Chasm between Netflix’s top 10 and Moses’ top 10

You’ve heard of evolution. We’re experiencing devolution.

Charlie Darwin never studied that, but in the simplest terms, it means we’re going backward as a species … while technology is rushing forward. Pretty soon machines will be running the show.

Whenever I ask people, “What’s causing society’s decline?” I get a lot of different responses: our leadership, our lack of leadership, criminals, police, clergy, lack of faith, billionaires, mad scientists, Big Tech, little tech, media, inept politicians, corrupt politicians, Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X, Gen Z, Democrats, Republicans, the One World Order, the underworld, climate change, cancel culture, inflation, open borders, closed borders, aliens (from outer space), Putin, Xi Jinping, too much weed, not enough weed, too many guns, too few guns, COVID, Big Pharma, the FBI, the CDC, the Federal Reserve, the Supreme Court... I can’t go on. The list is too long.

The great philosopher, Pogo the Possum, who was created by cartoonist Walt Kelly, a former Bridgeport Post reporter, once said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Pogo was right.

Do you remember that scene in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,” when Charlton Heston, playing Moses with a long beard and burning eyes, comes down from Mount Sinai after God gave him the Ten Commandments?

Standing on a rocky ledge, he sees the children of Israel below — rioting, robbing and raping, cursing, coveting and cheating, slandering, fighting and murdering, doing drugs and smoking weed. Well, maybe not that, but who knows?

They’re also committing the greatest infidelity of all: They gather their gold to create a golden calf and are about to offer it a human sacrifice. That pretty much describes their situation, not to mention ours.

While Moses was taking notes from Yahweh on the mountain, the trouble-makers led by Edward G. Robinson, who played the sinister Dathan, turned everybody against him. Then, in his best Hollywood voice, Heston bellows: “Woe unto thee, O Israel!”

The little rodent Robinson snivels: “We will not live by your commandments! We’re free!”

“There is no freedom without the law!” Moses thunders and flings the stone tablets at the calf, which explodes in a fiery blast, creating an abyss that swallows the rioters, rapists and rebels. Problem solved.

We, the people, are still making golden calves as we rush along the road to ruin, worshiping our own idols, which include social media, TV, TikTok, celebrities, the Real Housewives, cellphones, moolah and Moloch. Let’s not forget our entertainment.

I recently got an email from Netflix, the video streaming service. I always like to hear from them. I hear from them more than my kids.

The email had an enticing promotion that said: “Check out this week’s top 10 movies in the United States.” (Even during Lent, I succumb to temptation.)

My first response was “Hand me my remote control. Hey, who hid my remote?” What am I talking about? I don’t have a remote because I don’t have a TV, cable service or a satellite dish.

The most popular movie was titled “Code 8: Part II,” which had this teaser: “In a city where people with super powers are policed and oppressed, an ex-criminal must turn to a drug lord he despises to protect a teen from a corrupt cop.”

I don’t want to be canceled for offending people with super powers or drug dealers, but that’s one weird storyline, which was developed either by artificial intelligence or lack of intelligence.

No. 4 on the list was the original “Code 8,” described like this: “In a city where people with superhuman abilities are ostracized, a power-enabled man turns to the criminal underworld in a bid to help his ailing mother.” Do you see a similarity? Bad becomes good and good becomes bad. Hollywood can have a sinister influence.

I suspect “Code 8 Part III” will offer this dramatic plot: “In a country where ordinary people are oppressed by politicians with super powers, they turn to drug lords and pot peddlers for protection.” I just might watch that.

There’s also a movie about a lonely spaceman who has marriage problems and gets help “from a mysterious creature he discovers on his ship.” I hope it’s not an artificially intelligent life-sized Barbie squeeze bot in an astronaut suit.

Please read the rest of this column before you run off and subscribe to Netflix.

The most sympathetic characters in the top 10 movie list were the Super Mario Brothers from Brooklyn (Hey, they’re Italian, so I have to give them a plug) … along with Godzilla. Remember him? He was actually a gentle creature who was genetically challenged and completely misunderstood.

Did you ever think you’d see the day when drug lords and mutant monsters from Japan would be the heroes, and the villains would be parents, clergy and the police?

Moses, where are you now that we really need you? Come down from the mountain. We have met the enemy and she is us.

Joe Pisani

JOHN BREUNIG

Cameron Martin was the perfect person to sit like a sentry by the entrance to the former Greenwich Time newsroom on East Elm Street.

He could talk about anything. That’s the kind of life skill you pick up when you read more books than Elizabeth Bennet and Lisa Simpson.

“Cam was one of those rare people who could discuss a classic novel with one person and then turn around and speak with another about why the Red Sox weren’t scoring any runs, and be equally invested in both conversations,” observed Tom Mellana, a former Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate managing editor who worked with Cam as a news reporter starting in the late 1990s. “And he’d convey to each, in his own, quiet humorous way, that he was happy to speak with them. And he was.”

Cam’s death Friday felt like the interruption of a rich conversation. He had warded off early stages of Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma, but it roared back fiercely in recent weeks. He died in his home in the Lordship section of Stratford, where he lived most of his 50 years.

After a decade as a news and features reporter for Greenwich Time, he served as a columnist for NBC New York and later returned to our offices as sports editor for the Norwalk Citizen. His byline also appeared in The New York Times, ESPN, Newsweek, The Atlantic and Barnes & Noble Review. Most recently he was digital editor for the Town of Greenwich’s website.

New York Times reporter Neil Vigdor bonded with Cam in the Greenwich Time newsroom as a fellow Vanderbilt University graduate. Vigdor said Wednesday that Cam was the ideal “front man” to size up newsroom visitors.

“He was deferential, but not in a suckup kind of way,” Vigdor said. “He could kind of schmooze with people but at the same time had a sensibility