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Sep. 27th, 2005 10:44 amI love Anna Quindlen. She has a piece on why public figures should watch television: By the Tube, For the Tube
But saying that there's a lot of junk on TV and that's why you won't watch (or, for purists, won't have a set in the house) is like saying you won't read books because there are a fair amount of cheesy ones published. Just look at the government debacle surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Apparently they didn't know. This is mind-boggling to those of us who understand how to work a remote. Every network, every moment, was showing what looked like a disaster movie with the most terrifying special effects possible. And everywhere there were the same sentiments, hand-lettered on placards, painted on roofs, screamed by women with children outside the Superdome: HELP.
We Americans were ahead of the administration curve because apparently its members weren't watching TV. Lots of huff-and-puffs in D.C. don't. Some of them make the argument that they're too busy to channel-surf. Bull. The members of Congress find time in their schedules to consume finger food with lobbyists. The president currently holds the world record for vacationing by a head of state.
...Think of it this way: The Founding Fathers are sitting around in Philadelphia and New York, the 13 Colonies stretching up the coast and down, Virginia and Rhode Island a long slog on horseback. And suddenly someone offers them a way to know what people are thinking, on farms, in towns, from the North to the South. Not a perfect way, not a way that tells you everything you need to know, but a way nonetheless.
They'd jump at the chance. So should their successors.
But saying that there's a lot of junk on TV and that's why you won't watch (or, for purists, won't have a set in the house) is like saying you won't read books because there are a fair amount of cheesy ones published. Just look at the government debacle surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Apparently they didn't know. This is mind-boggling to those of us who understand how to work a remote. Every network, every moment, was showing what looked like a disaster movie with the most terrifying special effects possible. And everywhere there were the same sentiments, hand-lettered on placards, painted on roofs, screamed by women with children outside the Superdome: HELP.
We Americans were ahead of the administration curve because apparently its members weren't watching TV. Lots of huff-and-puffs in D.C. don't. Some of them make the argument that they're too busy to channel-surf. Bull. The members of Congress find time in their schedules to consume finger food with lobbyists. The president currently holds the world record for vacationing by a head of state.
...Think of it this way: The Founding Fathers are sitting around in Philadelphia and New York, the 13 Colonies stretching up the coast and down, Virginia and Rhode Island a long slog on horseback. And suddenly someone offers them a way to know what people are thinking, on farms, in towns, from the North to the South. Not a perfect way, not a way that tells you everything you need to know, but a way nonetheless.
They'd jump at the chance. So should their successors.