I love television. I was born before television was a common fixture. I remember evenings listening to the radio but when television came along... .

Over the years I have become a sophisticated and highly selective viewer. The list of programs I have not watched over the past thirty years would make your jaw drop. It all seemed trite and repetitive. From “Hill Street Blues” through “St. Elsewhere” to the current reality (?) shows to “American Idol”; never once have I watched and never once have I missed anything.

When cable came into being I tuned in to A&E a lot. There was always something interesting. No more! As ridiculous as commercial television has become, A&E has risen to even greater heights. They figured they could attract a large viewing audience by putting together an hour program about people getting a tattoo, a genre once reserved for drunken sailors on furlough in Okinawa. Week after week. How interesting and informative can that be? OR, how out of touch can I be?

Next up on A&E was a program about “Growing Up Gotti”. I have only seen the trailers and it looks as if it’s about some undisciplined smart-ass kids and a harangued mother, or would that be Godmother. If you have seen that program perhaps you could enlighten me. Are they talking about the John Gotti I have heard of? The mobster? The guy that finally died in prison after gunning down every person who double-crossed his path? That Gotti? Is the program all about growing up surrounded with all the luxuries and nonchalance blood money can buy? If so, am I the only person to find that disgusting?

Now comes another A&E trailer for more time well spent in the company of Ozzie Osbourne! Does anyone have an idea as to what’s going on at A&E? Do people really want to see such things? Makes me want to tell A&E to KISS off, so to speak. To borrow a phrase made popular by an NFL coach; “What the hell is going on over there”?

But the mind-boggling isn’t the sole property of A&E. Each evening you can tune into MSNBC and spend an hour inside this or that prison! Let’s gather the kids, pop some corn and settle in to an evening of life inside Soledad followed by Pelican Bay followed by Angola. Maybe one day the Prize Puzzle will be an all expenses paid week in San Quentin, hobnobbing with their elite. Geez, how much popcorn do we have?

For a little background information we can watch endless hours of documentaries explaining how the rapists, child molesters, thieves and murderers got there in the first place. Even further information can be gleaned by watching programs about how a bunch of cops nabbed the convicts with only a speck of paint as evidence.

What is this apparent infatuation with the dark side? More importantly, why? How far away are we, as a society, from televising executions? From the way things are going; not far. But television has a way of brining us back from the imagined life of a convict to the real world in which we live. The commercial.

Here’s one I particularly like. American Express shows us this man and his soon-to-be-wife buying an engagement ring. The saleslady has just informed Mr. Right that his credit card is over the limit. Mrs. Right has the solution. Get another credit card!! One with no limit! Mr. Right is already living a champagne life on a beer budget and Mrs. Right suggests spending more. What’s wrong with that picture, or is it just me?

Here’s another one. Eharmony flashes pictures of all these happy couples that met on their pay-for-play website. Their founder comes on and tells us how they explore the deepest realms of personalities. That’s followed by this guy who says that as soon as he and the woman standing next to him got into the cab she planted a big sloppy one on him. Is that romantic or what? He goes on to ask if he should limit his commercial time to talking about the sloppy kiss giver or about all the women he’s met on Eharmony. As a matter of fact, he is so taken with sloppy kiss giver that he forgot what he was searching for when he first signed up.

Next up a man who says that thanks to Eharmony he met a woman that will let him watch Monday night football. Damn that Eharmony goes deep. Pretty soon Eharmony will be sporting a man who found the woman of his dreams, i.e. one who will let him watch prison shows.

All of this rubbish on television gives me one major headache. It makes me want to take a giant glue stick and apply it directly to my forehead. As they say in cyberspace: ROFLMAO.

I’ve been in a deep funk these past few months. Maybe this has happened to you. I have had absolutely no desire to go near the computer. I think a lot about stuff to write about on this blog but never seem to muster enough desire to actually do it.

When I started I wrote about the inconsistencies of the patriarch of Faux News, comedian Bill O’Reilly. I tried my best to keep up but the absurdity became overwhelming. I found myself asking some deep philosophical questions. Does anyone really buy into that crap? Are there people who actually form their opinions based on what he opines? Are there people who actually wear a no-spin T-shirt? In public? Are there people that believe no-spin means no-spin?

I read a blog post today that touched on global warming and it opened up another can of worms for me. It was the blood-curdling notion that there may be those who form their entire view of the world based solely upon what they hear and see on Faux News. How scary is that? The last thing you will ever hear on Faux news is anything about global warming.

The person who wrote the blog will, in all likelihood, read this posting as well. Let me make it clear that the person is not in lockstep with Faux News. The writer gets his points of view from many sources. It just happens that his post got me to thinking.

So who are the players in that conservative Stinktank? Well there’s their leader, Billy, followed by an endless parade all marching trunk-to-tail and chanting mantras to the likes of Rupert Murdoch. There’s Neil Cavuto, a shameless money grabber who spends most of his time as an apologist for the administration and their oily robber barons. The peanut parade continues with illuminaries such as Ollie North, Robert Novak and Newt Gingrich. All of these notorious for playing loose and easy with the truth.

Faux loves Ollie so much they gave him his own show, War Stories. Hey, Ollie, how about doing an hour on the Iran-Contra business? The title could be “Gunrunners: The astonishing coincidence of the hostages being released at the very moment Ronald Reagan was sworn in. Geez, we had no idea they hated Jimmy Carter so much”

How about an hour on the comings and goings of Mr. Novak? Let’s see...hmmm...how about this for a title: “Robert Novak: When I said that what I meant was that this is what I meant to say because if I said that it would have been construed as saying this which isn’t what I said when I was talking about this, or that, or whatever. Just buy my book.”

Follow that with an hour on Newt. That’s an easy title. “Mr. Speaker: Sweaty palms to greasy palms. What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

You people that ingest Faux consider this. Bill O’Reilly talks like he hates sex offenders but settled out of court in a sexual harassment suit of his own. Bill O’Reilly accuses others of hiding under their desks while, during the conscription years, he hid under his. Bill sings the praises of the troops and their being heros but when it was his time he didn’t want to BE a troop. He didn’t want to BE a hero. How hypocritical is that?

Back in the day there was a Woody Guthrie song about phonies like O’Reilly and here’s how it went. (CORRECTION: A fellow blogger "Fuzzy" has been kind enough to point out the name of the tune below. It is "Draft Dodger Rag" by Phil Ochs. I appreciate the accuracy)

“I’m just a regular American guy from a regular American town.
I believe in God and Senator Dodd and putting ol’ Castro down.
But when it came my time to serve I thought better red than dead.
So when I got down to the draft board, here’s what I said.

Sarge, I’m only 18, I got a ruptured spleen and I always carry a purse.
I got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat and my asthma's getting worse.
Think of my career and my sweetheart dear and my poor old invalid aunt.
Besides I ain’t no fool, I’m going to school and I’m working in a defense plant.

I hate Chow En Lai, I think he ought to die but Sarge you got to see.
Someone’s got to go over there and that someone sure ain’t me.
So I wish you well, Sarge, give ‘em hell, kill me a thousand or so.
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore, well I’ll be the first to go.”

Time now for the most ridiculous item of the day: the above sentiments also apply to Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, the majority of Congress and 95% of the saber rattling talking heads Faux selects to spoon feed you.