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Show WbStleCreek 5 Be. I like to read current magazines. mag-azines. In fact, we take so many that they pile up on us before we can get them all perused per-used each month. Interested as I am in things literary, I always read the book reviews and the reports of the soon to be released sound pic-ures. pic-ures. Hontesly, nearly all of them leave me almost prostrate with indignation, revulsion and disgust. The new novels, which are predicted by the reviewers to become the near future "best sellers" deal almost exclusively exclus-ively with sex. And worse still, the shady side of sex, at that. Such sordid, immoral activities as infidelity, incest, rape, perversion per-version and even carnal knowledge knowl-edge are played up to the hilt. The new movies which are predicted to "pack them in," are just as bad, as far as sordid sor-did sex is concerned, except that nudity and visual sex relations rela-tions are added to the list. On first thought, it seems hard to understand why reputable reput-able book publishers will print and release such tawdry trash. But on second thought, I suppose sup-pose they are willing to print anything that the public demands. de-mands. They are in the business busi-ness to make money. Likewise with the film producers. pro-ducers. The sex pictures are cheap to produce. About all they need is to set up brothel and bedroom scenes. While the epic, cultural and historical pictures require huge expenditures expend-itures for sets, extras and often of-ten travel away from Hollywood. Holly-wood. So, if depictnig the seamy side of American life "packs them in," the spetcators bring dollars with them. And inflated inflat-ed as they are, that's what the producers are after. I often reflect upon how times have changed relative to reading habits. Before I graduated from high school I had read "Tale of Two Cities," "Oliver Twist," "Old Curiosity Shop," "David Copperfield" and the rest of the works of Charles Dickins. Also "Ivan-ho," "Ivan-ho," "Merchant of Venice," "Julius Caesar," "Macbeth," "Lady of the Lake," "Lorna Doone," All of Cooper's Leath-' Leath-' er Stocking Tales" and practically prac-tically every story that Jack London and Rudyard Kipling wrote. As I recall, there was little immorality aud practically no sordid sex played up in any of the pre-college reading I had done and very, very little during dur-ing my university reading career. car-eer. One of my favorite magazines during the past 60 years had been the Saturday Evening Post. Established by Benjamin Franklin, in the late 1780s, it folded up the other day, due to lack of advertising and subscription sub-scription support. I well remember how I enjoyed en-joyed the short and continued stories that ran in the Post. There were western and historical his-torical tales of American Indian In-dian and Pioneer life. And humorous hu-morous stories about "Scatter-good "Scatter-good Baines" and the salesman sales-man who peddled the "Earthworm "Earth-worm Tractor." Also featured was Ring Lardner's "You Know Me Al" series and Damon Run-yon's Run-yon's sports stories. It was all clean, stimulating and entertaining enter-taining fiction. As the older writers passed on, they were replaced by more modern ones. Also the color and tone of the stories changed. The stories began to emphasize empha-size the lower aspects of American Amer-ican life. Mostly featured were stories about the mentally abnormal, ab-normal, the psychotic, the schizophrenic, schi-zophrenic, the criminal and the immoral. Disgustedly, I wrote the editors edi-tors one time and asked them if there were no more normal Americans living, then, who were doing decent enough things to write stories about. They never acknowledged my letter, so I failed to renew my subscription. I suppose, that if the morality of the American people is slipping, slip-ping, it is our own faults. As long as we are willing to spend our money for filth, filth is what we will get. There could be a better way. So long 'til Thursday. |