Below is the article, The Morning Call is the local paper from here (Allentown, PA) The authors email and phone number are at the bottom. I think we should all let him know how we feel, since he did SUCH a good job researching the article he wrote.
Disfigured skin points where culture is going You can tell where a culture is headed by examining whom its members seek to emulate. Just a few centuries ago, there was a culture still mired in the Stone Age, with no written language, no science, no math, no architecture, no nothing requiring thought Its members had not even managed to invent the wheel. That culture's only contribution to the world was the decorative ''tatu. '' In most other parts of the ancient world, tattoos were disfigurements usedonly to identify criminals or slaves. Now that Polynesians can read, use wheels, count and appreciate musical instruments other than drums, they've advanced to a point where most of them have abandoned tattoos. As one culture ascends, it seems, another declines.
This week, we learned that 36 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have tattoos. It was just last year The Morning Call reported that 16 percent of all Americans were thusly self-mutilated.
The sight of Mike Tyson's gorgeous artwork, no doubt, has persuaded millions to flock to tattoo joints. Or maybe it's the growing popularity of ''mixed martial arts'' bloodfests, which put tattooed subhumans into cages to brutalize each other. ''Proud parents bear tattoos honoring their kids,'' said a headline over Monday's story.'' It's super big right now,'' the story quoted Steve Lemak as saying of the mom and dad tattoo trend. He owns The Quillian joint in Allentown. ''You'll never find a more meaningful tattoo than one for your kids,'' said Kiel Ferrari, described as an ''artist'' at the Minds Eye Tattoo in Emmaus. (I also have seen graffiti vandals described as ''artists.'') Along with the story, there were photographs of bodies mutilated with hideous ''artwork. '' One was of an arm with a truly unfortunate depiction of a child's face. I am sure the real child is cute; no child could actually be that homely. On the very same day that our eyes were insulted by those vulgar photos, the paper ran another story elsewhere, plugging the premier showing of a new television program about the joys of prostitution. The show was imported from England, where, the story said, ''it was aired last September and was blasted in the media for glamorizing prostitution. '' (We have an MTV show glamorizing pimps, so why not glamorize their pathetic puppets?) I can't say I'm an expert on prostitution. I'm too parsimonious to gain first-hand knowledge. (Stories on Eliot Spitzer's $4,300 dalliances nearly gave me apoplexy.) Nonetheless, I've said a lot about both prostitution and tattoos, which, come to think of it, always seem to go together. No one can deny that the heaviest concentrations of tattoos occur in the lowest segments of society -- prostitutes, pimps, pugs, prison inmates, Ku Klux Klansmen and the members of street and motorcycle gangs. Now, according to this week's story, 36 percent of young people have decided to emulate such lowlifes. And some news media want to glamorize them. Do not glamorize accomplishment. Do not glamorize intelligence, insight or integrity. Don't glamorize courage, generosity, leadership, skill or diligence. Such qualities are for nerds. By all means, glamorize pimps, prostitutes and
those who emulate them.That is the future of America's culture. Aware of how some of these devoted self-mutilators are going to react, I am compelled to emphasize that I do not favor any restrictions on personal behavior. If an idiot wants to get a tattoo, he or she should be free to do so. I just think responsible news media organizations should not glamorize them. What's next? Glamorizing child molesters or kluxers? In some older cultures, influence traveled from the top down. Early Americans marveled at the intellect of people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and decided that education was a good thing, so they developed public school systems.
In some modern cultures, influences travel from the septic bottom up. In no time at all, we'll catch up to the Stone Age cannibals of the South Pacific.
paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176
