It's a pet peeve of mine -- this asinine notion that people need to have television blaring absolutely everywhere we go. Airports, restaurants, convenience stores, nursing home rooms, coffee shops, and waiting rooms of any and every kind. For crying out loud, the other day I was putting gas in the car and had to try and block out the TV playing in the SUV on my left side as well as the TV encased inside the gas pump itself on my right!Will someone please turn off the incessant noise!
Of course, the ubiquitous presence of TV says volumes about American culture -- and none of it is good. Are we really so lonely, so bored, so mindless that we need our TV "friends" talking to us constantly? Why can't we listen to the natural sounds of life once in awhile or, more radical still, enjoy some peace and quiet? Why does the TV need to insistently intrude on our conversations, distract us from our own thoughts, render nearly impossible the serenity necessary for effective meditation or prayer?
The headache produced by inescapable TV is even more exasperating when the programs one is forced to listen to come from CNN. Far from being "the most trusted name in news" anymore, CNN has become so unprofessional, so far to the left, and so arrogant that the American people are turning it off in droves. Indeed, the halcyon days are over for the network; CNN now dwells in the damp, dismal shadows of the rating root-cellar.
CNN is getting it's lunch eaten by Fox News every day, every night. In fact, CNN isn't even in the top 30 cable stations anymore and is dead last among cable news outlets! Like Ted Turner himself, CNN is a woeful has-been.
So why does CNN remain the TV broadcast of choice for the airline terminals, the coffee shop and, for that matter, my eye doctor? Habit? Ignorance? A deliberate preference for a liberal spin of the issues?
Whichever of these answers it is, you and I can do something about it by courteously registering our complaint to the powers that be. There's more information on why and how to do this in this post (including a link which features a sample letter to airport managers). But the process of protest can be as simple as a note, a phone call or a polite comment to whoever is working the desk, "You know, I certainly would prefer the waiting room to be a quiet one, one without the discourteous intrusion of a TV. But, sakes alive, if the TV has to be on -- couldn't you at least get it off CNN?"
What d'ya say? Let's start a whisper campaign to at least get CNN out of our lives.
Then perhaps, we can start on ridding ourselves of the omnipresence of TV itself.
