The state of the culture

Aww, the poor babies:

One night in Adams Morgan, the sons and daughters of lawyers and corporate executives padded into a friend's rowhouse for a kind of group therapy session about their families' wealth.

When we were young and the world was more moral, our games were more wholesome and entertaining. If we wanted to break the ice with members of the opposie sex, a simple straighforward game of strip poker was sufficient. We weren't absolutely depraved, like these irresponsible young people today:

 Allegations stemming from a game of "strip Yahtzee" led to a Muncie woman's arrest this week.

"Binge drinking" is defined as "five or more drinks for a man and four for a woman," which are "consumed at one sitting and with the intention of getting drunk." The bad news is that 48 percent of Hoosier college students surveyed reported binge drinking in a two week period, compared to 40 percent nationally. The good news, sort of, is that drinking is leveling off a bit at Indiana University:

I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and go na-na-na-na until you're done talking, 'cause I just don't want to hear it. That seems to be the attitude of some at Purdue University about library prof. Bert Chapman's provocative blog post on "the economic arguments against homosexuality."

Oprah's TV efforts have always seemed just a heartbeat away from being a freak show, and now she dives into the slime bucket head first:

WESTVILLE -- A month from the day he is set to be executed at the Lakeside Correctional Facility, Matthew Eric Wrinkles will appear on national television, confronting the family of his victims and Oprah Winfrey.

19-year old Alison Lesch of Auburn faces a preliminary charge of attempted murder for putting her hours-old newborn daugher in a garbage bag and leaving her in a Dumpster. It is being suggested that she could have avoided the whole unpleasantness of being arrested if she had just been thinking clearly:

Nothing is left to chance these days, not even how much of a haul a kid might make trick-or-treating:

Those of us who attended college in the bad old days of repression and guilt clearly missed out on all the fun:

 Sexploration at IU, the second annual weeklong series of fun, interactive sex-positive events offering Indiana University students information about sexuality related issues, begins today (Oct. 26) on the Bloomington campus.

Most of the Soupy Sales obits concentrate on his national presence, but the Detroit Free Press has a good read on his early days as a local TV celebrity:

Sales was best known to Detroiters as the goofy yet cerebral host of “Lunch with Soupy,” a half-hour show that featured Sales hamming it up in a variety of sometimes surreal situations.

I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that Bob Dylan has a Christmas album. I'm one of the world's biggest Dylan fans, but this still has to rank as one of the oddest musical decisions of all time.