Normally, I watch very little TV, but I watched the Lakers-Kings series on NBC and I would rather watch 1000 commercials than listen to Bill Walton.  For the most part, I like the "True" Budweiser ads. The real vast wastelands are the Movie industry and popular music, talk about tripe!  Yikes!  That is where you really learn something abou the culture we are going to have in the future. I learned something else yesterday about our culture.  Not being a parent, I was not familiar with the absolute LUNATIC parents involved in kids' sportts.  I listened to friends telling me about parents acting in ways that would shame Billy Martin.  Apparently, these are not isolated incidents.  Kids are fucked!   Jeffrey Fisher <jfisher@igc.org> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">commercials are the best, actually. love 'em, even when they are horrible, offensive, or just plain dull. they're often amazing little snippets of what corporate america thinks (rightly or wrongly) about consumer america. and a lot of ads are really good, for that matter, 15-30 second mini-shows. perfect for my generation's attention-deprived approach to life. :-) j On Wednesday, June 5, 2002, at 05:05 PM, eric dorkin wrote: > Heck, all it takes are the commercials for other tv shows: > Bacherloettes in Alaska, The Hamptons, The Bachelor, Blind Date; Fear > Factor; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera........then you have regular > commercials and the best (read: worst) of the bunch are the ones from > the new liquor "beverages."  Oh, then flip to professional wrestling > for oh, I don;t know, 30 secs....The t! ru! th is those of you not watching > are probably not far off in your "guesses" as to what is on.  I do > think you are missing some great stuff, most notably The Simpsons and > Six Feet Under, and occasionally Comedy Central. > >   Jeffrey Fisher <JFISHER@IGC.ORG>wrote: > > i swear, sometimes i think the two of you should just play a poker game > and settle this once and for all . . . > > On Wednesday, June 5, 2002, at 04:42 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > > > > > > > > First, we not only have a TV, we have a satellite service. But I still > > say you've gone over the edge. > > > > O.K. -- you don't have to watch every dumb sit-com. How many _do_ you > > have to watch? How many soaps? How many cop shows? How many hours of > ads > > perday? What proportion of different products. Do you have to watch at > > least one! s! nack ad (e.g. pringles) a week, or one a day? Or do you > have > > to watch only 3 ads for 3 different snack products a year? > > > > How about magazines? Glamour etc. How many of them? People etc. How > many > > of them? > > > > How from your x hours of TV watching to you determine the ! meaning > of all > > that you've watched? > > > > > > You simply cannot say "One needs to experience X category of > activities > > to understand American culture." That way insanity lies. > > ok, this is what's called "reductio ad absurdum." it's reminding me of a > fight i had in ethics class as a SOPHOMORE in college, where i was > saying that in order to be responsible citizens, people need to do more > than watch peter jennings or dan rather every night. the response from > my frosh and sophomore classmates was, "what? you wa! nt! us all to, what, > read the NYT every day? the sunday nyt is *this thick*! what, are you > nuts? [implicit: you hyperintellectual elitist!]" nevermind that plenty > of people find time to read the nyt (or even better papers ;-) on a more > or less regular basis. the point is that they respond to the point by > simply pushing it to an illogical extreme and responding to *that* > instead of dealing with t! he actual issue. > > i would expect a more mature response to this dilemma than to throw the > whole thing in the wastebasket by performing a terry-eagleton-esque > reduction of your opponent to a straw man. > > > > >> Besides, it doesn't all suck. > > > > Oh, you mean one need only view the superior productions to understand > > american culture. The culture of those who watch or produce the tve > that > > sucks doesn't count??? > > ! &g! t; > do you always read what people say in the worst way it's possible to > read it? why can't watching television you enjoy in part because you > enjoy it co-exist with watching television (that you may or may not > enjoy) in order to glean something of what's happening in pop culture > from it? > > jesus frickin' christ, > > j > > > > > Do You Yahoo!? > Sign-up for Video Highlights of 2002 FIFA World Cup </BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do You Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/welcome/*http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en/spl">Sign-up for Video Highlights</a> of 2002 FIFA World Cup