Watch late night T.V. and you will understand exactly how screwed to hell we are as a species. Think about it for a second. We, homo sapiens, are the best adapted, most intelligent, and most highly evolved creatures to roam the surface of this planet. Compare this fact with the images of our culture that you see everyday. Frightening isn't it. I'm not trying to sound like your parents; my parents have critiqued my various preferences of music, clothing, books, and other things often enough that I know how frustrating it can be. Let's just suffice it to say that, as a member of the species, I am thoroughly disgusted at how inhuman we have become. I don't think anyone would argue with me that there is a decided lack of moral character today as opposed to past periods in history. I'm not saying that our current generation is pure evil, because many of our vices have been around since the dawn of time. The difference is between now and then is that then, the vices were covered up and people tried to eschew them, whereas now they are glorified. In what other era but today can you hear of such things as debauchery, drunkeness, murder, suicide, drug use, and general psychosis praised in works of art and mass media. Homer would have never written a tale about sleeping with every woman in Greece, nor would Shakespeare have written a play or a ballade about murdering 37 people with a rusty icepick. Yes, I am aware that Shakespeare's work is not the more moral work ever, and that plays like Hamlet and Macbeth deal with a lot of death. The difference is that when a character dies a horrible death in Shakespeare's work, there was a good reason for it (i.e. Macbeth was beheaded because he had murdered King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff's family). When you hear about death in popular music, there's no point to it at all. I'm sorry, but I don't see modern gangsters as tragic products of a diseased urban system. I see them as ignorant, two-bit hoods that lack the ambition to wipe their own asses, let alone improve their condition. Why am I writing this? I don't know; I have no apparent point. I have a deep, abiding passion to help my fellow men, and when I see some things, I become inspired. I channel the inspiration as best I can, through words. Sometimes, I think that humanity needs to be saved from itself, or we shall go down in the annals of time as the only species to induce its own extinction.