Yesterday morning I had to get up early. Not because Dave had school to go to, not because 1 needed to commute into work, but because these silly dogs don't know what day of the week it is and insist on my not sleeping in on a dark, quiet Saturday morning.

Since I was up, I decided to watch some Saturday morning cartoons. When I was small, I remember there being so few to choose from (and so few channels showing them!) but it didn't matter, they were great. The Pink Panther, Bugs Bunny, and Johnny Quest filled my mornings. Cartoons your parents could watch, sometimes were educational (yeah, even that crazy School House Rock was mixed in there telling me about adverbs and conjunctions) and some even won serious awards and recognition, they were that good. They were only on for a certain time slot, too. If you slept in, you missed them. If you thought you were going to sit around and watch them all day, forget it. Likely the stations were in cahoots with your parents, who had this wacky idea that getting outside and exercising was somehow important to your health.

What great memories! Alas, cartoons today just don't measure up. And I don't mean that in an old geezer kind of way. Sponge-head and his friend babbling and drooling over shiny objects? Japanese stuff where they fight - and fight - and fight. Instead of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which made at least an offhand attempt at teaching you something and HAD A PLOT, now 1 see characters that lie, sometimes steal, and spend most of their time justifying that at the top of their lungs. What is with the screaming? All these new cartoons do it.

The cartoons never end, either. They get churned out on multiple channels 24 hours a day 7 days a week. All my favorites, like Wiley Coyote, are deemed no longer appropriate for children. But this zero intellect stuff is?

One trend you see a lot is that the characters are soooo much smarter than adults. This is the character you are supposed to relate to, and it's true if you are a child genius or simply a talking baby with a lisp. Children are no longer taught to simply question authority - they are supposed to outright ignore it.

I happen to have had one of Gary's meeting cards in my hands, and looking at his topics I had to chuckle. "Can God be pleased?" I don't know how anyone can be, with this tripe. "Don't we already believe in God?" Why would we, when everything we see and hear either mocks him or ignores his existence? "Why do we have to seek God?" Duh! Because so many are trying to hide him! "Is it fair - God rewards some and not others?" That might depend on how you define reward, as in deserve something - which depends on who screams the loudest! "What's so important about diligence?" Would this involve actually spending time with my kid, away from the baby-sitting TV? And finally, "What motives should move us toward God?" We already see what moves us away from him - maybe we should try the other direction for a change!

Randy