Raw Sewage

[Speaking on why she doesn’t let "the one-eyed monster in her house"] "Having a sieve up on the roof collecting wild beams from everywhere does seem poetic, but the image that strikes me as more realistic is that of a faucet into the house that runs about 5 percent clear water and 95 percent raw sewage."
--Barbara Kingsolver


Except for the weather channel, I stopped watching television near about twenty years ago. It didn’t matter what you view–and hear–it numbs the mind and agitates the nerves. I found that I could not go to sleep for a few hours after tv. It took that long for my nerves to calm. Also, it was almost all pointless.

But my main reason for eliminating the "boob" tube from my life was that it was robbing my life. We have a limited amount of time in which to live, why give time to watching the imaginary life of others rather than spending that time living my own life? I quit because I didn’t have time/life to waste. I certainly would never watch it, or do anything just "to kill time."

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds of distance run. . ."

From what I read about the developments on tv over this past twenty years (confirmed by what I have seen in passing on the omnipresent and unavoidable screens) I can’t help but wonder why intelligent and responsible people not only allow raw sewage, much less pipe it into their homes, but also what kind of soap they use to wash the stuff off.

I’m with Kingsolver when she says, "To me, that ubiquitous cable looks an awful lot like the snake that batted its eyes at Eve." There are better things to do than be deceived and taken in my those eyes.