E
edwest2
Guest
My personal standards? I get my standards from a reliable source:
vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061936_vigilanti-cura_en.html
Ed
- Status
vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061936_vigilanti-cura_en.html
Ed
E
edwest2
Guest
E
edwest2
Guest
Our schools? That have become the equivalent of Communist reeducation camps? Look up how many kids even make it out of high school, then ask yourself what must be happening in their homes. Why are there are so many single mothers today that can drive their kids to school or put them on a bus, go to work, and then throw food and clothing in their general direction if they have a job or two? Family time?
Ed
V
VirtusTransitus
Guest
Relativism is not a good argument for standards.
There is a very clear agenda in a huge section of the entertainment industry. That agenda is: mainstream everything. In order to do that (so that they can make more money off of everything) they need to assault the idea that there was a better time with higher standards of conduct.
But the truth is obvious. Just look at the movies made in the 40s and 50s. Decency had a completely different feel.
There were “good old days”, whether you like it or not. There was a time when you could guarantee that your kids could safely watch uncensored TV before 9pm. Or could listen to ANY radio station and be free from explicit content.
This culture is now so full of garbage that folks are truly numb to the impact of it all.
It’s really quite sad.
E
Elizabeth502
Guest
I know I’m weird, but I have never been “scared” of censorship. Hollywood used to self-censor. I think there’s a big difference between political censorship and censorship for common decency (language, sex, degrees of violence). I am not in favor of any kind of political censorship, by anyone. But I think that unreglated extremes of immorality and amorality in entertainment-- both for their own sake – have no place in a civilized society. Call me a prude. I don’t care.
I also think the current ratings categories are a joke, and everyone knows it. Much of what is PG-13, and certainly R, should be X-rated, i.m.o. And the boundaries on what is produced are even more disheartening. Basically the only G movies now are Disney animations. Those are “family-friendly.” Time was when a whole family could enjoy a non-animated movie together, all ages being entertained by it.
The movie production companies have been very specific: They have announced that their target audience is adolescent boys, because supposedly that brings in the most money.
There you go: lusting for the dollar at all costs, and beyond all taste. Wonderful.
I also think the current ratings categories are a joke, and everyone knows it. Much of what is PG-13, and certainly R, should be X-rated, i.m.o. And the boundaries on what is produced are even more disheartening. Basically the only G movies now are Disney animations. Those are “family-friendly.” Time was when a whole family could enjoy a non-animated movie together, all ages being entertained by it.
The movie production companies have been very specific: They have announced that their target audience is adolescent boys, because supposedly that brings in the most money.
There you go: lusting for the dollar at all costs, and beyond all taste. Wonderful.
T
Timothysis
Guest
We need to keep in mind that before the second World War, most people were not familiar with what was going on outside of their local community. If something from out of the ordinary were to suddenly appear in a community, there would be notice taken. Now, since the spread of mass media, things have really turned into a “global village.” There is a reason why a girl in Maine has the same kind of tatoos, piercings, clothes and lifestyle as a girl in Washington state even though they have never met and live thousands of miles from each other - mass media. The irony is that had mass media existed in 1900 to the extent that it did in 2000, things would have been the same and we would be arguing about how things in 1800 were better.
I suggest the following book for just how good the “good old days” were:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Good-Old-Days-Terrible/dp/0394709411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362323841&sr=8-1&keywords=the+good+old+days+they+were+terrible
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Timothy
**Censorship is wrong, always, and things are not as black and white as you propose they are. **
The coarsening of our culture into a bunch of neanderthal freaks is always wrong, and self imposed censorship is always right for combating these freaks.
However, since the freaks are now in control of the industry, you as a Catholic will be happy to hear that the neanderthals have won … at least for a while longer.
It would have been interesting to continue in this thread, but when I see Catholics defending the coarsening of our culture, I have to wonder why they call themselves Catholics.
I believe sooner or later the country will come to its senses. The insanity all around us is disheartening, and the worst insanity is Catholics defending it. Or people who pretend to be Catholics defending it … the worst kind of hypocrisy.
Bye!
**Censorship is wrong, always, and things are not as black and white as you propose they are. **
The coarsening of our culture into a bunch of neanderthal freaks is always wrong, and self imposed censorship is always right for combating these freaks.
