Don't Take This The Wrong Way, or No Offense

This weekend has mostly been spent in penance.

I'll be the first to agree that non-activity of the mind and body can, if used wisely and intermittently, recharge the soul.

Friday was a long day. In preparation for our organization's event, I was at the office until 11 pm. Since I enjoy what I do, it didn't seem that long. In fact, I left with quite a bit of energy and vigor. Until I sat on the couch - then I was lights out in about twenty minutes.

I got up at 7 and looked forward to a lazy day around the house with no chores, no commitments, and no promises to keep. I ended up where I started the night before -asleep on the couch. I didn't get moving until about 9:30. At which point I realized that there was nothing in the house to eat.

After going to the store and returning to make biscuits and gravy, I once again landed on the couch. I'm surprised that thing doesn't have a permanent impression of my butt on it by now.

Later in the afternoon, Melissa and I decided to venture out for a trip to the bookstore and a movie. Most of the movies I want to see are ones only played at the independent movie theatre; most of her movies are the big-budget blockbusters. We were able to agree on Good Night, And Good Luck.

The movie is open to many different interpretations. Depending on your point of view, it can be a movie about freedom of the press, unpopular political convictions, and what happens when a nation becomes so passively insolent that both are threatened; or it could just as easily be about an alcoholic Senator from Wisconsin and his battle with a chain-smoking news reporter. Either make for a good tale.

What gripped me, however, was a 1958 speech Murrow gave to the Radio and Television News Director Association and Foundation, recreated verbatim.

I'm posting the url so you can read it for yourself. It's not for the faint of heart.

http://www.rtnda.org/resources/speeches/murrow.shtml

Since I've been stubbornly anti-tv lately, I was especially attentive to Murrow's warnings of the future of television and radio. It is frighteningly clairvoyant. Murrow looks into the future and warns of television's powerful potential to destroy instead of edify.

Murrow warns of two linked problems of media, but hones in on tv: corporate dominance of prime time programming and a quasi-criminal mistrust of tv executives to air intelligent and engaging programming.

The economic and political realities tv executives must face are daunting; decisions must be made daily that uphold bedrock principles of the Bill of Rights, convince corporate executives to invest in advertising, persuade viewers to put down the remote, and still tilt financial balance sheets to the black.

But lost somewhere in that recipe is programming that dedicates itself to education as much as it does to entertainment. Programming that stretches the mind as much as it tickles the funny bone. Unfortunately, there are too few shows that do both at the same time. Most shows make viewers choose between the didactic and the banal.

And herein lies the rub. I'll admit that my television viewing habits do not always reflect Murrow's bile-filled tirade.

I'll admit to certain programming habits that leave me no more, or perhaps even less, edified than before I started watching. But for each 30 minute interval of senseless tv, I try to follow it up with an hour of thought-provoking tv. If you were to have been at my house last night, you would caught me following up The Man Show with a look at the life and questionable circumstances of King Tut's death. the 1:2 ratio remained intact.

I'm not criticizing, judging, or preaching. I've just been needing to clear out my own mind lately; needing to round off the corners and look after my own best interest when it comes to what I do with my free time.

If I'm responsible for what comes out of my mouth, I'm responsible for what goes into my mind.