I saw an interesting snippet in USA Today this week.

It was one of those little items from their Nationline column.

It was about some guys in San Diego who were paying homeless men to beat each other up on videotape.

They gave then cash, booze, food and shelter.

In return, the bums got into knock-down drag-out fights and injured themselves in other bizarre ways in front of a camera. One homeless man pulls out his front tooth with a pair of pliers. Another rams his head into a steel door.

At bumfights.com, you can see excerpts from the video and an interesting testimonial.

"Jackass to the extreme," notes notorious shock jock Howard Stern. "I'm shocked and I'm not shocked by much. You gotta see it."

The producers tell us, "After more than three years of filming, we're finally done! Guaranteed to be the most hilariously shocking video you've ever seen. Bumfights will take the Pepsi challenge against any ruckus video ever made. You'll see drunk bums beating each other silly. Real street fights caught on tape. Sick pranks, chick fights, crackheads, bum stunts, supermodel Angela Taylor and hands-down the rawest most core ruckus ever filmed. On behalf of Indecline and the Bumfight crew, we apologize, because love us or hate us, these images will stay with you for life."

Yes, "Bumfights: A Cause for Concern" is quite a cinematic gem. Interestingly, it says Vol. 1, which means, I suppose, they are working on Vol. 2.

Prosecutors in San Diego weren't amused by the film. They have filed charges against the four producers of the film. Ranging in age from 19 to 24, the men are charged with soliciting homeless men to commit assault with deadly force. One of the men also is charged with offering two homeless men $25,000 each if they refused to cooperate with prosectors.

Now, I don't know if prosecutors can get a conviction. After all, the homeless men were basically paid actors.

And the producers can afford a good attorney, who, by the way, says in his clients' defense that most of the action was staged.

So far, more than 300,000 of the videos have been sold at $19.95 a copy. That's a cool $6 million.

You can bet that as CNN and other networks pick up the story, sales will increase.

What is up with us? What is it that causes large numbers of us to want to view graphic violence, blood and guts?

It's everywhere. Even network TV is ratcheting up the gore factor.

NBC's "ER" just this week showed a guy getting his arm whacked off by a helicopter tail rotor.

The bloody stump was quite visible. At one point they held up the severed arm and talked about how they would reattach it. Of course, this was all couched in a medical context, but really, is this what America wants?

I guess so.

Rita Kempley is a film critic for the Washington Post. This year, she is a fellow of the Alicia Patterson Foundation.

Patterson was editor and publisher of Newsday for more than 23 years. The foundation awards one-year grants to working journalists for the pursuit of independent projects.

In the most recent APF Reporter, Kempley wrote an article titled "Murdering Women for Entertainment."

She notes, "In the last decade alone, movie-makers have raped, murdered and mutilated more women than all the serial killers combined. Worse yet, they went about it and continue to do so with the same sadistic enthusiasm as the monsters they pretend to revile. ...

"But to hear them tell it, their movies aren't really bloodthirsty fantasies. They're statements on censorship, materialism or the media. Truth be told, many are merely tarted-up slasher movies that have oozed into the mainstream.

"Pictures that would once have played at drive-ins now play in neighborhood theaters, rate multimillion-dollar budgets and attract not only big stars, but peers of the realm. Violence, particularly violence against women, is not only more common, but more explicit than ever. ...

"Today, anything goes on Elm Street. Thanks to dubious strides in special effects technology, the spurting stumps, pulpy eyeballs and severed heads are as convincing as a "Jurassic Park" T-Rex, and cameramen linger on the carnage like vultures."

Kimpley's is a very eye-opening article. To read her descriptions of some of today's most vile Hollywood offerings shows just how twisted our culture's taste in entertainment has become.

She quotes UCLA professor of Film and Television Howard Suber, who notes that the increases in profanity, sex and violence are symptomatic of the "principle of habituation. As with drugs and alcohol, we need more of the same stimulus to produce the same high."

He adds, "The squibs of blood, smashing glass and slo-mo violence are now clichs. Today, blood splatters have to be bigger, the viscera portrayed more graphically, the deaths more dramatic."

Oh, how true.

Kimpley also quotes mythologist Jack Zipes, who says that "movies are no more brutal than fairy tales," where giants eat babies, wolves devour grandmothers, children are left to starve in the woods. ... "What's new is the horrific sadism. When you look at Faust or even Frankenstein's monster, they are harmless compared to today's sinister hero, who is just being mean for the sake of it."

And then this, which in my view is the most chilling - and telling comment - of the article.

Kimpley notes that Zipes is a child of the Eisenhower era before providing us with this quote: "Back then people believed their leaders were moral. Nobody believes that anymore. That's why movies about horror and ruthlessness, geeks and monsters have such appeal. That's how kids see the world," Zipes said. "There are no more values. Everything is relative."

Sad to say, I think he's right. I think our culture has slipped into a state of moral relativism - and there is no turning back.

Some people shun the blood and gore streaming to us from all corners of the entertainment industry. But not enough to make a difference anymore.

It all boils down to economic and plenty of us are willing to plunk down our hard-earned dollars to view the stuff.

As long as that happens, it will continue to flow. And the longer it continues to flow, the more graphic it will become.

I wonder what my grandchildren will be treated to?

I used to hold out hope that our culture would undergo a moral reawakening of sorts. That hope is growing quite dim.

Every great civilization before us suffered a cultural decline before its eventual demise.

I believe we're in the midst of cultural decline and we're too arrogant to admit it.

One would think we would learn from history. [[In-content Ad]]