trendspotting

To quote Huck Finn, society is becoming less 'sivilized." Four-letter words, once the province of sailors and vice presidents, now fill the air in nurseries and church services. Is nothing sacrosanct?

But wait. Maybe the problem of incivility runs in a different direction. It's not the people who talk, it's the people who don't listen, absorbed in their iPod soundtracks, slowly going deaf. "Just three words," to paraphrase Mr. McGuire, "Hearing aid stocks."

But wait again. Maybe blogging will revitalize our sense of community, just like newspapers used to. Free-flowing marketplace of ideals.

So when people talk, if they talk at all, they'll swear, or they'll blog. Society is doomed.