The Decline of American Civilization as we know it?

I have a theory:

You can monitor the sanity of a society by monitoring its entertainment.

In the waning days of the Roman empire, the "bread and circuses" mayhem of the Coliseum gave a daily indication of the depth of depravity to which the Roman Empire had sunk.

Now, try an experiment - channel surf on American television for a little while and observe how badly we have chosen to use the world's potentially most powerful information dissemination invention: namely, Television.

Are we long for this planet if we value Dancing With the Stars, Americal Idol, and Paris Hilton's latest antics over innovative programming that can educate and inform? (Thank God for the Discovery Channel - hell, even the History Channel had morphed from the "All Hitler All The Time" channel to an informative source of creative programming).

Or is there another reason for the lousy programming we get?

Could it be that we are programmed this dreck because we, as a society, are so overworked, sleep deprived, and beset with financial and personal stress that we can no longer appreciate quality entertainment but need, instead, something that is so outrageous that it overpowers the personal stress we feel within ourselves?

Wouldn't you take a moment to complain, if you knew where?