The Best and Worst of Television

First of all I want to inform my readers that I am not a huge fan of TV. I honestly believe that most programming is nothing more than the mental equivalent of huffing gasoline. Sure it may be fun for awhile but then you get a splitting head ache and are forced to think of the gazillion or so brain cells that you have just eradicated with extreme prejudice.

Here in Wichita Kansas at the Swaney home we have a satellite system and get every channel that a person could ever imagine and a few more that are thrown in for good measure. One of these throw ins is a channel called iDrive TV. What's it for ? Who watches it ? I have no idea. If anyone out there is a dish network subscriber and has watched this channel please feel free to drop me an e-mail justifying the existence and bandwidth of iDrive and I'll check it out.

I am old enough that I can remember the big three television networks. ABC, NBC, and CBS. For a long time these were your choices. Then Fox came along and broke us out of that rut by daring to offer an alternative to News between 5pm and 630pm. They offered different choices and that was good. Than came along a billion more choices and 99% of the programming is garbage.

In truth I generally watch the Fox news channel, one of the 3 History Channels, or The Discovery Channel, and a little BIO channel for variety. I would suppose that I would be considered a television nerd or Geek.

Some shows actually offend me, and as head of household I have banned them completely. These shows aren't the ones that are banned by most parents. If my son should glimpse nudity, strong sexual content, or extreme violence, I don't freak out. These are things that are part of our lives and culture and I believe that to insulate him from them would be to put him at a disadvantage when he grows up and leaves the nest. So we watch and discuss.

I ask him questions about how he feels about what he has seen. He tells me and then asks how I feel. I tell him and he moves on.

I just don't believe that he should have to sneak around or feel like he is doing something wrong by watching television.

The shows that I have banned are the mind numbing pointless ridiculous sitcoms. Home Improvement with Tim Allen comes immediately to mind. I find the show ridiculous. It celebrates and laughs at the stupidity of a Man. Guess what ? I'm a Man, and my son will be too one day. I would be devastated if he ever responded to anything in this world with a Neanderthalic grunt. And just the thought of a woman as hot as Jill tolerating his idiocy for more than 30 seconds has to be the biggest lie since the US Government implied that they wanted to move away from fossil fuels.

The Disney Channel has two shows that have made my permanent bann list. The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, this is a show about two rich kids who are allowed to run wild in a Motel and torment the black doorman. They lie, they steal, they are completely spoiled, and it is all laughed at and tolerated because their Mother never looks after them and has lots of disposable income. It's would imagine that there writing staff consists of a couple of 4^th graders. There is nothing to learn here and nothing to stimulate the mind. The same goes with That's so Raven. It's just bad TV, and it's on my ban list.

In all honesty I would rather have my son watch Real Time with Bill Mayer on HBO because although his content is laced with the F word, and he seems to concentrate on the most controversial and Liberal Democratic agenda, he does cause you to think.

So you may be asking yourself does this guy like anything except geek TV ?

The Answer to this question is 'Yes'.

The one program that actually gives me a little bit of hope for our future is Kid Nation on CBS.

The pretext of the show is this. Gather 40 kids from all different walks of life, all different religiose backgrounds, and all different races. Put them in a ghost town, give them the basics to live, keep the cameras rolling and allow them to build there own society. Allow them to receive cash awards that they decide how to distribute, and give them challenges so they can earn rewards.

The brilliance of this program is that it minimizes some of the worlds problems and hands them over to the kids.

There was one episode where they explored religion. Some of these kids are Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, Jews, and who knows what else.

They managed to get together and put together an informal service that simply ask the god, or gods, or Jesus, or whomever, to bless their town.

None of these kids needed to recruit another kid into their faith, none of these kids told another kid the he or she was going to hell. None of these children felt a religiose calling to kill any of the other children. They all came together, and ask for a blessing. No one was forced to attend the service and no head counts were taken, perhaps some of the children didn't attend. I don't know about you but I see a lesson to be learned here.

In another episode they held elections. Some of the people were voted off of the leadership counsel. Some new ones were voted on. There was a little bit of nastiness but all in all it went smooth.

In another episode their environment was suffering. Basically they had been piling up trash from 40 kids for 20 days. There trash are was full of rotting food and filth. It was rat infested and a definite hazard. The council met and decided to summon a work crew to haul all of the trash out of town and bury it in a deep hole. About 8 kids were selected to help. Most of the kids did the best that they could, and one refused to help at all, but still working as a team they got the job done. Life has it's slackers and so does 'Bonanza City' but the work still got done. They managed to pitch in and clean up their environment. No new rules, no big meetings, no committees or politics, just people getting together and getting the work done.

This is a good show and I really believe it should be used in public schools to teach basic people skills.