I haven't decided if bald Britney Spears is more Pedro shaving his head in Napoleon Dynamite or Naomi Watts' character dressing up like an Amish girl in I Heart Huckabees. In other words, is it more of a drug thing or a revolt against being a sex symbol. I know, I know. Pedro didn't do any drugs in Napoleon Dynamite--at least on screen. But maybe his character, in some deleted scenes, got hold of some dynamite angel dust or some really out-of-this-world qualudes. This, undoubtedly, is what caused Pedro's burning scalp, and, indirectly, the drastic haircut. I have often thought that only hard, hard drugs could make someone think that his head was burning to such an extent that he needed to shave his hair off as an emollient.

Anyhow, I feel violated that I'm even pondering such a question. I killed my television six months ago. My life is better. At the risk of sounding self-righteous, I get grossed out by tabloid coverage in a way that I didn't when I had television. I think it is because television manufactures normal. When you don't watch regularly, and catch something as dehumanizing as the round-the-clock coverage of a celebrity's death, it strikes you as abnormal, unnatural, and base. Their normal isn't mine, at least not anymore.

I didn't find out about Miss Spears' meltdown until yesterday. I haven't watched a single story on it because the television that I own doesn't get any channels. I don't feel deprived. Do you for seeing it? When you say that you don't watch television, people think you're nuts. But when you see television after not watching it, you think that people are nuts.

The Anna Nicole Smith death, unlike the latest Spears meltdown, I did see. I wonder if Britney saw it too, and took it as a reverse "This Is Your Life." I was on the road last week, and just about every channel on the limited number of stations at the Holiday Inn gave saturation coverage to the former Playboy Playmate's death on par with what one would expect if 9/11 happened again. Give the people what they want, I guess. I couldn't escape Anna Nicole until I found a South Park repeat on UPN. What bizarro times we're living in when the most intelligent show on TV is a cartoon?

Television news has become more like supermarket-checkout tabloids and less like the news. It's entertainment news. Occasionally, politics is thrown in there. But even then, it's political gossip, presidential horse-race talk, celebrity supporters of causes, and other pap that appeals to people on a tabloid level and not on an issue or, God forbid, an idea level. It's not that politics is the only topic that the news should cover, but celebrity sightings--unless they are of Elvis--should never make the cut. I can't put my finger on when things went south. Tonya Harding? OJ? Monicagate? But I know that they did.

It's like the "boiling the frog" analogy. CNNFoxNewsMSNBC didn't become National Enquirer Television overnight. They did a story on porn here. They did a piece on a shark attack there. Then, when the viewer momentarily snaps out of the zombie state that television induces, he realizes that missing girls, celebrity divorces, and starlets behaving badly have become the news. By then, it's usually too late. The viewer has been hooked. The frog would have jumped out of the pan had the burner been turned up at once. But since the "temperate warm" gradually made it's way to "scalding hot," the frog stayed in the pan.

Rather than pay for expensive news bureaus in hot spots around the world, the cable networks air unpaid talking heads who give opinions. Rather than air the news and suffer the ratings consequences, they air "news" about what's getting ratings on the other channels. They call it cable news, but it's something else. Walter Cronkite would be turning in his grave if only he were dead.

You can't program the networks. But you can program your own television and deprogram yourself. I hate to preach, but while I'm at the pulpit I suggest that you turn your television off. Not for a few minutes, but for good. If you can't make that radical a commitment, why not, provided that you're so religiously inclined, give it up for Lent (which starts today)? Think of it as an act of protest. Turn the screen towards the wall. When guests come over, tell them that your backward facing set is an art piece. That's the best use for it. Read a book. Take a walk. Listen to music. Go running. Don't watch television, you're only encouraging them. Can I get a witness? An Amen?

