ISZATSO?
Smile when you say "TV".
It is not all bad. Some? Right. How much?
Television sets in home use are bearing an inordinate portion of blame for all sorts of national ills.
The TV set is being used as whipping boy for all sorts of real and imaginary trouble by people who are prone to mishaps in almost anything they try to do.
It is not unusual for some people to blame anything new as being the cause of complaints they've been trying to get rid of for years. It is the easy way out. The more vague the association can be, the better, it sometimes seems.
Not too many year ago young people where being told to stop reading what werE then called "dime novels", which became, inflated from "the penny dreadfuls" pf the previous generation. In the 1920's[a publishers moved that sort of materiall – adventure, mystery, romance, detective store, and toward the end of the era – science-fiction into magazine called "the pulps".They were so called because they were printed on rough-textured paper rather than slick-surfaced paper adapted to increasing use of photographs and color - also branded as being evil innovations in their turn.
Cartoonists suffered other barbs of condemnation and when radio came along it, too, was vilified as an encroching evil poisoningv the very air we breath!
When you complain too obviously about all the shows on TV you say you never watch, you are building a picture of yourself which you would rather not be.
Having worked on both sides of newspsper, radio and television entities, I realized, long ago, that there is only way to "improve" any of them.
As a reader, as a listener, as a viewer there is only one way of bringing about changes for the better...causing the demise of poor shows and helping good ones succeed
It is so simple your first reaction will be to say that it will not work. But, it does. It works on both sides of the entertainment field, too.
Praise that which you consider to be good. Don't overdo it. Sincerity counts.
Ignore that which you do not feel meets with your approval. Totally. Completely. Absolutely.
A.L.M. March 4, 2004 [c379wds]