However, since the freaks are now in control of the industry, you as a Catholic will be happy to hear that the neanderthals have won … at least for a while longer.
It would have been interesting to continue in this thread, but when I see Catholics defending the coarsening of our culture, I have to wonder why they call themselves Catholics.
I believe sooner or later the country will come to its senses. The insanity all around us is disheartening, and the worst insanity is Catholics defending it. Or people who pretend to be Catholics defending it … the worst kind of hypocrisy.
Bye!
B
Baelor
Guest
No one is defending the coarsening of the culture.
Catholics are not defending insanity.
J
JamesCaruso
Guest
Ar you saying we need to allow ourselves to be bombarded by a lot of garbage in order that something worthwhile might be created? No thanks. I have no problem with standards of decency. I don’t think anyone is suggesting draconian laws. I also don’t think anyone is suggesting that we should not train our children to be critical thinkers.
I also support anti-littering laws. I think it is possible to drive one’s car without throwing trash out the windows. Trying to ignore looking at the trashy highways is not the answer. I’m for a trash-free environment, even if it stifles some drivers and makes them keep their trash inside their cars. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m for a beautiful America.
V
VirtusTransitus
Guest
I agree that mass media has accelerated the decline in moral values, particularly outside of urban areas. It would have been unthinkable for a non-city kid to behave like some of the worst inner city thugs. But that behavior is so modeled and marketed via TV, internet and movies, now the young suburban and rural kids can model urban behavior without setting foot in the city.
However, it doesn’t disprove the fact that huge portions of the world population were vastly more moral just four or five decades ago.
Folks who enjoy decadence want to find some example from the roaring twenties or the forties and say, SEE - they were fornicating like mad back then! But the truth is - no, they weren’t. It happened, but it was not acceptable, not something people spoke about like it was normal, and very isolated.
All Catholics can do is keep the faith and give our kids the tools they need to respect themselves and their friends and loved ones. Chances are high they will stray. But if they have a foundation, they’ll also likely stray back at some point. At least, that’s my theory. Even the hardest secular humanist likely gets quietly tired of the incessant sexualization and dehumanization of our current culture.
V
VirtusTransitus
Guest
Catholics are sinners like everyone else. We need to pray for those Liberal Catholics who forget that Jesus said we are to be “In this world”, but not “Of this world”.
Unfortunately, I don’t have to exit the doors of my house to join this fight. I am in constant battle with my own family regarding what is acceptable and what is not. I am the “bad guy”. It’s my cross, I guess.
V
vsedriver
Guest
I censor with my $. I don’t go to films that are full of sex and foul language or over the top violence.
Just went to the movies today. The previews were depressing. Although there were a few good possibilities. The slasher films, the kidnaped and tortured women films, and now a norman bates ‘psycho’ remake. I’ll miss those but did see an interesting Tom Cruise Sci fi movie and two animated films that look good.
We saw Jack the Giant Slayer and I highly recommend it. A good story, good characters, cool graphics and no foul language or wardrobe malfunctions. I do believe there was a kiss between the hero and heroine but it was brief. And to my shock and horror (spoiler alert!!!) the couple are actually shown as married with children! in the end.
J
JamesCaruso
Guest
How can this be! The devil missed this film somehow. He must be losing his grip.
I heard that radio show host, .M. Savage, comment that we are all addicted to things that are bad for us. It occurred to me as I mulled over his statement that the cure is to become addicted to Jesus Christ.
It has often occurred to me that addiction, a form of slavery, stems from the fact that we are designed to be slaves, in the sense that our happiness lies in our free choice of slavery to Almighty God, i.e., recognizing our complete dependence on Him and living perfectly His commandments. Absent that free choice of slavery to God, we are left with countless forms of slavery to lesser gods, to drugs, sex, money, power, fame, food, and prideful evils of all kinds, in our incessant search for happiness, which for some perverse reason we most often seek apart from God. I once bemoaned the fact that I had tried every way under the sun before I finally came to the last and final alternative left to me, and that was to do it God’s way. What pitiful creatures we sometimes are!
P
Portrait
Guest
Dear Timothysis,
Cordial greetings and a very good day.