There is nothing inherently bad about television. It could be uplifting. It could be interesting. It could be entertaining. But it's none of the above. It appeals to the lowest common denominator, which is pretty low these days. Strangely, as the selection of stations has grown the overall quality has diminished. Competition is not supposed to work that way, is it? When there were three networks, one could watch ABC, or NBC, or CBS. Now there are 303 stations, and all that is on is the E! Channel.

I watch the History Channel, Comedy Central depending on what is on, BookTV, and some sports. I agree that most of what is on these days is truly terrible. I can't remember the last time I sat down and watched the news on tv.

Amen.

Perhaps the best anti-TV rant I've read.

I wonder whether t.v. will go out of fashion? I read an article recently that Tivo and 'on demand' programming will kill t.v. because no one will watch commercials, so companies will quit advertising on t.v., and consequently, everything will become obscenely expensive pay-per-view. My cable bill is already $50 a month. If it were much more than that, I wouldn't pay.

Agreed, agreed, agreed and agreed. I've lost my TV Jones over the last five or so years. So much crap on and getting crappier by the week.

Outside of certain sporting events, History and Discovery channels, must see 24 and an occasional good movie, I have it off. Wish I could say the same for my family. Especially when cartoons and the Disney channel are enabling social engineering experiments.

Before I head out in the morning, I put local Fox news on as background noise while getting ready. Big news stories of the day were Britney's baldness, Anna Nicole's decomposing body and some kid who sledded down a hill and got a bump on the head when he hit a tree. Save us.

Best article I've read in a long time Dan. I tend to only watch 3 television shows (Prison Break, Battlestar Galactica and The Unit) the rest is spent on the History Channel or Discovery or my TV is left on just for ambient background noise while Im at the PC or putting together model kits. I usually get my news online, that way I choose the news that I read.

I used to be a broadcasting/mass communications major. That was before I realized I didn't want to be involved with creating something most people waste hours a day with.

I'm just about finished reading Peter Hitchens book, The Abolition of Britain.

In one chapter, Peter writes:

"Far from restricting television the authorities encouraged it. Winston Churchill insisted that television cameras should record the Queen's coronation in 1953, giving the new medium its greatest fillip. A Tory government then went on to destroy the BBC monopoly, brushing aside traditional Conservatives who feared the moral effects and listening only to those whom the free market was sacred above all. Lord Reith, the founding genius of the BBC, had warned that it was only the brute force of monopoly which allowed his corporation to take a conservative moral position. He was rapidly proved right, as competition for ratings became the unanswerable argument for laxer and laxer standards of taste and language, and bolder and bolder excursions into pornography and violence. The struggle for ratings also, quite predictably, forced religious programmes into a smaller and smaller corner, along with all unfashionable minority views."

Hitchens also lists T.S. Eliot's letter predicting the dangers of television and says it is one of the "wisest and most prophetic ever published by The Times and it was also in time to prevent the danger of which it warned."

The book thus far is great, and is certainly a reflection of conservative sentiment over the libertarian ideology.

“What are the costs?” is a very libertarian question, but one which conservatives ask their libertarian friends in this circumstance.

All you need to do is watch an episode or two of Courtney Cox's newest vehicle "Dirt" (I could only get through about 3/4 of one) to see how fast they're falling in TV Land. Dark, negative, raunchy, weird.....applies cesspool values to everybody and makes it look like everyone is capable of being a depraved culprit.

What a bunch of hoowey, RW. Even though the previously BBC avoided being tabloidish, Hitchens is not being quite fairminded when he says that they were "conservative." The BBC has never, on the whole, taken a "conservative moral position" (or a conservative position on the UN, the free market, or anything else, as far as I can tell). Take PBS as a rough parallel. They may not _show_ a whole lot of moral misbehavior, but they still advocate it in their own stuffy over-the-hill way. In fact, even before competition the BBC showed a lot more randy material than our networks do today.

Besides, suggesting that the answer to the problem is massive restriction on free-speech, in the form of a government monopoly on broadcasting, is absurd. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The libertarian position here may not be correct, but it is _as always_ better than the leftist totalitarian alternative.

