TV Time Out

The dumbing of America is complete. When Wheel of Fortune becomes an intellectual pursuit, then I know it is time to rethink the system. We are stupider than a Fifth grader. We do spend hour after hour and night after night hoping he picks case #2 instead of #3. We vote people off islands. We watch them ingest almost everything imaginable. We see reality in almost every reality. We, in the final tally, are the biggest losers.

We are entertained by everything Britney. We care more about what she drives than what drives our economy . Most nights it is impossible to find news on the local news broadcast. For the great majority of the time our television is on, our brains would have more stimulation if the screens went blank and we just tried to remember what we ate for dinner. We have flat lined along with our televisions.

We don't move from our seats because we have remotes. In this context , remote means far away and distant, as in its relationship to anything of substance. We have taken fluff to a new level. We have given meaningless new meaning. We have created nothing out of nothing. We have stopped trying.

We understand that we need to escape from whatever harsh truths we face in our daily lives. It is just that we don't need to find ourselves on another planet to be removed from the rigors of the day. There has to be someone out there somewhere who is , at this moment, calling up the ghosts of Network and saying "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore". There has to be some writer out in Hollywood who is pleading with the executives to give him his brain back. We have gone into the deep freeze .

There has to be a tipping moment, a time when the pendulum will swing back in favor of creating . There has to be a day when we will no longer be satiated by finding out whose dad can jump through hoops better than all other dads. There has to be a time when we will look back in wonder that we permitted the industry to sink to this level. There has to be because I refuse to believe that this is what we think we want and deserve.