That there was a golden age as regards film and television is an irrafragible fact, which is only disclaimed by those who feel that it disarms any censure of present public media. However, dear friend, when you consider what is allowed today on the silver and small screen as opposed to what was permitted only 50 years ago, you can certainly recognize a historic revolution. Since the permissive revolution of the Sixties it seems that the visual arts and cinema have decided that the audience’s attention can only be held by acts of ever-grosser prurience or pointless violence. Moreover, this explains why there has been a proliferation of films and television programmes peppered with profanity or/and containing inane humour, such as, for example, The Simpsons.
The reason, dear friend, for the deeply sadening decline in standards of decency and good taste is the tragic loss of the Christian consciousness, which was still jolly pervasive, even well into the 1960’s. It admits of no doubt that wholesome Christian influence spilt over into public life and had a powerful impact upon public habits and morals. Certainly, it is fair to label the now resistance to constraints on what is said or seen in public (or print) as a sad product of the post-Christian mind. No, the ‘good old days’ did truly exist, thanks to a vibrant Christian consiousness, which had not yet been corroded by increasing irreligion and the decline of Christianity.
It is, dear friend, very fashionable nowadays, even among professing Catholics, to mock any call for a return to the “old paths” of yesteryear as savouring of Victorian prudery. Words such as ‘prudish’ and ‘Puritan’ are frequently levelled against those who denounce the continued deterioration in the visual arts and call for an end to the misguided defence of media freedom. Censorship has become a very dirty word in our debased culture, but who hosnestly can deny that the time is ripe for it once again? There is a lowered public opinion that urgently needs to be raised, for sure. In the ‘good old days’ blasphemy and profanity as well as obscenity, indencency and immoderate violence were rightly contained by censorship. The post-Christian mind has tolerarted ventures into profanity which would have made former and more God-fearing generations recoil in horror. However, the change is not merely a matter of what has happened in the field of entertainment and the arts. The assumption, for example, that the Lord’s Day was ‘different’ extended over the population quite outside the ranks of those who attended divine worship. Similarly standards of good taste drew the line at the mention of God or Christ or matters spiritual in comedy shows. Moreover, it was not only the influence of a strong Christian consciousness, but a sort of unspoken etiquette emanated from seriously Christian quarters and spread vaguely among the bulk of the population. Who can deny that this was all to the good and resulted in a happier and, indeed, a more innocent society?
The intellectual elite in our godless Western society, dear friend, have operated to persuade the public that there are no boundaries of good taste and decency which cannot be crossed in the name of ‘art’. It is one of the oddities of the situation that so many reasonably sensible men, who would be quickly persuaded to see through pretences and deceptions in the political field, are only too ready to have the wool pulled over their eyes through their awe of self-procalimed authorities in the artistic field. How very sad. However, what is even more sad is how many contemporary Catholics have also fallen for this deception and themselves have become ardent defenders of freedom of expression in the media. Of course, this is also because many have adopted a hand in hand with the world type of religious practice and have become gradually desensitized by their continued exposure to media containing culturally unhealthy content - “Be not deceived. Bad communications corrupt good manners” (I Cor. 15: 33), and by perfectly legitimate extention, that applies equally to bad films and television, literature and music etc. Unwholesome media slowly poisons the mind and demoralizes the life.
Whilst, dear friend, we certainly must needs be cautious about looking back to the past with rose-tinted spectacles (cf. Ecclestiates 7: 10), we must equally be cautious that we are not in denial respecting the unprecedented moral decline of today, so evident in the visual arts. Thus whilst not crying up the undoubted goodness of former times, perhaps we should be asking for, as a matter of urgency, “the old paths, where is the good way…” (Jer. 6: 16). Owing to the pervasive influence of the Christian consciousness, at least film makers of yesteryear walked in, at least to some extent, “the good way” and did not transgress the boundaries of good taste and decency. How we need pray and encourage today’s film makers and television producers to go and do likewise, for this may help to stem the rapid tide of moral and cultural deterioration with which we are becoming engulfed today.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
P
Portrait
Guest
Dear VirtusTransitus,
Cordial greetings and a very warm welcome to the world of CAF. Thankyou for your contribution to the discussion.
