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This might depress you a bit, so get some chocolate ready. If you aren't allergic or something.
Click.
Depressing but fairly intellligent blog...
This might depress you a bit, so get some chocolate ready. If you aren't allergic or something.
Click.
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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
This might depress you a bit, so get some chocolate ready. If you aren't allergic or something.
Click.
God Damn, kill me now.
http://ttrim.blogspot.com
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--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
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Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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The entire purpose of all of television was to seduce millions of eyeballs to watch the screen so that corporations could sell their goods. Nothing much has changed, except that the commercials now consume about 60% of programming time instead of 40%, and we have become so dimwitted and brain?dead that we?ve agreed to PAY for cable service and STILL watch commercials. In fact, on Super Bowl Sunday, millions of Americans tune in for the SOLE PURPOSE of watching commercials.
Winky Dink and You was the beginning of the brainwashing that has now achieved its purpose. The new Americans do not read, do not WANT to read, choose Presidents on likeability, respond to imperialist warmongering by slapping cute ribbon magnets on their cars, badger doctors into prescribing unneeded drugs because the commercials are so effective, buy SUVs no matter what the price of gas, happily allow government to dictate what they may watch, think, and do, permit two or three (eventually it will be one) global conglomerates to manufacture and sell all of our medicine, food, and entertainment, cheerfully reduce several thousand years of complex religious ideas to a Disney?esque cartoon version of Faith, wave bye?bye to art and music programs in schools, and excitedly tune in to watch buff, silicone?enhanced twits sabotage each other for prizes. Talent?deprived nincompoops evoke orgasmic screams on the red carpet. We become as mindlessly excited about choosing the next American Idol as we do about choosing a new Pope (and there is no longer much difference). We are, at last, the willing, thrilled slaves of the oligarchs, the brain?dead consumers of whatever They want to sell us. We torture ourselves with every new diet, gobble up every new recipe, and reduce the English language?once the glory of the world?to an average working vocabulary of about 300 words. We can express no ideas. We have no ideas.
Perhaps there is still hope for you, eh?
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(...)in 1953 (...) TV was available from about 6:00 AM to about 11:00 PM
That's kinda funny, over here, until the early to mid 70s, TV was available only from 6pm to midnight, and usually unavailable on weekends. The mentality back then was that kids are in school all day, then they get back and do homework, and go play with their friends outside... Adults are either working, or, if they are at their homes, they are usually doing something like cleaning or doing laundry or cooking and not actually wasting their mornings and afternoons on TV. There was no crude, toilet humor, no reality TV, no sex, almost no violence, the programs did not insult people's inteligence... I must say that people back then had a very good vocabulary, there were absolutely no cases of obese children (only if they were born that way), children read a LOT back then... We simply did not have TV in our culture! Cable TV was not available here until 1990, because the concept of paying to watch TV was absolutely ridiculous to us, no one wanted it. Yet, slowly, TV became a major part of our way of life... And I must say, suddenly a whole generation of IDIOTS who cannot think for themselves appeared. And still, when I mention "TV turnoff", people look at me as if I'm some sort of a nut, or some sort of communist liberal wacko...
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Anyway, I posted the link because I agree with a lot of what it says, especially about how basically anything will entertain the sheep-like masses. (I've mentioned before how much I loathe "reality" TV)
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Anyway, I posted the link because I agree with a lot of what it says, especially about how basically anything will entertain the sheep-like masses.
My father used to tell me that we live in a world of "sheeple", not people; people follow everyone else because they don't have the capability or desire to think for themselves.
Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition
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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
You've had Cable for fifteen years and are already mindless drones? Everybody pray for Brazil.
This obviously started to happen back in the mid 70s, not since cable TV. I just mentioned it as an example of how TV was not embbeded in our culture, but now that it is, our society seemed to have dumbed down. Not "dumbed down" in the sense of people being ignorant or incompenent, dumbed down in the sense of people drooling in front of the TV, watching our horrible reality TV shows, worshipping celebreties like pseudo-gods, and letting themselves to think as TV tells them to. One day I'll tell you the story of a network called "Globo", not now because I'd take a long time to tell that story.
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Originally posted by: ricarleiteQuote
Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
You've had Cable for fifteen years and are already mindless drones? Everybody pray for Brazil.
This obviously started to happen back in the mid 70s, not since cable TV. I just mentioned it as an example of how TV was not embbeded in our culture, but now that it is, our society seemed to have dumbed down. Not "dumbed down" in the sense of people being ignorant or incompenent, dumbed down in the sense of people drooling in front of the TV, watching our horrible reality TV shows, worshipping celebreties like pseudo-gods, and letting themselves to think as TV tells them to. One day I'll tell you the story of a network called "Globo", not now because I'd take a long time to tell that story.
