STARING AT THE TV

I wonder if I’m addicted to TV?

I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t get my daily dose of TV.  The evening just wouldn’t be nice and relaxing if I couldn’t just stare at the TV for a while.

Now when I say “TV” I mean watching my videos and DVDs, mainly my travel videos, like the complete sets of The Silk Road I and II, and Best of Travels in Europe (Rick Steves), all by PBS, and more.  I am traveling to foreign lands in the comfort of my living room.

Sometimes I watch other topics; for example, Al Gore’s DVD on global warming and climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.  (Give that guy an award!)  I used to have a documentary on the war, Fahrenheit 9/11; not particularly convincing because it was hard to follow.  I would have watched it again but it was too depressing.  I donated it to the local library.  I got rid of Harry Potter, too.  It was fun but more than a bit silly.

But I haven’t watched TV programming in my home (networks, cable, satellite) for seven years. Seven years without it!  Wow.  When I moved out here, the TV reception was so poor, I got out of the habit.  I must say it was difficult at first but now I really don’t miss it at all. 

When I do catch a glimpse of programmed TV when I’m out, it seems so trite, so mindless, so repetitive.  There are so many flashy ads moving so fast that you don’t have time to really see them, so much violence, so much meaningless sex and sexual innuendo, and so many twenty-somethings doing outrageous things no one in their right mind would do in real life.  So much garbage.

I dread to think what TV garbage is being pumped into the minds of children all across our nation and around the world, day after day.  Many children are not allowed to watch programs their parents disapprove of.  Other children, no doubt, watch whatever they want.  They get brain-washed with TV culture and I guess, never really get to have a true childhood.  How sad.  I am convinced that much of the violence we read about in the news has its roots deep in the TV violence that children watch.

I don’t miss many of the “talking heads” on TV, supposed experts spouting off, so self-important, such know-it-alls, knowing it all on the spot in 10-second sound bites, usually men, usually white.  Is anyone else allowed to have an opinion?  I doubt that’s changed in seven years.

I don’t miss the TV news on the commercial stations which is more entertainment than news; just fear mongering really, to get you to watch more commercials.  How real is news that’s paid for by corporate sponsors?  Even PBS has corporate sponsors.  Is a TV station going to “bite the hand that feeds it”?  Are PBS and BBC ever going to be seriously out of step with the governments that support them, or directly challenge the thinking of their taxpaying viewers?

If we really had adequate presentation and discussion of the news and social issues on TV, there would be far fewer problems in the world.  The Internet holds so much promise and as it evolves, this medium might provide the communication we urgently need to turn this Planet around.  If governments will allow the Internet to remain free and open, it could be our salvation.

Well, I have to admit sometimes I think of things I would like to see on programmed TV, like the ice skating at the Olympics.  That’s worth watching.  I would have been an enthusiastic ice skater in my younger days except that I didn’t have a knack for twirling, leaping or skating backwards.  Maybe I’d like to watch some documentaries, like the show on the Discovery Channel, The Lost Tomb of Jesus.  Also, I’ve heard about American Idol, but never seen it on TV, and I’d like to watch people sing in such a singing contest.  Sounds neat.  I suppose I am growing hopelessly out of touch with “reality,” TV reality that is.  I think I am still staying informed via newspapers and the Internet.

How much TV is too much?  I have to wonder about people who zone out in front of their TVs for several hours each day, and apparently lots of people do this.  They fill their minds with so much garbage.  How do they expect to have a mind after that?  How do they expect to have any time left in the day to actually do something meaningful? 

Many years ago, I spent a night in a luxury hotel.  I don’t recall the circumstances, but I do recall the little TV perched in front of the toilet in the bathroom.  Are there really people who cannot be separated from TV for even their private moments in the bathroom?

Several weeks ago, I was waiting in the bank.  They keep a TV going for those customers who would be lost without it.  It was showing one of those old-style movies where the men make lots of important money decisions and try to look cool by smoking cigarettes, and all the women look younger than 22 and act passive and brainless.  Weird stuff.  Think about the millions of people who grew up watching that sort of thing and who learned to think life should be like that.

I watch my videos and DVDs, but in small doses.  I like to control what is coming into my living room and into my mind.  But I am concerned that I turn on the TV so often.  Why can’t I get away from it?  Do I own the TV or does it own me? 

If somebody would start a movement to turn off the TV just one solid week a year, I’d be willing to give it a try.  Would you?  Go cold turkey – it’s an intriguing idea.  What would be a catchy name for such a movement? 

OK, time to go turn on the TV.

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THE FARMER HAS A GUN

The farmer was shooting again.

That was Saturday a week ago and I couldn’t go outdoors for a while because of it.  The farmer practices his shooting every so often, maybe once or twice a month.  He’s been at it more often lately.  Maybe he has a new gun to play with. 

A few years ago, one of the neighbors told me, “Don’t go over there.  He has a gun and he’ll shoot.” 

Well, I’ve never gone over there except once.  Before I bought my place, I had the real estate agent drive me by there so I’d know what was over there.  The farmer didn’t try to shoot at us, as far as I know.

It’s not a big farm.  It’s about one mile wide.  A few dozen head of cattle, I guess.  I noticed he didn’t waste money prettifying his buildings.  The central feature on his farm was a gigantic concrete container for manure.  We know when he is spreading it on his fields.  He’ll get bought out sooner rather than later.  They’ll put in another residential subdivision or a shopping mall.

