{"id":7860,"date":"2014-07-03T15:46:27","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T15:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/03\/semi-annual-twilight-zone-marathon-starts-tomorrow\/"},"modified":"2014-07-03T15:46:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T15:46:27","slug":"semi-annual-twilight-zone-marathon-starts-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/03\/semi-annual-twilight-zone-marathon-starts-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Semi-Annual Twilight Zone Marathon Starts Tomorrow!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rod<\/a>Schedule here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hard-driving Serling<\/a> lived a short but intense life. Born in 1924, he was dead at age 50 in 1975. His four pack a day cigarette habit destroyed his heart. Imagine smoking 80 Lucky Strikes a day! Assuming 16 hours of smoking time per day, that averages to one cigarette every twelve minutes.  He died on the operating table during an attempted bypass procedure.<\/span><\/p>\n

But who is to say that a long, healthy life is better than a short, intense one fueled by the stimulants one enjoys? That is a question for the individual, not Hillary, to decide. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is appropriate that on Independence Day one should celebrate with Serling, WWII paratrooper, anti-statist, defender of the individual.<\/span><\/p>\n

Serling knew how to entertain while also stimulating thought and teaching moral lessons. Our contemporary dreckmeisters apparently think that the purpose of art is to degrade sensibility, impede critical thinking, glorify scumbags, and rub our noses ever deeper into sex and violence. It seems obvious that the liberal fetishization of freedom of expression without constraint or sense of responsibility is part of the problem. But I can't let a certain sort of libertarian or economic conservative off the hook. Their lust for profit is also involved. <\/span><\/p>\n

What is is that characterizes contemporary media dreck? Among other things, the incessant presentation of defective human beings as if there are more of them than there are, and as if there is nothing at all wrong with their way of life. Deviant behavior is presented as if it is mainstream and acceptable, if not desirable. And then lame justifications are provided for the presentation: 'this is what life is like now; we are simply telling it like it is.' It doesn't occur to the dreckmeisters that art might have an ennobling function. <\/span><\/p>\n

The tendency of liberals and leftists is to think that any presentation of choice-worthy goals or admirable styles of life could only be hypocritical preaching.  And to libs and lefties, nothing is worse than hypocrisy.  Indeed, a good indicator of whether someone belongs to this class of the terminally benighted is whether the person obsesses over hypocrisy and thinks it the very worst thing in the world.  See my category Hypocrisy<\/a> for elaboration of this theme.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Jack Klugman and The Twilight Zone<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Problem: Gun Culture or Liberal Culture?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Case of the Missing Twilight Zone Season<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>TV: TV Club 10: 10 episodes that take viewers into the depths of The Twilight Zone<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schedule here. The hard-driving Serling lived a short but intense life. Born in 1924, he was dead at age 50 in 1975. His four pack a day cigarette habit destroyed his heart. Imagine smoking 80 Lucky Strikes a day! Assuming 16 hours of smoking time per day, that averages to one cigarette every twelve minutes.  … Continue reading “Semi-Annual Twilight Zone Marathon Starts Tomorrow!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[432],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}