On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:54:36 -0400, Tom Watson
brought forth from the murky depths:
I'm going to use this opportunity to get on my high horse about
something that has always ****ed me off.
Does the Condo Owners' Association know about your fertilizer
plant there, Tawm?
Most of the people who do the making and baking - the hunting and
fishing - the child raising and life making - the saving and the
scraping to get by - don't live in urban areas.
That's right, we don't. (Well, "we" except for the hunting,
fishing, child raising, and life making" part.)
I kinda don't figger that I'm the reflection in that mirror.
People in urban areas don't hold the same values as those who live
outside those areas. They never have - and they never will.
I'm guessing this goes back at least to the Roman times - when a Pagan
(pagano) was a country fella - in contradistinction to those who were
saved - by being city fellas.
What a crock.
I don't like the fact that my twelve year old daughter thinks that she
has to be like B. Spears - just because she's on TV. I don't like
those people that my wife watches on "Survivor", nor any of the little
pricks who are on the shows that pass as Family Hour Entertainment.
I fixed that here. When I had to move to Satellite TV, I chose to
opt out of the local channels and network channels. You wouldn't
believe ho much peace there is in NOT having those. I still turn
on the local weather report on occasion, and when I watch a full
half hour of the news, complete with 'lebenty seven commercials
for penis wash/vaginal stoppers/NewImprovedSolidSugarFlakes cereal
and all the other goodies, I realize just how good I have it. I
can turn it off and not go back for a month. Whew! Besides, the
Weather Channel has nice jazz music background and really cute
chicks. What more could a guy ask for? (No, no, no, _besides_ a
real weather report.)
I'm not ready to go totally Amish, but I'd damned sure like to shut
off the city media and its influence on people who should know better
- and who already live better.
Wow, a steam-powered, overhead line, leather-belt driven Normite
shop like this?
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/shop.jpg
Got GIFs or JPGs yet?
I guess I've gotten too curmudgeonly over the years - Andy Rooney
seems like a moderate to me - but this whole culture - as it is
presented to us on the mass media - is a total POS in my estimation.
Y'mean Andy's -not- a moderate?
We are no longer a culture involved in the making of things.
We are only interested in managing the making of things.
Most of us on the Wreck are of the former culture. Ditto the
rec.metalheads and most of the .sci readers.
At least, that's what I see on my television, my
used-to-be-local-but-now-a-part-of- blah blah publications newspaper -
and the gay and lesbian stations on the radio (formerly PBS).
Tired of it.
Me, too. If the idiotic media would just stop feigning iration
(izzat a word?) over any given 2 people in love, the "problem"
would simply go away. Psychology, history, and human behavior
tell us that banning things doesn't work and usually has an
increased opposite effect.
There are still vast areas of this country where a man's word is his
bond - won't see that much on TV. There are still huge sectors of our
country where a neighbor will be helped out of common human decency -
but I don't see that reflected in that media mirror.
No, "nice" doesn't sell advertising. That's what drives the
media nowadays. "News" is secondary to exploitation and selling
SUVs and fake pizza. Have you seen what a small 3x5" display ad
in the local newspaper costs nowadays? In Vista, it was over a
GRAND A WEEK, and that was if I provided camera-ready art. I don't
even want to think what a NYT or LATte ad costs. How many mil to
put half a minute on the Stupor Bowel?
This rant is wandering a good bit - and so I'll shut it off. I still
meet good people - and I meet them in all kinds of places - but the
culture (writ large) that I live in - doesn't give them the respect or
encouragement that they deserve.
This saddens me greatly.
Hear, hear! And when you look around and see the corruption in
politics (both sides of the aisle), Faith-Based preemptive wars
being started over oil, Americans being herded, rights being taken
away in the name of totally false "security", it's obviously time to
REBOOT AMERICA!
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