Recently, another neighbor told me the farmer has a wall of dirt that he shoots into.  The neighbor said he’s seen this dirt wall and assured me that the farmer fires in the direction of his cows and away from our subdivision.  The shooting range is probably a half-mile or a mile from here and there’s a hill and lots of forest in-between, but I stay indoors anyway.  There’s nothing to stop him from shooting up over the hill and trees, in which case it would be raining bullets here.

Why does he need to practice shooting so much?  I really have to wonder at his behavior.  I suppose it’s all perfectly legal, otherwise someone would have put a stop to it years ago.  Why would someone shoot a gun for hours at a time, firing bullets into dirt?  Over and over and over.  Bang! Bang! Bang!  Year after year.  Somebody’s idea of fun and relaxation?  Boring.  Practice killing?  What could possibly be going on inside his head?  I would think the noise would bother the cows.  Someone told me cows need quiet or they give less milk.  He’s probably ruined his hearing.

At first I was thinking that the farmer had better have a reputation as a tough guy and had better be skilled with a gun, if he didn’t want his cattle stolen and his property vandalized.  (That’s so pro-gun, I can’t believe it.)  But you don’t have to be a sharpshooter to scare off thieves and vandals.  Besides, it doesn’t seem likely someone would try to steal a cow – how could a thief sell a stolen cow?  You’d probably need a ream of paperwork to sell a cow these days, because of mad cow disease; although I admit I don’t know much about people stealing cows. 

With all the deer hunting that goes on over there in the hunting season, the farmer is likely the hunter.  Maybe even eats deer meat.  (Eeeeeew! I hope I never do that.)  But you don’t have to be a sharpshooter to kill a deer.  Around here “sportsmen” kill deer by sitting and waiting on boards nailed high up in a tree, just a stone’s throw from purchased doe-scent bait they’ve placed on the ground.  The law does not allow baits of food or salt, only scent; nevertheless, it’s not much of a “sport” from the point of view of the deer (or from my point of view, either).

Maybe it’s not the farmer shooting over there or maybe it’s not always him.  Maybe he rents out his shooting range to guests willing to pay for a place to do target practice alone, without the noise and distraction of other gunmen.  Maybe he rents to hunters, too.

In the next subdivision (in the opposite direction of the farm), we sometimes hear the sound of gun shots.  Sometimes we hear police sirens.  It’s rather disconcerting.  I guess people get drunk or stoned, get the idea they need to make a statement, go get their favorite toy, and then go on a rampage.  Bang! Bang! Bang!  I would feel happier about so many of my neighbors exercising their “right to bear arms,” if someone could guarantee that all these people are sane, will stay sober, and will refrain from disturbing the peace.

Does it really make us more secure if nearly every Tom, Dick and Harry has a gun or can buy a gun?  Or does it just make more opportunities for mayhem?

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CHOCOLATE SANDWICH RECIPE

Here’s a tasty treat.  I’ve decided to share my recipe for a chocolate sandwich.  Don’t try this if you are limiting your sugar or fat intake, or trying to stay healthy.  Take four slices of bread, good stone-ground, organic bread.  On the first slice, spread a glob of peanut butter; on the second slice, fruit jam; on the third slice, honey.  Put two small chocolate bars onto the fourth slice and set it in your warming oven, along with a sliced up banana.  Heat until the chocolate melts, maybe ten minutes.  (I won’t have a microwave oven in my home, so I can’t tell you the timing for that.)  Spread the chocolate on the slice and assemble with the banana pieces and the other bread slices in some fashion that seems reasonable to you.  You can substitute raw tomato for the cooked banana.  Enjoy!

Previously posted on my Web site COOKIES AND TEA on February 12, 2007.

WISHING YOU LOVELY VISTAS!

Spring has sprung.  We have lovely vistas here of pale bluet flowers, yellow dandelion flowers, tiny yellow flowers of false strawberry, purple violet flowers, purple periwinkle (myrtle) flowers, and pink phlox flowers.  Iris leaves are sprouting up.  Grass is greening.   Small yellow butterflies have arrived.  Birds and insects have arrived (wasps, bees, ants).  Tree buds are bursting.  Dogwood tree flowers are opening. 

For some people this is the time of year to start pesticiding and herbiciding.  But I like to keep things naturally.  Without healthy insect populations, what happens to the birds?  Without wildflowers, what happens to the butterflies?  I wouldn’t want to spread toxic chemicals and take the chance toxins would end up in the neighborhood’s groundwater.  I wouldn’t want toxins coming out of my tap or out of your tap if you live downstream from me.  Each of us is downstream or downwind from someone else’s pollution.

Happy springtime!

Wishing you lovely vistas!

I SAW A BLUEBIRD

I saw a bluebird today in my yard.  It’s such a wonderful sight.  Bluebirds are a very special blue.  I’ll bet there is no other shade of blue like it in the whole world.  Why do we have “sky blue” as a color but not “bluebird blue”?  Bluebirds tend to swoop in flight, dip, turn in the air, and when they do, the blue feathers on their backs and the backs of their wings flash in the sunlight.  You can actually see a flash of blue.  Fluorescent.  Unparalleled.  There are other birds of a blue color, of course, but none so worthy of the name blue bird as the bluebird.  The blue jays are plentiful and are blue, a deeper blue.  They are bigger, and loud, with a shriek hardly distinguishable from the caw-caw of crows.  I’ve heard the call of a bluebird on my Audubon bird video and it is not particularly remarkable, but still lovely. 

Previously posted on my Web site COOKIES AND TEA ON February 19, 2007.