live without a television for a year

“What unmediated pleasures are NOT illegal? Even outdoor barbecues violate smoke ordinances nowadays. The simplest enjoyments turn us against some law; finally pleasure becomes too stress-inducing, and only TV remains—and the pleasure of revenge, vicarious betrayal, the sick thrill of the tattletale. America can’t have what it most wants, so it has America’s Most Wanted instead. A nation of schoolyard toadies sucking up to an elite of schoolyard bullies.”

Read it all!

Rather than enter into an easy and smug diatribe on the idiocy that television brings to our lives – the ‘barren wasteland’ we know and, for some self-delusional reason, love – I’d like to know from you all just what I’d have missed if I’d not watched television over the past year.

Please, don’t recount bowlfulls of the eye-tripe we are fed to distract us from things important or significant. In Denmark, for an example of eye-tripe, George Bush came for a 16 hour visit, which we were assured was in the best interests of the War On Terror™. “His visit cost Denmark US$ 250,000 per hour”, we were told, as if that were the metric most relevant to us all. Bourgeoisie! Additionally, the Crown Prince of Denmark and his Tazmanian wife popped off a sprog, who will eventually enter the happy ranks of exceedingly wealthy slaves, whose only liberation lies in abdication. Gosh, how fascinating!

Other than this, I would have missed some films that have been in the cinema recently anyway, some heavily edited (spun?) snippets of ‘news’, and the non-event that was the Danish national election. Guess this has turned into a diatribe, after all. Unavoidable, really.

What would I have missed? Come on. Think of ONE programme, show, event coverage, whatever you saw on television in the last year that has had a significant impact on your life. And please, tell me how it changed your life that you saw it on the box instead of read about it in the newspaper or heard in on the radio.

I need some convincing, people!