I don't know what year competition presented itself to the BBC but I have a hard time believing that this material was "more randy" than what I see on the networks today.

Also, I wasn't necessarily arguing for a monopoly but pointing out unintended consequences that are too often overlooked.

Here's another article on the same theme,

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/48278/

r.c.

"The book thus far is great, and is certainly a reflection of conservative sentiment over the libertarian ideology.

“What are the costs?” is a very libertarian question, but one which conservatives ask their libertarian friends in this circumstance." -RW

The conservatives kill their argument when they note that tv is providing what the market dictates. That is to say, it is only showing that which people actually want to see.

If conservatives don't like what people want to see, then do what a libertarian would: Turn the TV off and left the rest of the population alone.

Of course, sentiments aside (and the label is accurate, for that is all any of that is, sentiment without substance) there is no practical solution to the problem you pose. What would you propose, placing what TV can air under the control of the state? Well, they tried that already, and it failed miserably.

TV isn't depraving people. It is simply providing what they already want, depraved or otherwise.

I don't think I'm advocating for any solution and instead pointing out an observation from P. Hitchens on this subject. I know, you must be saying "great, anyone can pinpoint problems, few can provide solutions" and that is probably true.

"If conservatives don't like what people want to see, then do what a libertarian would: Turn the TV off and left the rest of the population alone."

So far, I only see Dan doing this.

Conservatives: 1
Libertarians: 0

RW: Well, nudity still does not present itself on Network TV, but it did on the BBC the pre-Thatcherite deregulation. That's all I meant. Now Network TV is a lot better on this regard than cable, because of obscenity regulations that liberals mock, but it's just not true to say that the BBC prior to deregulation was morally conservative. That's the only point I'm making.

Again: Is PBS "morally conservative"? No.

And again: Why does the argument have to be between leftist totalitarian nationalization of broadcasting and a libertine free-for-all? That is what the Hitchens's quotation suggests, and I think we should call him on his false dilemma.

And Ben T: Isn't there any truth is supply-side economics?

If what you mean here is Say's Law, that "Supply creates its own demand" I agree that it is the case.

However, I do not agree with how it is being applied here.

If TV broadcasts nudity, it could be correct to say that, without TV, there would be no demand for nudity on TV.

But it would be wrong to say that without TV, there would be no demand for nudity. That is a demand that stretches back far through the centuries. All that has changed is the technology that can be utilized.

Now, I consider myself to be what Murray Rothbard called a "cultural conservative." My views concerning political ethic are libertarian, my views concerning personal ethic are conservative.

It is my view that attempts by the state to regulate morality, while well intentioned, will always fail and will always produce unintentional side effects, the costs of which sometimes far outweigh the benefits achieved. How did the left manage to supplant, in large part, the age old traditions of the west with the perversions that it refers to as its morality? I contend that the state relaxing its restrictions were not, as RW seems to say, a cause, but rather a lagging indicator. The left was able to achieve its aims by means of its "long march through the culture" rather than by simply having some laws which were previously in place taken away.

The roots, I think, of our current moral degeneracy can be found in the New Deal and, later, in LBJ's Great Society. The establishment of a welfare state that allowed people to live, if they so chose, without the support of family, church, etc, (or even the approval of society at large) is what led to them behaving in ways that the rest of the society disapproved of. Their incentive not to had been taken away!

In short, the conservative believes that Order is the mother of Liberty. I believe that the opposite is true.

I can't get rid of t.v. b/c I can't do w/o watching certain sports, I am too much of a fanatic. Otherwise I would only need a screen to use to play dvds as I use it for nothing else.

I am waiting for webstreaming of sports at a reasonable price and then I will get rid of it. I suspect we will get there someday.

Bruce,

I'm with you there. In my market, 2/3 of NBA and MLB (not to mention college football and basketball) games are braodcast on cable t.v. If these ever show up in decent quality on the web, my t.v. will end up on the curb.

