My jaundiced view of the 'States has been improved lately by the same channel's screening this weekof the first episode of HBO's Six Feet Under. What a pleasure. Great TV and a great analysis of the process of grief and death and life in general. Hey and there was even a man to man kiss, somewhat passionate, on TV. I almost didn't notice that it was across the colour bar as well. We've come a long way in the last 10 years - more than most people can fathom or are willing to believe. Just over ten years ago the most risque flesh mags were compelled to place fake stars to cover the nipples of their models. Scope Magazine - now defunct.SA sex through the decades

"On the debit side, the 60s were a decade in which granite Calvinism ruled South Africa, a time when inter-racial sex was a criminal offence, when the thought police (aka the censors) could ban pantihose packets for revealing too much thigh, when Scope magazine was banned because it featured a picture of a black man hugging a white woman on the streets of New York. As I recall, the censors' reasoning was that such a picture could lead to "racial friction" in South Africa. Just as white cops murdering unarmed blacks on the streets of Sharpeville was guaranteed to promote racial harmony . "

One could not even catch fish or swim on Sundays and our future president (Nelson Mandela) was still in jail. Today - well we blog freely - and I've seem snippets of naked breasts twice this week on the main evening news!

The blogging community has improved my impression of general America over the last few weeks. But any country that could produce the likes of Thomas Nagel & Dan Dennett can't be all bad.