[TheForge] [YAK] TV (Was: Shortcut Sword?)

[Mike Spencer]

> Seems to me that TV is simply another tool.  

Heh. In a manner of speaking.  Like a can opener is a tool.  But if
can openers were like a TV, the norm would be that if you own a can
opener, canned beans, canned fruit, canned spaghetti, canned bread,
canned milk etc. would all replace not only the un-canned varieties
of those but most other food as well.

Stop me if I've said this before... :-)

We didn't have electricity until my kids were about 8 so the gift TV
from the in-laws sat in the attic.  Then we got power and watched TV.
I kvetched about it but I zombied, too.  To salve my conscience, I
ranted about how destructive it was and tried to point out to the kids
the ways in which the medium manipulates yr mind and creates a
specious reality.

When the boys were about 12, they dropped the TV down the stairs while
we weren't at home and broke it.  After a hasty conference, they hit
on a strategy.  When we came home, they announced that they had been
thinking about my comments and had put it away in the attic.  It was
several years later before there was something in the news (Reagan
getting shot, maybe?) that merited digging out the TV and then the
story came out.

Just this year, my wife dragged home an "old" TV her (former) boss was
disposing of.  (Hey, did you know you can have TV in *color* now?)  We
use it once in a while to watch video tapes but otherwise it sits face
to wall in a corner.  We go to the cinema to see a movie, then come
home and rent the tape.  By plugging a set of computer speakers into
the VCR, I can cuddle with my own personal speaker and can then hear
the sound-track dialog that I missed in the cinema due to my hearing
loss. (Um, right.  Wear those ear muffs during power hammering,
recreational explosions, air and abrasive tool use etc.)

- Mike

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Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer@tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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