Agreed about the web, I can hardly think of another reason to watch. Probably over 90% of my tv watching is sports, either the Patriots, Red Sox, NCAA Football, or NCAA Basketball. I'd watch the NBA but the Celtics this season make me sick.

I am currently contemplating getting DirecTV and NFL Sunday Ticket once I move out of the New England area, so that I can keep watching the Patriots games. But a similar web service would be much more convenient.

Don't worry Ben, the C's will land Oden or Durant. As a Horns fan, I can tell you that Durant is the real deal. He's got a T-Mac sort of game at 6'9" (7'5" wingspan!). He can score from anywhere, rebound, and defend. As a true freshman, he's going to set a Big 12 record for scoring, and he should win NCAA player of the year. Some people will tell you Oden ought to go No. 1 -- can't coach size, etc. -- but there's no doubt in my mind that Durant is the better player. Good luck with those lottery balls.

Worse time of year for sports. Basketball and Baseball training camp. The Bruins $uck so there's little to get excited about. Except for Brady's love child.

Dan, nice rant. I am not sure when I stopped enjoying the television. Perhaps it was when this whole reality TV thing started. It is sad that I overhear people discussing "American Idol" more than they do the serious isues of the day.

Perhaps when the Learning Channel started caring more about ratings than showing programs like "Connections" which actually put knowledge in your brain.

The only entertainment show I care to watch is "Law & Order" (any of them), otherwise I have on The History Channel or enjoy the piece and quiet.

With the news media being what it is, they not only tell us what is news, but what we should think about those stories.

I agree the best way to go is just turn it off.

Be well,

Sponge

"Don't worry Ben, the C's will land Oden or Durant. As a Horns fan, I can tell you that Durant is the real deal. He's got a T-Mac sort of game at 6'9" (7'5" wingspan!). He can score from anywhere, rebound, and defend. As a true freshman, he's going to set a Big 12 record for scoring, and he should win NCAA player of the year. Some people will tell you Oden ought to go No. 1 -- can't coach size, etc. -- but there's no doubt in my mind that Durant is the better player. Good luck with those lottery balls." -Ralph

I agree that we should get Durant. Of course, if we get screwed with the #5 pick or something, he will probably be gone.

BenT: Strawman, I think. To say that "Say's Law" applies here is to say that demand for nudity, and crap TV generally, goes up when nudity is more prevalent. One mustn't make the obviously false claim that the entire demand for that thing be created by the supply.

Compare: The prevalence of McDonalds increases the demand for fast food. But that doesn't mean that the prevalence of McDonalds created the entire demand for food.

It is just wrong, I think, to say that TV is simpy giving the people what they want. They also are a, perhaps the, major player in deciding what people want from TV.

The Marxists would agree with you. The idea that advertising creates "False consciousness" is a favorite doctrine of theirs.

However, you misunderstood me. What I was saying regarding Say's Law is, essentially, what you mean.

I totally agree with Flynn, the news is programmed and not normal. I let my cable subscription elapse because after six months they refused to include EWTN, stating not enough consumers were interested. I disagreed, this area has a very high Catholic population, but I suspect others are trying to suppress the Catholic voice.

Since Cable has been off, I read a whole lot more. And, I get to read books I choose and decide what info I feed my brain and soul.

I can get the main "headlines" on the internet whenever I feel like it and it is not forced into my living room with my teenagers observing the tabloid trash uncensored.

I've yet to find the downside of loosing Cable.

I think it's always been popular for intellectuals to say they don't watch TV. I'm not an addict, in fact I turned off my television for a year because I was irritated with the cable company, but I think there are several good, smart, even innovative shows on the air right now. I'm talking about regular entertainment shows like Lost, Heroes, Bones, Friday Night Lights...of course, the world news is just garbage. I watch local news, listen to some talk radio, and read the iternet. There certainly are a lot more choices these days.