Why TV Makes Me Think About Dying

I'm not afraid to talk about death. In fact, I have never been afraid of death, itself -- at least not up to the point of having a family. Because of them, I now have a healthy dose of fear. I don't want to leave them without a dad and husband.

Still, I love being alive. And I love feeling, thinking and doing -- I love exploring the beauty in the world and I love experiencing the great creations and deeds of the exceptional people who live and who have lived. There is much to love about the world. And I really think there is more good than bad out there.

You know how I know TV is bad, though? When I am watching (as I was last night) and I think to myself: When it is time to die, I won't miss this place much. It will be kind of a relief. This is not to be confused with a wish for death; it is just an resignation that it will, in some ways, be a relief. That's nothing new. But it is a disproportionate reaction to a misrepresentation of reality.

Television, to me, is like the magnifying glass in the sun, held over the top of my head. It is not a true representation of the world, but a focusing of all that is bad in it.

Programming Families vs. Family Programming

One doesn't want to label everything that is surprising or offensive as a portent of doom -- as a sign of the collapse of modern culture. Still, every captain of his own little ship wants to remain wary that icebergs are generally smaller at the tip and fatter under water...

"The Family Channel" (or "ABC Family") -- which markets itself to "a new kind of family" (I'll say) -- looks like just such an iceberg to me.

Andy Griffith: family programming: then...

I don't generally see much of an attempt on the channel to keep things family friendly, at least by my standards -- so why market it as a "family" channel?

Here's your typical family channel irony: the other night I was flipping through stations and I saw that a movie was about to come on. It was called Burlesque. The channel, before rolling the film, labeled it as a movie that contains: "intense sexual situations; intensely suggestive dialogue." The PG-13 rating portends partial nudity, profane language and -- go figure -- suggestive dance routines.

In short, not a movie I would sit and watch with my little ones. So...I suppose, to a father of "a new kind of family" -- one that thinks it is okay to watch burlesque dancing with children -- that would all be fine.

Darwin's Nightmare

The demands of opening another school year are upon me, so, for the first time, a repost. This is from a year ago, but a recent experience reminded me . . .

I used to be a little afraid of this, but now I'm terrified.  I'm not sure whether it is something in the water or if some sort of ray is being beamed through high-def screens at our children, but I am now convinced that our young Americans might be growing into adulthood without the benefit of a reptilian brain.  I have seen evidence of this over the years, but now I know it: the fight-or-flight mechanism in America's youth has been snuffed out in many and continues to quickly whither in others.

You have seen it too, but maybe it didn't register.  Picture it: you are standing in line at a fast food restaurant at lunchtime on a Saturday.  The store and the mall in which it resides are, as they say, hoppin'. The kid behind the counter says, "Hi. Can I take your order?" You order a Laughy-Meal, a "number four" with an orange soda, a healthy salad with an extra packet of dressing, a cheeseburger and two extra orders of fries, one without salt, and a bag of chocolaty-chip cookies.  The kid behind the register says, after you have painstakingly delivered each important detail in your best rhetorical voice, "Hi. Can I take your order?"