2000 Soap Box Archives

Trashyvision

Evidently everybody is not as bored, unentertained and downright disgusted by what they see on television these days as I am or there would be some major changes made pronto. Sitcoms which promote profanity and sex, talk shows which exploit the lowest instincts of humankind and slanted news reporting, in my opinion have turned the silver screen into the slimy screen. Sally Jesse Raphael, Ricky Lake and Jerry Springer expose us to the dark side of troubled people while Howard Stern doesn’t even pay lip service to decency. Sitting and watching the sitcom drivel is just a few notches lower than getting a root canal done and if I see one more infomercial I think I'm going to throw up. Ok one judge was fun, two judges were tolerable but this is getting ridiculous, there’s even a judge for animals now. There’s even a channel for people who can’t get enough of Judge Judy and her ilk. And the awards shows, did you ever see the like? There’s the Academy Awards, the American Music Awards, the Country Music Association Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards, the Emmy Awards, the Grammy Awards and on and on and on. I guess there’ll be an award show honoring the best award shows before it’s over. The language on TV is only exceeded in vulgarity by the plots of the shows it is used on. The network news is inundated with people spouting off about the evil of guns and how they should be completely banned while the shows which follow an hour or two later are areas of dark and bloody ground where cruelty and violence rein supreme. At almost any public event you’ll see television stars wearing little red ribbons supporting aids research while the shows they star on promote gratuitous sex and homosexuality. Even the cartoons these days are full of dark figures with supernatural powers and questionable morals. I would be remiss if I didn’t state the fact that there is still some good television out there, especially during football season and I enjoy the orielly factor on Fox and that Australian nut on Animal Planet who handles deadly snakes like they were toys. The golf tournaments are great and of course there’s Braves baseball but those things aside, unless you happen to run across the occasional decent movie, it’s teletrash and Oprah wannabe’s. Now I'm not saying that we should go back to the days of Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver but when I can pick up the remote and go through a hundred or so channels and not find one thing that I really want to watch either there’s something wrong with TV or something wrong with me. On such occasions I usually just turn the television set off, pick up a good book and find myself thoroughly entertained. Maybe that should tell me something. After all, books have been around a heck of a lot longer that television.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

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