Scripture: Leviticus 19:16 (NRSV)
You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, buy and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.

Thought for the Day: On August 1, viagra sale 1981, MTV went on the air for the first time and changed television, music, and our culture, forever. I remember the day the station fired up, sitting on the couch watching “Mexican Radio” by Wall of Voodoo play in rotation with about ten other videos. I don’t think we ever changed the channel for weeks .

When it first began, MTV was actually a pretty family-friendly place. There wasn’t a lot of production technology available to music TV artists, most simply lip-synched. The idea of a “concept” video like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was more than a year away, and was originally being planned as a theatrical trailer, not an MTV video. The early “vee-jays” looked like college prep students.

How things change. As it turns 31, there’s barely any music on MTV anymore. Instead, we’re treated to obnoxious, loud, oafish, selfish caricatures of human beings, seemingly only interested in themselves and their hair. Not that MTV is supposed to be or ever claimed to be the arbiter of good taste. Ratings is ratings, and if people tune in to see other people acting like jerks to each other, that’s not MTV’s fault for finding a successful business model.

And I guess that’s what disappoints me the most. We’d rather tune in to see the kids on “Jersey Shore” challenge the “Real Housewives of Orange County” to a smack-down on “Big Brother” than discover an unknown music artist or see one of our favorite music videos. We seem to want to watch people fight with each other.

I yearn for the days when MTV was about music rather than gossip. While I would never suggest any sort of censorship of the airwaves, I am disappointed that the folks who think up new TV shows can’t show us a better side of humanity. But I’m even more disappointed that so many of us continue to turn these TV shows on, because the more they show us how badly we treat each other, the more we’ll start to think that sort of behavior is normal.

And that, my friends, is a “Highway to Hell.”

Prayer: May you keep me strong in my love of you, Holy Lord, peaceful in my interactions with others, and aware of what I feed my mind and soul. Amen.