Castles Made of Sand

Coming back from the car place on Saturday, I turned on the truck radio, only to find that all the radio presets had been lost, since they had changed the battery. So on the way back down the long and winding Harford Road, I scanned the bands and tried to remember my 6 AM and 12 FM stations. Eclectic as I am, you can punch up NPR on my radio or you can punch up country or oldies or nutjob talk stations.


But on one station that must number its listening audience in the dozens, I caught one snippet of conversation as my nimble fingers nimbly punched and scanned. A guy with pious overtones said, "Did you hear that, brothers and sisters? He's going to do all he can to have 'Gossip Girl' taken off the air!"


I don't know what "Gossip Girl" is all about. I've never watched it, but I did see the face of an actress who appears on the show on the cover of a slick magazine while I waited in a supermarket line the other day, and I did not see the sign on the devil in the young woman's image, so I'm confused here.

Could someone tell me why it's so important for someone to have this show removed from the air? More important, can someone explain why this person, who could be the president of whatever television network beams "Gossip Girl" into our cables and dishes every week, or a pecan cracker from Baking Soda, Alabama for all I know, would find it necessary to have this show removed from the viewing choices of the multitudes?

Sir, if you don't like "Gossip Girl," I urge you to avoid watching it. If you are responsible for assisting the maturation of a child or some children, and you find the show deleterious to their development, then by all means you should tell them not to watch it. Those are options within your control. Don't worry about the rest of us. Believe me, I am worried enough about you.