Many modern Catholics, dear friend, are quite contented with a ‘Catholicism Lite’, which makes little or no demand upon them in terms of personal sanctity and separation from the world. Sadly, they have forgotten that they are aliens and exiles in this world and that here they have no continuing city (Heb. 13: 14). Moreover, worldly conformity is the reason why many of the faithful lack a properly formed conscience and why they consequently make catastrophic errors of prudential judgment in this whole matter of film and television choices. Unfortunately, many no longer make a real effort to be selective in their viewing habits, and will only draw the line at material containing pornography or gratuitous violence, which no Catholic worth their salt would watch or defend anyway.
However, an obligation is laid upon us to not only avoid the obviously debased elements of the visual arts, but also to fill our minds with images and desires that will elevate our thoughts up toward more nobler things (see Phillipians 4: 8). Former generations of the faithful would not have succumbed so easily to the godless world but would have steadfastly reisisted it and reproved its evils. Holy Mother Church certainly enjoins that we avoid media containing obvious evils such as pornography and mindless violence, but she also encourages us to resist “unwholesome influences” in the mass media generally:
“The means of social communication (especially the mass media) can give rise to a certain passivity among users, making them less vigilant consumers of what is said and shown. Users should practice moderation and discipline in their approach to the mass media. They will want to form enlightened and correct consciences the more easily to resist unwholesome influences” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 2496, added emphasis mine).
Unless Catholics develop a well-formed conscience they will make catastrophic errors of prudential judgment with respect to the arts and entertainment.
May God bless and support you within your family situation, dear brother, as you seek to uphold Christian standards and steer your loved ones away from unsavoury viewing. Keep up the good work, which is not in vain, and do not become discouraged in the ongoing struggle.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
J
JamesCaruso
Guest
Not only well done, but you added a new word to my vocabulary.
P
Portrait
Guest
Dear JamesCaruso,Not only well done, but you added a new word to my vocabulary.
Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou kindly and a warm welcome to the world of CAF. Do hope, dear brother, that you will find your time here informative and spiritually enriching.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax:tiphat:
E
edwest2
Guest
Dear Portrait,
Thank you for another informative post. In no way do I wish to view films from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and the culture that existed at the time through rose-colored spectacles. However, dear brother, we must examine the causes for things going from quite good to mostly bad. As anyone can see for themselves, we had a wide range of choices in the past, from comedies to musicals to grand epics, adventure and mystery, but we had standards that were reflected in our media. One could turn on the radio and experience the same. So, to understand the present, we need to understand the current excuses to deride, ignore or suppress the truth about movies and standards.
continued…
E
edwest2
Guest
- You are ignoring the social ills that existed 50 years ago. No, we are talking about movies and the average person was not the head of a movie studio. This is called diversion from the issue at hand.
- Art “needs” to be about anything. It is the ultimate form of human expression and can include anything. The words taste or standards do not apply to art. Once accepted by the secular priests of the art world - art critics - it becomes the secular version of holy.
Now readers of this, of all ages, need to understand the general mindset that pervaded communities across the West during the late 1950s up to 1968. Religion was respected, self-restraint and self-control were encouraged. Of course we were sinners, but we were to always avoid gossip and rumors about others. We were taught to see the good in others. Yes, we were sinners and I’m not saying everything was perfect, but even as a boy, I could see my fellow sinners, my adult neighbors, trying to restrain themselves and succeeding most of the time. Even though I could not put it into words then, I knew as a 12 year old boy, that the way most people around me lived worked. It worked - no matter what your religious beliefs were or lack of them, and there was a demonstrated desire to get along with others and to be friendly, polite, decent and modest. These things were always reinforced by words and actions. I had every reason to believe that things would continue in this way well into my adulthood and it made me feel very, very good. Everywhere I turned, with few exceptions, I could be unashamed of 99.9% of the media.
By 1968, I was to see the first hints of what was to come. How well-formed consciences would be seared and how those who worked to be moral would soon be surrounded by those who wanted the opposite, and who would appeal to our every weakness or demonstrate to us a “better,” only in their minds, way. While welcoming the stranger, we would soon have our sense of trust abused. We did not recognize the wolves because they offered us the word above all words: “freedom.”