This is a topic I did some reading on recently. In a book by Harlan Ellison called Strange Wine. If you aren't familiar with Ellison, he's a fairly legendary writer here in the US who's been around a long time. He basically makes it his business to offend people and will usually go out of his way to do so. However, he does EXCELLENT work. Any-hoo...in the intro to the book he talks about how tv is so dangerous now because it requires no work on the part of the viewer. Basically, you sit there, turn off your brain, and the images/sound just pulsate into your head. He was talking about how tv has become reality for so many people now, and gave as an example a Star Trek fan who went nuts on him at a conference when he talked about writing the lines for Spock in a particular episode. The guy called Ellison a liar, saying that he heard and saw Spock saying the lines...the show had become reality for this person and he couldn't deal with someone knocking that reality apart. He gave as another example a reporter who said something like "And now in our quest to bring you stories in gory detail..." and then shot herself in the head on live tv. If she had done it in her bedroom, nobody would have cared, but because she did it on tv it was huge. My wife and I are becoming more concerned about this and are making an effort to drastically reduce the time that the kids spend watching it. Very frightening.
http://ttrim.blogspot.com
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War does not make one great.
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"And now in our quest to bring you stories in gory detail..." and then shot herself in the head on live tv. If she had done it in her bedroom, nobody would have cared, but because she did it on tv it was huge. My wife and I are becoming more concerned about this and are making an effort to drastically reduce the time that the kids spend watching it. Very frightening.
Oh my flipping gosh... That's terrible. It almost sounds like a very bad joke from SCARY MOVIE.... That actually happened...
What nation/channel did it occur on?
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Originally posted by: Darth ChaltabQuote
"And now in our quest to bring you stories in gory detail..." and then shot herself in the head on live tv. If she had done it in her bedroom, nobody would have cared, but because she did it on tv it was huge. My wife and I are becoming more concerned about this and are making an effort to drastically reduce the time that the kids spend watching it. Very frightening.
Oh my flipping gosh... That's terrible. It almost sounds like a very bad joke from SCARY MOVIE.... That actually happened...
What nation/channel did it occur on?
United States, in a local station, in the mid 70s. I remember reading about it.
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Originally posted by: Darth ChaltabQuote
"And now in our quest to bring you stories in gory detail..." and then shot herself in the head on live tv. If she had done it in her bedroom, nobody would have cared, but because she did it on tv it was huge. My wife and I are becoming more concerned about this and are making an effort to drastically reduce the time that the kids spend watching it. Very frightening.
Oh my flipping gosh... That's terrible. It almost sounds like a very bad joke from SCARY MOVIE.... That actually happened...
What nation/channel did it occur on?
He did not specify, but it was in the mid-west in the 70's at some point.
http://ttrim.blogspot.com
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Depressed? Not to me. I think there is plenty more about this world, no this country, that is far more depressing. If the idea that TV entertainment has been around strictly to make money is a depressing shock, I believe there are some very mixed up priorities.
Insightful? Yes, but not new.
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Originally posted by: JediSageQuote
Originally posted by: Darth ChaltabQuote
"And now in our quest to bring you stories in gory detail..." and then shot herself in the head on live tv. If she had done it in her bedroom, nobody would have cared, but because she did it on tv it was huge. My wife and I are becoming more concerned about this and are making an effort to drastically reduce the time that the kids spend watching it. Very frightening.
Oh my flipping gosh... That's terrible. It almost sounds like a very bad joke from SCARY MOVIE.... That actually happened...
What nation/channel did it occur on?
He did not specify, but it was in the mid-west in the 70's at some point.
Some people will do anything for a scoop. When a technical problem interfered with the orderly presentation of a story on her morning news show, this 30-year-old news anchor announced, "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living color, you are going to see another first attempted suicide." She then drew a revolver and shot herself in the head. Chubbuck expired 14 hours later in hospital.
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--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
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Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
-------------------------
Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
It's a dark blot on the industry that they want forgotten, I assume.
Yes. I also remember in the late 80's or early 90's a politician who shot himself in the middle of a press conference. To the credit of some reporters, I could hear them begging him not to do it, but to the detriment of others, they actually kept the cameras rolling during the whole thing.
http://ttrim.blogspot.com
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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
Did he give a reason for shooting himself?
At that point I was more interested in getting the babes, so I don't recall the reasoning clearly, but I think it had to do with some kind of corruption or scandal.
http://ttrim.blogspot.com
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