Refusing to Watch

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I’ve hardly watched television at all this past week, figuring it would be all Tsarnaevs all the time, bobbleheads frantically filling air time with interviews of the brothers’ cousin’s dog walker and what not. The British tabloid The Mirror is pushing a “sleeper cell” story that doesn’t appear to hold water. There’s also a story floating around that the older brother was killed by the younger one, not by cops. Maybe in a few weeks or months we’ll have a clear idea of what happened. Maybe. In the meantime, I’m not watching this.

22 thoughts on “Refusing to Watch”

  1. Yup, I pretty much avoided the news yesterday.

    And I’m doing pretty much the same thing today.

    Right now, I’m watching a Yankee game, drinking a cold beer, and reading and commenting on my favorite blogs, while I catch up on what the great Charles Pierce has written during the past week, since I save that as my weekend treat.

    We’ll know what’s determined we need to know soon enough.

    In the meantime, our Reich-wingers haven’t exactly distinguished themselves, pooping and peeing in their pants, yelling at President Obama to not Mirandize the surviving brother, to label him an ‘Enemy Combatant,” and blow the dust off of the Cheney-Bush War Crimes Families water-proof boards and reusable plastic bottles.

  2. I learned two things this weekend: 1) do NOT mess with Boston; and 2) Lindsey Graham is a horrible person.

    Other than that, time will tell.

  3. CSPAN 2 has the LA Book Fair on this weekend. Good alternative if you have cable or satellite. Don’t know about over the air stuff.

  4. Now if only I could get my right-wing Facebook contacts from ‘liking’ posts from all manner of speculation and rumor-mongering. Why do some people have this compulsion to “know” what is going on, when it’s clear we can’t and won’t know for some time, to the point where they’d rather make something up than wait?

    sigh.

    I’m watching ‘Catch Me If You Can’ on TNT instead.

  6. Yeah, Swami, but even he could never have dreamed up someone like Dick Cheney as “The Grand Inquisitor!”
    Especially, one without any hint of a conscience.

  7. I avoid the news on most days. I pay extra for movies without commercials and watch them, especially when I want to avoid repetitive news. I cannot abide commercials any more. I only tolerate them during prime time for some favorite shows. If there are no movies on the stations I want to watch, I turn on the dvd player. However, I went to the ballet last night. Saw Swan Lake. It was absolutely gorgeous with that great Tschaikovsky music.

  8. The Left wing has their own conspiracy theories going too, sadly. So glad I don’t have a TV.

  9. joanr16 …I’m surprised you just learned his weekend that Lindsey Graham is a horrible person..What gave him away..His no vote on background checks or his eagerness to ship suspect #2 to Guantanamo to build on Bush’s war on terra?

  11. I’m pretty much an HBO or Showtime guy, for their series and the occasional movie. DVDs and Netflix and sports are pretty much it. Haven’t watched prime time in years. And usually don’t watch the cable news channels, not even MSNBC, for all the reasons you guys have stated. I did this week for all the drama but was reminded why I don’t with all the horrible interviews and incorrect information.

  12. We live in an area where you really can’t receive a TV signal. There are only certain places in the house where I can receive an NPR station. But, I get very good reception in the barn, any of four NPR stations. I used to keep the radio on all the time to help our old blind horse navigate, she’s passed on now, so I keep it on to discourage coyotes. It may or may not work, but we have a lot of coyotes around and so far they’ve never killed any of our animals.

    I like to watch stuff on youtube, but we have a Mac and for the last couple of years, it’s pretty much rubbish at videos. We still watch on and off, mostly when we are too tired or stressed to do other things. There are problems with not watching TV. It’s addictive. When we killed our TV in 2001, I felt as though there were toxins draining out of my system, it felt too good to go back. But, you have to be very careful if you mention it to any one. They hear it as, “I think I am better than you.” or some rubbish like that. They get very offended and very angry, and no amount of disclaimers will change that. Coincidently, none of my fundamentalist neighbors watch TV. They have TVs and watch occasional DVDs, but, mostly they do other things. No one calls them cultural elitists because, they’re not “worldly”.

    People used to do other things, before TV caught our souls. My wife’s grandparents were both authors and her mother was a musician with a wonderful voice. They lived in the mountains. In the evenings, the family would gather, they would read poetry to each other and play music and sing together with friends. They knew hundreds of songs. It all sounds like a fantasy from another era now. But, that kind of life is why we came here so many years ago.

    We have a lot of problems in our society, from violence and dysfunctional government to the blinding anger and fear that is eating away at us. There is not single remedy and no single cause. But, TV is a mirror held up to the ugliness and the beauty as well. You be the judge, which has the greater power of fascination, and which generates more capital and profit.

    Sorry, I know nobody wanted to hear my whole life story. Maybe I should try to get a reality show.

  13. The “news” about this event was mainstream elitism in microcosm. They tried hard to bring back the color-coded post 911 fear, but it didn’t take.

    Going forward what’s really going to be comedy gold is the media trying to “educate” real Americans who think Hawaii is a foreign country, about Chechnya.

  15. Goatherd, two generations back my relatives did similar activities to the ones you describe. I remember great-uncles visiting from Indiana (I lived in Seattle) in the 50s. One played the violin and knew all the old songs, the other could declaim James Whitcomb Riley – the Hoosier Poet. What a memorable evening. We none of us had TVs at the time. I miss it.
    I only watch TV at my daughter’s house – she saves programs for me.
    So I was very happy to hear a bit of your family history!

  17. Goatherd..I always enjoy reading your posts. It’s the little elements of connection in all of our life stories that I enjoy so much..

  18. Gulag…Maybe they should eliminate the geographical confusion and just designate the terroists as muslims..Why clutter minds with irrelevant details? keep it simple so the important aspects are the only things to be considered.

  20. Gulag, that is hilarious. And these are the people who want to have 50 guns.

    Its a sad commentary though on where we are as a nation that the the dumb as stump crowd has such a dominant voice.

  21. csm,
    The only comfort I can take, is that America’s not alone.

    The Middle East is full of armed relgious crazies, and Europe is full of Austerians who love to inflict and spread cruelty, and Russia is full of Oligarchs, who are raping their country of natural resources.

    The whole f*cking world is on its thrid martini – back in the day, when I was a bartender, I always used to tell people, “Having one martini is to unwind, having two martini’s is to unravel, and having three martinin’s is to unhinge.”
    We are all coming unhinged.
    Contentions over religion, politics, news, sex, entertainment, sports, etc., they’re ALL proving to me that we are all coming unhinged.
    This whole f*cking crazy world.
    It’s like we revel in our differences, and want to kill one another over them – instead of marveling in our similarities, and treasuring those things.

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