. However, the attempt consisted of first asking him if he "were his own man." His answer was, "Yeh, dude!" I then said, "You appearance says otherwise!" "Huh?" or something like it was his response. I then explained to him that he was wearing the uniform of Madison Avenue, specifically tailored to "his community" and exhibiting the robotic demeanor which Hollywood had scripted for "his community." I told him that there was nothing genuine about him. He was merely the face of fad!

I, of course, would like to think that I at least befuddled him. Oh, foolish ego! Had I spit into a raging volcano, it would have at least responded with a whispering hiss as my spit turned to vapor. Volcanoes are part of the natural order. The "people of the Zetigeist" are not.

1. that a handful of centralized media conglomerates who run thousands of papers, tv channels, radio channels, internet sites, billboards represent a "free" press

2. that media conglomerates seek to report the facts and decipher truths rather than deciminate government propoganda and product advertising

3. that just because we are able to choose amongst individuals from two groups with two different names that there is actually a choice given at the ballot box

4. that only large government organizations should fund and execute the pedagogical duties not too long ago taken on by households and neighborhoods

5. that only individuals instructed in psychology and group dynamics at colleges of education can possibly teach subject matters that not long ago were taught by rural teen-agers

6. that, even though highly respected scientists might hold a variety of opinions, the layperson tv-watcher "knows" the truth about many complex topics such as "global warming" better than all of them

7. that, even though a fetus may still be breathing after being removed from a womb, it is not really "alive"

8. that those who steadfastly hold to scriptural truths and Tradition and venerate icons of the sainted are out of date dogmatist nutjobs who must be set straight by preachers who administer the "truth" via Powerpoint presentations to large masses gathered in warehouses

9. that the nutjobs cannot understand what the Bible really means because they read it in some crazy languages like Greek

10. that there is a difference between torture and "rough interrogation techniques"

11. that the law is a luxury that we cannot afford "in a time of war"

12. that crazies who read non-English Bibles in front of icons and bring all fetuses to "full term" so that they can be educated in places other than government centers so that they may reason issues for themselves regardless of what the tv says, and might cast ballots for someone outside of the "party system", precisely because they were not vetted by the official media may well be terrorists who should be spied on, "roughly interrogated", and incarcerated indefinately

As did I, Mr. Peters. To me, there was nothing untoward in Stephen King's use of a clown as the outward face of a demon in his horror fiction. As to Congressmen, they have the total selfishness of small children and are so obviously amoral that I marvel at the enthusiasm that TV addicted voters exhibit for them.