I've been thinking about the 80s lately.  Everything seemed bigger then - the hair, the shoulders, the ambition.  Things were in flux with rock groups playing with the gender boundaries and the image of the intelligent heroine cropping up everywhere.  From Twisted Sister to Jessica Fletcher things just seemed to hold so much promise of enthusiasm, independence, and eventually a happy ending.

Today everything seems so pinched somehow.  Women seem to be portrayed more as objects than at any other time in the last century; the only way to get ahead is to be a slut and grab onto some rich man who can treat you like crap in return.  Everything seems to be about money, violence, and backstabbing.  Happy endings seem to be when your gang kills more of the other gang than they killed of yours. Television is inundated with so-called "reality" shows that seem to revel in delving as deeply as they can into the cesspool side of life, and often encourage the people in them to wallow even deeper to keep the ratings up.

I don't know about you, but I have no interest in Survivor, or 47 Kids and Counting, or Let's See How Many Shows About Little People We Can Create.  Give me back my Fantasy Island and Murder She Wrote.  I have enough "reality" in my day to day existence; I want a little fantasy in my world that reminds me that happy endings aren't dead.