Even in the most barren desert you can find an oasis or two.

In the wasteland of television you can find an oasis of decency and compassion. Take the commercials sponsored by the “Foundation for a Better Life.” Here is lifted up such radically righteous behavior as, oh, some young kid giving up his bus seat to an elderly woman, or, more shockingly, a taller man kindly reaching up to grab an out-of-reach package for someone who is vertically challenged.

How sad that such ordinary human activities now rate their own TV commercial because they are perceived as so uncommon and extraordinary. Even more telling and tragic is that such images move our hearts and souls, as though they were truly exceptional events.

We parade the pedestrian. We applaud what should be ordinary. We are so acclimat…