by Ray Newman, radio and television commentator, attorney, educator, author

Monday, September 26, 2011

AN OLD SONG, REWRITTEN

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked at as something shocking
Now heaven knows
Anything goes"

That song was written in 1934.  Where are we today?

As far as the glimpse of stocking and the other sexual mores it implies, we are now in age of "anything and everything goes".   Sexuality abounds in virtually all aspects of our lives.  And while occasionally it goes beyond my personal taste, I think it is generally a healthy development...greater freedom, confidence and honesty in our sexual feelings and expression.

But the  77  year-old song, sorry to say, must be rewritten:

"In olden days a glimmer of immorality
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows
Vice, evil, wrongdoing, unvirtuousness, unrighteousness, ungodliness, impurity, waywardness, prodigality, delinquency, scandal, infamy, knavery, nefariousness, baseness, vileness, villianousness, deviltry, corruption, debasement, degradation, depravity, goes"

One line of that popular song remains strikingly relevant today, even more than it did 77 years ago:

"The world has gone mad today"

What goes next, I wonder.

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