1578 Days Later
It was a short blog, the first entry I ever posted, and it was written on November 27th of 2008. It was an exciting blog, I mean just the mention of a la carte cable can send one into ecstasy. And then again maybe not. Well here, read for yourself.....
If only it were just a "vast wasteland!" Unfortunately, television sculpts and molds the American mind. We have become a society that learns from visual sources rather than the written word and we are at the mercy of the cable package. There is a bill in the Senate on giving us the right to choose our stations but its stated purpose is to lessen our cable bill and some say that it will not even do that. I don't care. I want to support only stations that have prefigured the effect on society into its programming. Boycotts cannot do the job. Give us a year of "a la carte" and some networks will respond. In my mind, this is not a minor thing. I can see a major improvement in how our society forms a consensus on many issues simply by weening itself from what television throws at us. If you agree with this please talk the issue up and contact your Representatives and Senators.
Well that was it! As I write this there is a lawsuit pending where Cablevision is suing Viacom over just this issue of bundled stations. The reasons for wanting to end the bundled package vary as do the prognostications on what would happen if consumers are indeed allowed to purchase only the stations that they want to watch. I do believe that if it would be as easy as calling up the cable company and telling them to cancel a particular station that millions would do just that. Over time these companies would realize that we are not a captive audience anymore, that their news people might just have to become real journalists once again. Given more time, and only the Lord can allow that-while we barely acknowledge Him let alone seek His mercies, and with a return to simple things like common sense, logic and truth and the American landscape might not be a killing field of the intellect anymore.
If only it were just a "vast wasteland!" Unfortunately, television sculpts and molds the American mind. We have become a society that learns from visual sources rather than the written word and we are at the mercy of the cable package. There is a bill in the Senate on giving us the right to choose our stations but its stated purpose is to lessen our cable bill and some say that it will not even do that. I don't care. I want to support only stations that have prefigured the effect on society into its programming. Boycotts cannot do the job. Give us a year of "a la carte" and some networks will respond. In my mind, this is not a minor thing. I can see a major improvement in how our society forms a consensus on many issues simply by weening itself from what television throws at us. If you agree with this please talk the issue up and contact your Representatives and Senators.
Well that was it! As I write this there is a lawsuit pending where Cablevision is suing Viacom over just this issue of bundled stations. The reasons for wanting to end the bundled package vary as do the prognostications on what would happen if consumers are indeed allowed to purchase only the stations that they want to watch. I do believe that if it would be as easy as calling up the cable company and telling them to cancel a particular station that millions would do just that. Over time these companies would realize that we are not a captive audience anymore, that their news people might just have to become real journalists once again. Given more time, and only the Lord can allow that-while we barely acknowledge Him let alone seek His mercies, and with a return to simple things like common sense, logic and truth and the American landscape might not be a killing field of the intellect anymore.
