In five days- you know, unless they can't pull it off, as was the case in January- all the broadcast TV stations will switch to digital, and the Kole household will lose the remaining 7 or 8 channels we have had since we pulled the plug on cable two years ago. Per the Indy Star:
The clock is ticking if you haven't made the switch to digital. On Friday, federal law requires television stations to stop broadcasting in analog. Recently released Nielsen data show Indianapolis is the 16th-least-prepared market. More than 40,000 households -- or 3.6 percent -- are not ready.
Only 3.6%? I'm amazed at how crucially important Americans find their televisions to be. Or, for that matter, how important entertainment is regarded.
If you ask me about movies made in the last 10 years, you'll get a blank from me. I'm astonished at how so many who are not named Ebert or Socey have encyclopedic knowledge of every movie Ben Stiller has ever made... and yet couldn't begin to tell you what the 4th Amendment is about, or what the Enumerated Powers are, or what their state income tax rate is, or who their representative in municipal government is.
So, government colluded with electronics retailers to needlessly create demand for new devices? Count me out. I don't need it. TV is the heroin that helps keep the populace distracted and stupid... and poorer. I can't believe how many 'poor' people subscribe to cable at $100/month. It's all an incredible misplacement of values.
2 comments:
When questioning debtors about their income and assets, cable is routinely included in the "utilities" listed as living expenses justifying non-payment or minimal payment on the judgments I'm trying to collect.
Bread & circus -- the empire would collapse without them. And I say this as a consumer of crap television and as many movies as I have time for.
Need. Want. Two different things.
Actually, the empire might shore itself up with less in the way of bread & circuses. Certainly, we all need a break from genuinely productive time, but for too many, productivity is a break from the entertainment.
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