Throw out your TV

About a year ago, I turned off my satellite TV service. I live in the boonies so there is no broadcast TV here.

Life's better without TV. I don't feel like I've missed anything. If I really want some TV-style entertainment I can rent a movie. There's so much more time available to do the things I really enjoy.

And there is no constant influx of corporate propaganda for me to have to filter out.

When the Bush SOTU lies became big news I turned the satellite back on. After a week, I turned it back off. I'm just not a TV person anymore.

Well, with one small exception, having it back for a week reminded me of how good CSPAN is... if I weren't watching that day, I would never have known what really happened with the Capitol police that one day, it was totally unreported, at least the real story was not reported.

But having CSPAN was not a sufficient benefit to outweigh having that firehose of propaganda filling up my teacup of a brain.

So throw out your TV and learn an instrument or a language or paint a painting or write a poem or make love or go for a walk or play with your dog or your kids or visit a neighbor or meet a friend or make a friend or take a nap or do something else or nothing at all.

You won't regret it.

Just watching the CBC's coverage of the blackout tonight shows me what a world apart things are. I can't put a finger on it, but watching their coverage just makes me feel a lot calmer than when I was trying to make sense of CNN.

I think it's because CNN's style is so damned busy these days, with 5 different pictures, all that scrolling text, the nonstop propaganda subtitles.

CBC Newsworld recently added its own scrolling ticker, but it's nowhere near as bad as CNN.

I also get BBC World 24/7, which still isn't available full-time in the U.S.

I discarded my TV in the Spring of 2002 after being insulted one too many times.

Since then I am much more at ease, less tense, and in better spirits.

I have also started piano lessons recently and am enjoying that very much.

Throw out your TV!

... I was a news junkie, and television provided that fix. Now, I get a lot more news from the web, and of greater variety. I stopped watching television (and television news) about four years ago. I realized that that jones was gone when I even stopped watching basketball--too little good play, too many highly-paid individual players.

The TV (a 25-year-old Zenith) is still around, but reserved for an occasional videotape.

From what I read here and elsewhere, I haven't missed much.

Well said!

I share your aptly phrased repugnance for "that firehose of propaganda..."

In our house we can scarcely stomach a few seconds of what passes for American news--whether it's the froth on Fox or the pap on PBS, The Snooze Hour. Catching the CBC on C-SPAN is one antidote, but who has the time or inclination to watch much TV anyway?

I'll still take some Daily Show and Tracey Ullman--not ready to throw the set out yet. But if you're happy without it, then well done. :-)