True Illusion

To the person that loves the drama of today's wide assortment of reality programming, it may have just seemed like another scandalous incident during an innocent parent swap. On tonight's episode of "Trading Spouses," an argument erupted between the uptight clean freak from Minnesota and the pro-Bush, pro-war father of her host family in Tennessee (was it Tennessee?).

Mia, standing in for the Matriarch of the home, baited the father into an argument about the war. Somehow she came to the decision that it was appropriate to ask how he felt, as a supporter of the war, if his son-in-law in the armed forces didn't come home, if he, "...dyyed ooover there in eye-Rahhck?" You see, the little boy of the family liked to play with army men and he killed a worm with a handful of salt. Granted, when his answer to "why?," was, "I like to kill things," I was a little freaked out. Teamed with the fact that his father taught him how to do it, I could understand the point that Mia (the mother...are you still with me?) was making. The kid definitely was, after editing, obsessed with war and killing other living things. But here's the deal...

Maybe you shouldn't teach your kid that killing other living things is acceptable, just as you shouldn't ask a stranger how they would feel if a family member were to die in a war he volunteered to go to...especially if you are on national television. Fine. But how is this entertainment while REAL people are REALLY dying? In a reasonable nation, the sad drama being played out in front of our hungry eyes and ears should not, as a reasonable People, entertain us.