Tea, Crackpots and A Rolling Stone

I don't read the magazine "The Rolling Stone" any more.  Actually I probably haven't looked at one except now and then for probably twenty years.

I find this unfortunate because I really like music journalism and I am always interested in what goes on with it.  In my early days in the 1970's it was something of interesting to read.

But I guess I grew up.

So I happened upon this article written by Matt Taibbi in upcoming addition while doing some research for this blog.  (It's long but I linked to the page in question - please read the rest for yourself.)

"Buried deep in the anus of the Bible Belt, in a little place called Petersburg, Kentucky, is one of the world's most extraordinary tourist attractions: the Creation Museum,  ..."

Well, that's a polite intro - I guess he doesn't like Kentucky much...

But then we find this paragraph:

"Even more disturbing is an exhibit designed to show how the world has changed since the Scopes trial eradicated religion from popular culture. Visitors to the museum enter a darkened urban scene full of graffiti and garbage, and through a series of windows view video scenes of families in a state of collapse. A teenager, rolling a giant doobie as his God-fearing little brother looks on in horror, surfs porn on the Web instead of reading the Bible. ("A Wide World of Women!" the older brother chuckles.) A girl stares at her home pregnancy test and says into the telephone, "My parents are not going to know!" As you go farther into the exhibit, you find a wooden door, into which an eerie inscription has been carved: "The World's Not Safe Anymore."

Well, Matt Taibbi, I have to agree about the disturbing nature of the exhibit but I suspect we disagree on exactly why this exhibit is disturbing.

Now any responsible adult raising children knows these issues all too well and that, in fact, for your kids and grand kids "the world's not safe anymore" is true.  I could post links to any number of stories about the tragedy kids suffer today - but what's the point - since this guy no doubt believes that today's society and its effect on children is progress.

As you read on further into the article you see the real point is "The Tea Party is many things at once, but one way or another, it almost always comes back to a campaign against that unsafe urban hellscape of godless liberalism we call our modern world." (I struck out the world "godless" because, after all, we need to banish God from society... at least that what I think the point of the "Scopes trial" comment is.)

Which leaves us with the truth - that our kids must live in a "unsafe urban hellscape of liberalism we call our modern world".

Its sad to see this guy writing sarcastically about the difficult world our children have inherited.

Too bad it thinks its all a sad joke.