Bears on Wall Street. Well, I'm glad they asked. Despite the dizzying number of new shows and season premieres on the major networks, a number of intriguing themes and lessons have emerged that strike me as keys to the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere.
Manufactured events stink.
Americans aren't interested in panoramas created for the sake of spectacle. The reason no one watched the Olympics was because Americans everywhere saw through the blatant attempt of marketers to interest them in something they just weren't interested in. Watching people deliver canned speeches about democracy is boring. People do care about politics, really they do, but about the freshness and spontaneity of the real thing in real action. And for all the religion talk in the current campaign, it's a welcome alternative to see that the faith that Americans are seeing on television obeys the separation of church and state far more forcefully than the candidates do.