Like farmers, they needed to prepare fertile ground and their key to reach us was the word “freedom.” Their real goal was to lie, deceive and manipulate us without our perceiving it, to the best of their ability.
Since the Catholic Church held the fullness of the truth, it had to be subverted on three levels: education, the family, and the community. The Body of Christ on earth had to be gradually poisoned, very gradually, at least at first.
1967 At the Catholic University level, “freedom” was used as the reason to sever ties with the Church hierarchy.
catholichistory.net/Events/LandOLakesStatement.htm
Freedom from fear was the selling point for the birth control pill in this Time magazine cover story:
time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843551,00.html
Fear of what? Babies. The joy of motherhood and fatherhood were now cast in their light.
1968 Pope Paul VI was observing and preparing an important document. Although advised by some others to loosen the Church’s stance on artificial birth control, he reaffirmed it by issuing Humanae Vitae. The dissidents in the Church did something unprecedented in the history of the Church:
“Within 24 hours, in an event unprecedented in the history of the Church, more than 200 dissenting theologians signed a full-page ad in The New York Times in protest. Not only did they declare their disagreement with encyclical’s teaching; they went one step further, far beyond their authority as theologians, and actually encouraged dissent among the lay faithful.”
I think most Catholic adults reacted with dismay, but it showed that there were dissenters inside and outside the Church during the 1960s and 1970s. The 1970s, as one religious stated on Catholic Radio, “where everything went crazy in the seminaries.”
1969 Unknown to us, legalizing the ultimate form of birth control was next on the list and enemy number was the Catholic Church:
catholicnewsagency.com/resources/abortion/articles-and-addresses/an-ex-abortionist-speaks/
continued…
E
edwest2
Guest
We didn’t know. I just recall a lady on TV pleading for our compassion in 1972 for the poor, young women who were dying in back-alley abortions. I didn’t understand at the time. Not really. We would soon be taught about another freedom, a freedom that was horrific and unspeakable.
1970s It was time for the reality of what they wanted to come out in the open. Decency, modesty and private intimacy had to be replaced by the opposite. Our dedication had to be worn down. We were told we weren’t free. “All you do is listen to your Pope. Why don’t you think for yourselves (translation: think like we do)?” But we were confused. As I drove down the street one day, I saw a sign on a building that read Adult Bookstore. I went in. All sense of modesty, decency, shame, it was obvious it no longer applied. I was stunned. “Who allowed this?” I thought to myself. I was shaken. I couldn’t believe “my neighbors” could do such a thing, but I was encouraged to do wrong. I heard, “Now we have the freedom!” So, what was rightly considered morally dirty and hard to find began to appear everywhere.
I was taking a walk one day and saw a mannequin atop an overhang at a local bar. It wore panties and a negligee but no bra. This was a topless bar now. It never was before. Of course, they were only bringing what they loved out into the open because they had “the First Amendment right” to do so according to their high-priced lawyers. Where was this idea in the First Amendment?
Fortunately, I thought, naively, this will be shunned and limited. I was wrong and we have sex addicts today because a line was crossed between the holy and profane. And profanity was called good as well among their number. Illegal drug use increased.
In 1973, I lost faith in my country to do the right thing when the US Supreme Court legalized abortion. Again, I thought, who had allowed this? Why?
I did not know that years of research about homosexual persons was about to be discarded due to the work of gay activists inside and outside the American Psychological Association. What was a disorder yesterday became not a disorder today - by vote.
And inside the Church? The 1960s and 1970s were called the golden age of Catholic dissent. They helped throw a monkey wrench in the machinery of the Church.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704586504574654282563939764.html
Also, in the 1970s, came a small group of women who hated the family and the proper role of both men and women in family life. They created fear, distrust and anger toward all men. They shouted freedom as well. But again, their message was “don’t listen to anyone but us.” “Sisters! Throw off the chains of your oppression!” Men - all men. And that included the Church leadership as well.
And like farmers, they planted the seeds of fear and distrust in the minds of many women, so that the ground was prepared.
