Based on my suppertime family viewing, I like Jeopardy better than Wheel of Fortune. I also note, based on a one-hour television ad review, that nobody can sleep, everyone has stomach upset, most people have aches and pains, and many people are depressed. You probably couldn’t give away a Buick Lucerne to anyone I know, much less get them excited about a Red Tag Sale. The public seem to prefer fake gratuitous violence over authentic honest sexuality –nipple-slips, coochie displays, and butt flashes aside; celebrities are people who have nothing to offer but their appearance (c.f. above), and when you reduce complex interdependent issues down to 10-30 second “news” summaries, everything is banal, and frequently, simply, wrong. Thus, as has been my practice since 1980, I continue to have little need for television.
Instead, you might want to read this report (and followup discussion) by Howard Rheingold about the philosopher Jurgen Habermas’ lack of thoughts “about the state of the public sphere, now that the broadcast era has been supplanted by the many-to-many media that enable so many people to use the Internet as a means of political expression.” It takes half as long as a 30-minute tee-vee show, and has at least a million times more intellectual nutrients.
Also, untrained Shi Tzsu puppies are frequently annoying, though exceptionally cute.
December 26, 2007