This past Sunday, I sat down in front of the television for the Simpsons-watching that serves as my weekly “Damn, Monday’s almost here” reminder. Instead of the usual segue (which involves a local weatherman standing in front of a cheap plywood map), I was greeted with an urgent warning: “The following program contains discussion of gay marriage. Parental discretion is advised.” At first I thought the warning was a clever joke thrown in to poke fun at the recent censoring craze. But when the episode was over, and various media outlets ran articles on the controversy, my amusement was replaced by confusion.

The warning was real. L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Parents Television Council, told The New York Times, “You’ve got a show watched by millions of children. Do children need to have gay marriage thrust in their faces as an issue? Why can’t we just entertain them?” So on a show in which the ostensible hero throttles his own son, exposes his rotund, jaundiced butt and is so incompetent that he routinely threatens Springfield with impending nuclear holocaust, it’s the discussion of gay marriage that should give parents pause?

I’m often baffled by the lengths to which people will go to shield their children (and sometimes even themselves) from things that they consider “unsavory.” Books are banned; television shows and movies are censored or cancelled; products are boycotted; eyes and ears are covered and mouths sing “Lalalala I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” We’ve created a culture of ignorance, a world in which people sincerely believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt you — and that if you cross your fingers, maybe it will just go away.

The representation of gays isn’t the only thing that gets parents’ collective gorge rising, of course; sex writ large has the honor of being the most concealed — and yet most discussed — topic to emerge from human sentience. In the 1950s, Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds, making Little Ricky’s presence somewhat mystifying; now, although sex has become a mainstay of all the major media, the government funnels millions of wasted dollars ($167 million this year, to be precise) into abstinence-only education, which presumes that teenagers won’t have sex if they’re not given any information about it.
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People often bemoan the fact that most holidays — especially the one that just passed — have been commercialized by our money-grubbing, everyone-wants-a-piece-of-the-pie culture. These people are perhaps overlooking the single greatest contribution that this commercialization makes to our holidays: discount candy! Obtaining perfectly good candy at obscenely low prices just because it’s wrapped in the colors of yesterday’s event has certainly become the most important part of my holidays. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where I judge holidays not on their cultural significance but on what I can buy for 50 percent off the next day. What follows is a grading of the holidays, based on what really matters: the candy.

Valentine’s Day
One word sums up the candy scene on Valentine’s Day: chocolate. Long before the connection between chocolate and sex was scientifically confirmed (both release the same hormone, oxytocin, into the bloodstream), lovers were proffering each other chocolate in exchange for sex. Valentine’s Day brings a bevy of molded, foil-wrapped chocolates to the table, which isn’t much in the way of variety but, hey, it is chocolate, so you won’t find any complaints here.

The most oft-heard complaint about Valentine’s Day candy regards those candy message hearts. True, they taste like chalk, but you’re not supposed to eat them. Candy hearts exist to provide amusement, not to titillate taste buds, and amuse they do with such romantic overtures as MAD 4 YOU, YOU [illegible], [illegible]K, and READ MORE. Candy hearts inject fun into any Valentine’s Day, especially if you change all of the messages to something dirty.

The highlight of Valentine’s Day is the Whitman’s Sampler, not because it’s tasty (which it is) but because it’s accompanied by a little map that identifies the filling of each chocolate. You can use this as a guide to giving other people the ones you don’t like, but, more importantly, you can put it on a light-box and pretend to be a doctor examining an x-ray film. Prognosis: delicious! A-
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As a college student, I’ve gotten pretty good — nay, excellent — at wasting time. The moment I sit down to do work, I am distracted by an endless chain of tangential thoughts, each linked ever-more-tenuously to the previous. Having Internet access only exacerbates the problem, as the very structure of the Internet echoes a tumultuous mind; websites lead to other websites in a vaguely linear fashion until you’re suddenly left wondering, “What was it I was looking for initially, and how did I end up in the IMDb goofs section for Charlotte’s Web? And, wow, did the actor who voiced the role of Templeton really die from ‘extreme substance abuse’?”

Given my toddler-caliber attention span, it isn’t all that surprising that I spent a sizeable portion of last Saturday morning watching old clips of Square One, the brilliant children’s show that ran on PBS in the late eighties. Square One had been a mainstay of my early childhood, and on Saturday I suddenly remembered why as I laughed my way through math-related music videos that flawlessly parodied popular genres. There was the inimitable “Nine, Nine, Nine,” a country-western hit about how the digits of multiples of nine add up to nine, and “Eight Percent of my Love,” in which a Springsteen look-alike explains to his girlfriend why she only gets eight percent of his love (his bicycle gets another eight percent, while his parents get a mere four). And who could forget that classic “The Mathematics of Love,” in which a doo-wop group from Phoenicia learns how to read roman numerals?

We truly grew up in the heyday of children’s television. By the eighties, it had become acceptable — even expected — to allow small children to watch television. This fact, coupled with the way that Baby Boomers were shifting their sense of entitlement to cover their children as well, led to a selection of quality television shows that catered to kids.
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During a week-long sojourn to Florida over winter break, I encountered a man named Top. Top was a shuttle bus driver, but, more importantly, Top was a chatty shuttle bus driver.

While most drivers are content to announce stops and — if you’re in Orlando, as I was — provide Disney trivia, Top decided that his job was to invigorate a crowd of unresponsive, heat-stroked passengers by occupying every single second of the trip with his voice.

Top was my bus driver twice, and I soon learned that his repertoire was carefully calibrated to last through the duration of a one-way trip; relying on the quick turnover of a tourist crowd, he would repeat the same shtick each day. First he would introduce himself to the passengers, mentioning both his previous service in Vietnam and his current occupation as a substitute gym teacher. Then he would ask if anyone on the bus was from another country, and nobody would respond. “Another country” would be modified to “another state” and, still, no response. That’s when Top would break out the jokes.

“What do you call two Mexican guys playing basketball? Juan on Juan.” (Several people chuckle.)

“Here’s one for the kids. Why was Tigger looking in the toilet? He was looking for Pooh.” (Little kids giggle.)

“Why are there no Wal-Marts in Iraq? Because there’s a Target on every corner!” (There is dead silence as everyone shifts uncomfortably in their seats, exchanging wary glances.) “Get it? Target? Tar-jay?” (Several teenaged girls laugh because they, too, call it Tar-jay.)
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