CALL ME SNAKE

I have said that Nightline has become a pretty trashy show, certainly in comparison to the Ted Koppel days. Not that I liked it much then; I used to complain about that too but the current show is nothing like it. Whereas the Koppel program had some gravitas, even if he was a bit stuffy and self-important, the current version is more like a tabloid. And it’s not just like a tabloid; it is a tabloid. Still I watch it sometimes because I watch the weather and sports at about 11:30, and then Nightline comes on, and if I’m in the middle of Sudoku or some other important business, I just leave the TV on. A couple of nights ago, they had a harrowing episode on crystal meth taking over a border town in New Mexico. It started off unexceptional enough but midway through the piece they interviewed two meth addicts, “tweakers” as they’re called, and that was haunting. They were a fairly young couple who had  aged visibly and scarily under the drug, and they spoke about their addiction in a resigned tone that made it clear they were likely to keep taking the drug until they died. A while back, they guy stopped for a couple of days–and felt pretty good, in fact—but it seemed pretty obvious that that was not likely to happen again. They would ride it as far down as it would drag them, and all that came through, to bone-chilling effect, in a 30-second interview. They should show that interview to every kid in high school.