As you’ve probably read by now, Curt Schilling’s 17 year old daughter was recently the target of Twitter creeps who found themselves named and shamed by the ex-hurler turned TV analyst. Along with blaming this incident and the further decline of western 
civilization on Vince McMahon and Snoop Dog (Jay-Z is inexplicably dissed by omission), the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick declares, “there is no form of mass media and entertainment commerce — TV, music, internet, video games, radio, movies, advertising — that isn’t heavily and aggressively invested and reliant on any combination of violence, sex and crudity.”
Not for years have “edgy” and “irreverent” meant edgy and irreverent. They mean vulgar. Language arts? “Stinks” became “sucks” became “blows.” “Crap” and “piss,” “balls,” “ass” and “scumbag” have become so TV/radio common that to scold a teen for their usage will leave them curious about specifics.
Modesty, a component of civility, has been deemed commercially worthless, replaced by boastful, chest-pounding “swagger.” You don’t cheer for your team, you chant insults and obscenities at the other team. And one can learn to “twerk,” as opposed to dance, in just one try!
Yet to fight it, to object to the escalation of common incivility, is to risk condemnation — run for your life! — as any combo of geezer, radical right-wing conservative, Christian zealot or bigot. The safe media route is to indulge it, suffer it quietly. Or pander to it — just hop on!
It’s a good bet one or both of these young tweeters grew up as two of the millions of lemmings drawn to the work of Mr. and Mrs. Vince McMahon, who ordered their dubiously muscled, limited life-spanned wrestlers to stand in front of TV cameras, thrust their hands toward their genitals and holler, “Suck it!”
Though I’m mostly comfortable letting Phil’s words appear with no rebuttal, I think everyone should be slightly alarmed at the possibility Mr. Mushnick believes twerking is easily accomplished.