Boob Tube Blues

by Peter Saint-Andre

2002-05-29

I watched some TV this evening. In between viewing the Colorado Avalanche lose to the Detroit Redwings (and why should I care?), I discovered that India and Pakistan are on the brink of war, that regular American citizens are being harrassed and intimidated by agents of our increasingly fascistic government, that the FBI is incompetent, and so on. The result? A bad mood. It's amazing to me how television almost always puts me in a bad mood, and how much happier I've been since I stopped watching TV.

Blissful ignorance, you say? Sticking my head in the sand? Avoiding the real problems running amok in the world today? Perhaps. I prefer to see it as keeping my intellectual independence and keeping my strings from being pulled by emotionalistic, sensationalistic, ratings-hungry fabricators who pander to the lowest common denominator of the human race. Do journalists (especially television journalists) bring you truth, or even care about it? I doubt it. Not that I blame them personally: they are simply responding to a perverse set of incentives, which value ratings above truth. But I can't forget that these are the people who brought you Y2K.

So now I'm washing my brain out by blogging and listening to a Yes CD at full volume. And feeling much better. :)


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