{"id":2874,"date":"2010-06-15T19:26:52","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T02:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=2874"},"modified":"2010-06-15T20:48:05","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T03:48:05","slug":"no-wonder-were-hosed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2010\/06\/15\/no-wonder-were-hosed\/","title":{"rendered":"No wonder we’re hosed…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve said it before – I don’t have “TV” at home, so I don’t “get” TV (and what I mean by that is this: I watch things of special interest on the internet; I get my news via the internet; and I scan several<\/em><\/span> different local news sources to stay up-to-date on local issues: that’s it) – but on yesterday’s flight from Seattle to Boston I watched various network TV channels on the plane.<\/p>\n

OMFG.<\/p>\n

No wonder people are r-e-t-a-r-d-e-d<\/strong><\/span>! [Edit: via Twitter, I’m alerted to an expression of sensitivity to my use of the word retarded. I’ll use a strike-out on the word, but I stand by its meaning all the same, from the verb retard<\/em>: to slow the growth or development of; to decelerate: lose velocity; to be delayed – hence, retarded. Language has simple associations, but we need to use the richness of words even if they also signify matters we’ve become squeamish about. I really do mean “no wonder people are slowed in their growth or development, or decelerated and of inferior velocity (mental quickness) in their analytical powers, and delayed in their reasoning<\/em>.” TV is like sludge.)]<\/span><\/p>\n

Look, if you go to the gym five times a week (as I do), you condition your body: you do some aerobic, you do some yoga, you tighten your core, you yak it up with the regulars …you know? You get fit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But if you sit in front the fucking boob tube five days or more per week and let this garbage – and I don’t care if it’s “right” or “left” garbage – pour all over your soul, what the hell are you doing to your brain? What are you conditioning yourself to?<\/p>\n

You think it’s easy to stay in shape? Nuh-uh, it’s work, hard work. Well, guess what? Keeping your brain box in gear isn’t a game of tiddly-winks, either. Get used to it. Suck it up. Get off the couch and turn off the TV!<\/p>\n

What are you conditioning yourself to if you watch TV regularly? It’s a serious question: how can you function? It’s like living on a diet of fast food and soft drinks (and don’t give me any “I drink the ‘diet’ version” shit): it’s just not sustainable. You are going to die a miserable brain death – zero insights.<\/p>\n

Go grate a carrot, for pete’s sake. And what that means in terms of news? Roughage. Stop swallowing the pre-thought. Give your brain a diet. And for god’s sake, turn off the TV. If you like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, great – in my book, that means you’re not quite as lost as the next guy who’s glued to Fox. But you know what? If you’re watching that crap every<\/strong> day? Well, then there’s something wrong<\/strong> with you, same as if you’re drinking Diet Coke every day and eating the matching “solid” junk every day.<\/p>\n

Junk is junk.<\/p>\n

\/end of rant.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous photo: Boston has what appears to be a new Rapid Bus Transit<\/a> line (the Silver line<\/a>) – here’s a photo of the bus in South Station<\/a>. You can’t see the catenary<\/a> line (typical of power supplied via overhead lines<\/a>) in my shot, but it’s there.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

It’s quite amazing to ride a bus on rubber wheels that’s zooming through a tunnel you’d expect to see tracks on, and to realize that it’s just an underground road. And yet the bus has the speed and capacity of the subway lines that it connects to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve said it before – I don’t have “TV” at home, so I don’t “get” TV (and what I mean by that is this: I watch things of special interest on the internet; I get my news via the internet; and I scan several different local news sources to stay up-to-date on local issues: that’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1242],"tags":[412,38],"class_list":["post-2874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just_so","tag-boston","tag-tv"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2874"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2879,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions\/2879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}