re: The news from Mayberry
Perhaps they are mostly crazy too.
Probably. I actually prefer the word obsessed.
Not all the incubi go consorting with young women - most will settle for zealots of any sort, gender or religious denomination and will feed on hate, jealousy, sadness as easily as lust.
Everywhere one goes there are dysfunctional happenings, families and beliefs. Religious zealotry in your neck of the words is probably no more widespread than here, but the flavor is different. Perhaps Mormons and such are genuinely nicer Christians than other denominations.
Mayberry doesn't really exist, except as an idyllic fantasy. Any historian worth their salt knows exactly how extremely dysfunctional the twentieth century was with perhaps a modest age of innocence during 1900-12. We see this desire documented in the Twilight Zone episode about the ad man who is leaving the hectic rat race of 1959 to return to his hometown circa 1930 when "life was good". He actually gets thrown back in time only to realize he doesn't belong there now and that he must find the small joys and peace in his present.
By the 80s after the nightmare of the 60s and the 70s folks already idealized 1959!
And despite the 80's own unique flaws it is idealized by many folks today! It is very safe to assume that twenty years from now this era will be idealized by the 10-20 year olds of today.
Mayberry the fantasy has evolved. It used to be about bands in a park, old fashioned street lamps, ma & pa shops, wholesome neighborhoods with little crime and a girl or boy living down the street who was a perfect lady or gentleman and sent hearts aflutter destined to be one's sweetheart.
Now Mayberry is a place where women don't have to work, could raise kids & where daycare centers were only for retired and perhaps disabled seniors. It was a place where your employer valued loyalty and where part time employees were only hired for holidays and the art of pinching pennies and cutting wages was still despised as the practice of lower folks whose religious icon was a currency symbol.
As long as folks long for Mayberry, and try to bring a little of Mayberry where they live - there is always hope for a turnaround. Today's biggest crime isn't larceny or drugs but the waste of time and mental enslavement of our growing technocracy. The latest Apple phones will only increase this time-wasting, mental strangulation that i-pods, the internet and entertainment industry already represent.
Hopefully those protesters got some needed excercise, so that the effort is not a total loss.
;-)
