TV Train Wreck?

I noticed an interesting article that showed up in my inbox this morning.

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2007/july/0727_digital_tv1.shtml

This article claims that as of February 18, 2009 television sets that are not equipped to receive a digital signal will become useless pieces of furniture. That’s interesting. I already view TV sets as useless pieces of furniture.

The article goes on to describe the woes that the senators will feel when their constituents are no longer able to get meaningful communication out of their “idol.” I say, “Hoorah!” Maybe this will be the first step in watching the monster get a black eye. According to the article 61% of the American public is unaware this is going to happen. Count me among that percentage…until today.

My opinion is that nothing (with the possible exception of the government school system) has brought greater harm to Christian families than the infernal television set. This evil monster has stolen billions of hours of otherwise productive time from families. It has taught our children bad language and bad behaviour. Our sin nature teaches how to be evil well enough on its own without the “help” from a television set. The “wholesome” programs of the 1950’s and 1960’s (which were still very big time wasters) gave way to immodest, irreverent, God hating programs of the 1990’s though the 2000’s. I believe the 1970’s through the 1980’s witnessed the transition from the earlier programming to the lewd filth being spewed forth today.

We sold our big screen TV for $25 when we moved from Nashville in 2005. My only regret is that I wish I had done it sooner. My disdain for the TV set runs deep. It seems that no matter where you go these days, we are subjected to the immoral, immodest message that the TV set propagates. You can hardly dine in a restaurant without having one luring your glance toward it. I hate it because I watch it if it is there. It is a tantalizing drug. I find it impossible to deliberately look the other way. Most of the time in these restaurants, if you look the other way then you notice the one mounted on the “other” wall.

So, I sit back with a bit of satisfaction of considering that millions of Americans may be without a signal on February 19, 2009. If only it would just stay that way…sigh. Unfortunately, though, I’m sure that by the end of that week, the majority of these people will have charged whatever they need to on their credit cards to get their set working again. Or even worse…our legislators may give out vouchers for a “free upgrade.” After all, if the people had their media taken away they may actually start thinking for themselves. We wouldn’t want *that* to happen, would we?

As for me and my family, we won’t notice the transition to digital signal. A missing TV set doesn’t care whether digital or analog signals are traveling through the air.