A Few Bright Lights in the Filth of Modern Entertainment

So maybe that's a little dramatic. If you paid any attention to the Britney, Lindsay, or Paris drama the last two years though, you might decide that it is not so far off the mark. The entertainment industry is efficiently making it more widely known that our society is steadily declining. Hollywood couples marry and divorce as though their spouses were fruit that had gone bad, supposing that Sunflower Market has a much better and much more attractive selection available to them whenever they are hungry. Movies like Saw make enough money that they produce five of them. Nelly Furtado became one of the hottest names in music by changing her "Like A Bird" image to "Promiscuous Girl". The Osbournes let America know that it is "perfectly normal" to scream and cuss at your family all the time.

Disclaimer: I am not completely free from this. I still get sucked in occasionally by shows such as "Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders". From time to time I even listen to the Yin Yang Twins or Snoop Dogg.

In the sea of filth there is some good out there. Extreme Home Makeover. Celine Dion and her really old husband. Brad Paisley and his music videos with his cute wife. Maybe we could even put Pimp My Ride or Overhaulin' on that list. Probably not Punk'd.

On a different tangent, my friend Tyler has discussed with me this subject a few times: if any of you have ever sat through a mormon fast and testimony meeting you might think that mormons led the most difficult lives conceivable to man. There are tears, everyone talking about trials and how this month or this week has been maybe the hardest of their lives. They usually have a happy "I have been blessed a lot" point toward the end, but it too often seems overshadowed.

The fact is, most of us live pretty good lives. We all have hard things. But far too often we allow that to outweigh the good. On the way home from church on Sunday I heard a song that I have liked since the first day I heard it, Just Another Day in Paradise. The Phil Vassar version, not Phil Collins. If you are not familiar with this song, or would like to listen to it anyways, click here.



Even though I do not particularly like Phil Vassar and think that he is creepy looking, it's a great song. His life isn't perfect, he doesn't have the house of his dreams, his kids cry as much as any others, appliances break. He can't even have sex because his kid has a nightmare!! But he has people around him that he cares about and that care about him. And he's happy right where he is.

Our world has a lot of chaos and a lot of bad in it. But there is still good. And there are still good people. And I think few people could truthfully say there is more bad than good in their lives. And I am glad that there are songs like this that help me remember that everything is okay.