1980s No-Fault Divorce. Lawyers, not the public, turned marriage into nothing but a contract. No longer did you have to prove anything or give a good reason, just sign some papers and pay the fee and you’re done. So much for the sanctity of marriage and no one cared about the cries of the children or their pain or disbelief. Because the children knew that marriage was a promise and how could two people they loved betray that promise?
By the time, movies began to appear to spin this in a positive light. To blind people to the truth and to have your buddies tell you, “You’ll find someone better.”
Yes, it was clear that what had happened in the 1970s was going to infiltrate the movies and every other media.
I bring this up to say one simple thing: We were lied to. These people smiled while they told us lies. Those we trusted became untrusted once we understood that we had been deceived, and communities began to fall apart. Neighbors became strangers since one never knew who had chosen to be “free” and who had not.
Those of us who wanted to remain faithful were cast out. We were told that right was wrong, good was bad, and we would be given a Woodstock Nation that would be better for all. What a joke. What a lie. So as the decades passed, especially in the movies, all they loved began to pour out and we were told to love it, to embrace it, to “embrace the darkness because it needs a hug.”
continued…
1970s It was time for the reality of what they wanted to come out in the open. Decency, modesty and private intimacy had to be replaced by the opposite. Our dedication had to be worn down. We were told we weren’t free. “All you do is listen to your Pope. Why don’t you think for yourselves (translation: think like we do)?” But we were confused. As I drove down the street one day, I saw a sign on a building that read Adult Bookstore. I went in. All sense of modesty, decency, shame, it was obvious it no longer applied. I was stunned. “Who allowed this?” I thought to myself. I was shaken. I couldn’t believe “my neighbors” could do such a thing, but I was encouraged to do wrong. I heard, “Now we have the freedom!” So, what was rightly considered morally dirty and hard to find began to appear everywhere.
I was taking a walk one day and saw a mannequin atop an overhang at a local bar. It wore panties and a negligee but no bra. This was a topless bar now. It never was before. Of course, they were only bringing what they loved out into the open because they had “the First Amendment right” to do so according to their high-priced lawyers. Where was this idea in the First Amendment?
Fortunately, I thought, naively, this will be shunned and limited. I was wrong and we have sex addicts today because a line was crossed between the holy and profane. And profanity was called good as well among their number. Illegal drug use increased.
In 1973, I lost faith in my country to do the right thing when the US Supreme Court legalized abortion. Again, I thought, who had allowed this? Why?
I did not know that years of research about homosexual persons was about to be discarded due to the work of gay activists inside and outside the American Psychological Association. What was a disorder yesterday became not a disorder today - by vote.
And inside the Church? The 1960s and 1970s were called the golden age of Catholic dissent. They helped throw a monkey wrench in the machinery of the Church.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704586504574654282563939764.html
Also, in the 1970s, came a small group of women who hated the family and the proper role of both men and women in family life. They created fear, distrust and anger toward all men. They shouted freedom as well. But again, their message was “don’t listen to anyone but us.” “Sisters! Throw off the chains of your oppression!” Men - all men. And that included the Church leadership as well.
And like farmers, they planted the seeds of fear and distrust in the minds of many women, so that the ground was prepared.
1980s No-Fault Divorce. Lawyers, not the public, turned marriage into nothing but a contract. No longer did you have to prove anything or give a good reason, just sign some papers and pay the fee and you’re done. So much for the sanctity of marriage and no one cared about the cries of the children or their pain or disbelief. Because the children knew that marriage was a promise and how could two people they loved betray that promise?
By the time, movies began to appear to spin this in a positive light. To blind people to the truth and to have your buddies tell you, “You’ll find someone better.”
Yes, it was clear that what had happened in the 1970s was going to infiltrate the movies and every other media.
I bring this up to say one simple thing: We were lied to. These people smiled while they told us lies. Those we trusted became untrusted once we understood that we had been deceived, and communities began to fall apart. Neighbors became strangers since one never knew who had chosen to be “free” and who had not.
Those of us who wanted to remain faithful were cast out. We were told that right was wrong, good was bad, and we would be given a Woodstock Nation that would be better for all. What a joke. What a lie. So as the decades passed, especially in the movies, all they loved began to pour out and we were told to love it, to embrace it, to “embrace the darkness because it needs a hug.”
continued…
- Status