Further Marginalized...

I've talked about how marginalization affects health before.   The point is the further a person is from the mainstream culture the more apt they are to be marginalized, isolated & suffer the consequences of the situation.   With HIV, it's how far you are from being a straight, white male, who's usually Christian.  With every step you take away from that "norm", you become more & more at risk for dangerous behavior, unsafe sex, lesser education, lesser opportunities.  Basically your chances for anything good or beneficial go down & the chances of bad things or detrimental events goes up.

I, like every person no longer in their 20's, has complained about having less in common with other people today.  Everyday I hear about people I grew up watching on TV or listening to on the radio have died.  There are very few of the places I went as a kid still standing as they were.  Skating rinks  & drive-in theaters are all but a memory in most places.  The grand movie halls are gone, replaced by cheap multiplexes, that charge a day's earnings to see a movie.  The diners & dives have been replaced by chain restaurant crap factories.   All the cars look like boxes & the music is made on & sometimes by a computer.  I could go on.

I've tried to make peace with most of this.  Even though each 1 of them made me feel like I'd lost part of myself.  Each time I felt a little less present.  But this week something happened that just absolutely sucks.  CW ran the last ever Saturday morning cartoons.  This article & many like on the web say what I mean.  Cartoon Network is an abject failure.  There will be no more kids up before dawn, anxiously awaiting the new cartoon lineup.  Instead they will find, pseudo-news, sports crap, edutainment hell & useless animal shows.  All of which can be found on dozens of other channels any other time of any other day.  

Another bit of my childhood is gone.   Like cruising down the drag or being a mallrat.  Bit by bit, they're destroying the childhood landscape of Boomers & Gen X'ers.  My cable company recently killed off Viacom channels, so most the local kids only have Cartoon Network's crapola.  If they don't have cable, they don't have anything.

Thank you so damned much American corporate TV asshats.  Kill another piece of my life.   Make me feel even less involved with everything than I already did.   1 day, you'll find yourselves in this boat as well.  When it happens, I hope people remind you of what you did before.  

Goodbye Saturday Morning Cartoons, you will be missed & remembered.

Cya...