When I was a boy, my family visited New York City, which was safer then and did not have loudspeaker calls to prayer. 

The taxis had windows in the roof then, so I could look up at skyscrapers like the distinctive Chrysler Building. As we walked through Times Square, men on street corners were handing out tickets to see something.

Years later, when I worked just off Times Square for a brief eternity, the men were handing out flyers to strip shows with live sex acts. But back in the fifties, they were free tickets to fill up an audience for a live television show.

My father accepted.

TV was not that old then; neither was I. Black-and-white, of course. It was kind of exciting for a kid. There we were as unpaid clappers whenever the flashing "APPLAUSE" light went on. It was a live quiz show called "Who Do You Trust?"

The host was on an elevated walkway right above us, talking to the huge camera while holding a pack of cigarettes and saying they were very smooth or something. When the network broadcast switched away to the actual ad, the host ad-libbed, "But they're also hard." 

And he bounced the wooden prop package of smokes off the floor and caught it.

That got a huge audience laugh, among the many this new TV personality would get over a long ensuing stint on TV. His name was Johnny Carson and his announcer was someone named Ed McMahon. They went on to an extended career together several blocks away at NBC in Rockefeller Center and then out in Burbank, getting laughs on non-political late-night TV. 

I've written about those shows a couple of times here on RedState as Malcolm's Memories. When I was assigned to cover some prominent guest at an occasional Carson show taping, and once when Johnny innocently ignited a nationwide toilet-paper panic with a single joke.

Those experiences came to mind this week as I watched (on tape) an episode of the embarrassing ABC-TV daytime show "The View." You know what these women do when the camera is on. And if you don't, you can find out on your own because watching them for any length of time or, I fear, even writing about them, makes you a little bit dumber.

It's an excellent example of how drastically American daytime television has changed over these many years.

One of the show's hosts this week expressed her extremely earnest feelings about how terrifying it is when she sees a whole bunch of American flags flying in a neighborhood because she knows what that means. She must have been really, really flagged in recent days as America celebrated its first 250 years.

I have a markedly different sense of what the sight of those red-white-and-blue banners means. And perhaps you do, too; leave your comments below. I have some thoughts on what is really terrifying about this.

That's the topic of this week's brief audio commentary, which you can hear by clicking on the — Oh, look! — American flag right here.

This week's Sunday column asked the question "Are We Really As Polarized as Democrats and Their Media Want Us to Think?" 

The answer might surprise you.

Around America's 250th Birthday celebration, someone asked me how it compared to the Bicentennial celebration in 1976. Let's be honest, nothing we know of is going to top this July Fourth's fireworks display in Washington. 

ICYMI, here's the whole thing, all amazing 38 minutes:

So, while bicentennial-era July Fourth observances did not match this year's, I did go back through my notes on another one I witnessed and posted the latest in the ongoing series of Malcolm's Memories. 

That one was on how a tiny American Heartland town went about marking the nation's 210th birthday celebration. Let me know in the Comments if it struck you the same as it did me.

See what you think of it here. 

The most recent audio commentary examined a little-known phenomenon that has struck the country over the last couple of years. It's a quiet one that has many causes behind it. 

But the implications of it will have a far-reaching impact on the future of our children and grandchildren: 

What's So Hard About Having Babies? 

Well, my family is doing its part on the national birth front. LOL — a new grandson arrived over the holiday. You would no doubt be impressed with how handsome he is. 

Or will be.