I'm old, Ok, I'm old. I have old-fashioned ideas, by today's standards. I believe in the good in this world and the beauty that can be found all around us.

It's not on television, that's for sure. It's hard to tell where the fictitious shows end and real life begins.

Law and Order, in the face of the writer's strike I suppose, has repeatedly shown an episode that makes me want to vomit. It's about a serial killer who tortures his victims - women - in the most heinous ways. It's one in which our female star has actually broken down and cried from the horror of the situation. Imagine, a female cop crying. One can't even begin to fathom the terror the victims of this sick person had to endure. And that was a just a show.

Well, turn on the news this week and you hear the story of a man who kills and burns a pregnant woman and buries her body in a shallow grave, and by the footage, not even in a hidden location.

There's a difference here? What's real, what's not?

The shows on television are full of violence, more so than ever. Blowing up cities, school, homes, cars, shooting, killing, maiming, you name it. And it's all in the name of entertainment. I am not entertained.

Move on to "60 minutes" and there is more abhorrent footage. First the intentional slaughter of the blue fin tuna for the sake of sushi. That's it. So people in Japan can eat rolled up fish and rice.

Much more difficult to watch was the segment on the rape of African women in the name of war. Females being assaulted by gangs of men. As young as three years and as old as 73 and hundreds in between. Many times the entire village is lined up to watch. A brother was made to watch as his sister was gang raped and then, when he would not rape her, he was killed. The women are badly injured and fear contracting AIDS. They have no defense and no protection. Some receive medical treatment, others do not.

No one is stopping this atrocity.

This is not television fantasy. It's for real.

How have we come to this? How do we let this go on? Why do we let this stuff in our home. Why do we let our children watch such trash and violence?

You can make fun of the "Waltons" and "Little House on the Prairie" all you want. You can say the shows of the 50s were too simple and naive. They were fictitious, yes, but those shows did not fill our minds with images of hate, violence and unimaginable atrocities. Those images never, ever leave.

They lie in the archives of the mind and cannot be erased.

They eat away at souls, and turn people against each other. They harm families and relationships. They make this a very unpleasant and unhappy world.

I wonder what is to become of us, because it appears to be so acceptable. I can't understand how people can tolerate all the violence and horror.

If someone can tell me how this can be enjoyable, please do so. I personally can't stomach any more of it.

I know there's a wonderful world out there somewhere, I'm just afraid it's never going to survive.