(Animation Domination cartoon master Seth Macfraland. Photo Fox)

So, the monsoon came after I got back to the Beltway from the farm. So far, so good.

I made the best of things in the pre-dawn and listened to the rain and reviewed the continuing crisis in Syria, which has now spread full-blown to quasi-Europe and our erstwhile ally, Turkey.

I have the start of an assessment on that, and a musing about the horrific murder of Trooper Lee Rigby. But between the volume of news to digest, the ceremony honoring our pal Mac Showers this morning, and the unease I feel after watching television last night, I am going to put it aside for the morning and bother you with it tomorrow.

I had to go bucolic on the story yesterday- the political stuff is just so painfully toxic. I may take an essay this morning on the Cross of St. George and the murder of Trooper Rigby, nasty as that is. But with little to divert me left in the apartment at Big Pink, I watched some television of the big screen last night.

What I saw on the Animation Domination line-up on Fox (I do- or did- enjoy the Simpsons) put things in context. The Simpson’s writing staff (which has included luminaries such as Conan O’Brian) and has always been edgy and fun, and I love sense of the absurd.

Joining that venerable animated show are some others, manufactured by an irreverent young fellow named Seth McFarland. Targets of his satire are Christians, the American family, massive and crude references to homosexual activity, disparaging ethnic people, that sort of stuff.

To cap it off, I watched the interesting account of Liberace and his love affair with a young man at the height of his career- with macho Michael Douglas and Dan Damon as the gay lovers. I heard enthusiastic reviews, but found it hard not to turn it off.

I am favor of a progressive social agenda, equal rights, same-sex marriage, legal pot and all that long progressive list of things that are not the government’s business. But this was so overwhelming in content and message that it left me queasy.

No wonder Trooper Rigby had his head cut off. We in the West no longer value our own society, our history or our traditions. We are doing this to ourselves. No wonder the young men who adopt the Prophet feel so emboldened. Anything- anything- in these relentless attacks on our own society, transposed to references to Islam, would have produced global rioting.

That video trailer about the Prophet? Shoot, nothing in comparison.

This is a Western society that hates itself. At least part of it, anyway.

Sorry, we will have to get to that tomorrow. I have to get moving.

(Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in the new HBO film “Behind the Candelabra. Photo HBO>)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com