Turn off your television sets

Ooooh - Connie Beauchamp was on Holby again last night



...sorry
    

Edited by Jim Garten - October 04 2006 at 03:48

'Spooks' is well worth a watch, too; utter bunkum (I hope... ), but hugely entertaining.

Jim Garten resurrected my thread.

I remember a far more innocent age, when Waters singing about having "Fifteen channels of sh*t on my TV to chose from" seemed outlandish to a 17 year old with BBC1, BBC2 & ITV as a choice.

Now, with the wonders of cable, I have something in the order of 100 channels (and bear in mind I did not go for the full cable 'package'); when you cut out the repeat showings of poor UK & US sit coms, the shopping channels, the endless drivel shoveled out by MTV and its ilk, the sensationalist so-called "documentaries" which are more accurately dissections of major disasters churned out to tittilate the wobbling masses ("seconds from disaster", "aircrash investigation"), all punctuated by the endless mass marketing courtesy of our advertising industry (usually every 5 minutes or so), I generally go back to the so-called "terrestrial" channels anyway...

...or go away and read






...although I'm still a sucker for 'Casualty' and 'Holby City' (isn't Connie Beauchamp a hottie!!)

king of Siam wrote: Great performance. Reminded me of Bill Hicks: "Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their f**king skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!"

Edited by Dreamer - September 20 2006 at 16:46

The idea of millions watching the same thing, at the same time can be quite frightening. But it's all a part of a much bigger problem. The fact that people WANT to see the rubbish on television, and are even amused by it already says something. It is linked to the materialistic consumption that is going on heavily nowadays. Commercials are everywhere, and actual programs are not much more thought provoking then the adverts that seperate them!! (have I just been taking my Huxley books too seriously?)

Edited by Dreamer - September 20 2006 at 16:37

I sometimes watch the news and I read a newspaper every Sunday(almost every Sunday) and I have noticed a certain fall in the quality of the news, the analysis and so on. But I believe television is one of the worst sources of information. Apart from what it reveals at times..like discoveries, frauds, astronomic phenomena etc.
It's just a medium yes but it was conceived as a profit maker whereas the internet was conceived as a way to share info(for military purposes at first). And the companies didn't pay close attention to it or the IT industry for a long time. So it is pretty much full of information and ideas.
Now choosing to back up a war considering what history has taught us would naturally take a whole lot more than an attack, or some television shows.
And there is one thing I just don't understand...
You can choose to send troops to the other side of the planet but saving people on the other side of the planet is a different thing????    

stonebeard wrote: What would you do? Would you take up arms for a cause that doesn't directly effect you? I'd love it if we were helping out the Africans in Darfur rather than being involved in Iraq, and I'm pissed as hell that we were manipulated into supporting such a war. But not watching TV (trying to bring it back to topic a bit) would not have prevented the war. If the higher ups want a war, then we will have a war. The people in charge are really in charge . We are just pawns in a game of chess (another thing most young people don't have a clue about). I'm trying to limit this as much as possible. This is the same reason why I will never fight in a war unless something motivates me very deeply and personally.

Edited by Peter Rideout - September 20 2006 at 01:01

king of Siam wrote: "History repeates itself and it is currently happening again." We let it happen again, because we don't want to change. We could have helped in Darfur but we wre too busy fighting "terrorism" in Iraq. We live cozy  complacent lives away from the problems of the world, but if we change that would mean uncertainty and God forbid work. This is exactly what 10,000 days was about.

It's not television that's the problem, it's the makers of the programs that are the problem.