Making Light:  Open thread 23 ::: May 21, 2004, 05:56 PM

Randall P.:

  ...As a side note, thank God I live in Canada, because we have two
  children's networks without any commercials.  I don't know how much
  longer that will last, but I was down in the States for Christmas
  and could not find one kid's channel without evil commercials
  directed at kids.  I fear for the future generations in the States.

Didn't they just figure out that TV is bad for kids?  Maybe having ads
so distasteful you won't let your kids at the automatic babysitter
will save them from having it eat their brains.

Anyone with a better memory than mine can prove it by identifying the
story about a scientist who figured out that VHF broadcast frequencies
were causing cancer/making people stupid/[your disaster here] but
couldn't convince anyone to ban it.  He decided to fight it by
subverting the network programming departments to pump out dreck so
unwatchable that TV would be unprofitable.  I forget why his plan
failed--perhaps the stupidity effect worked too fast.

  Finally, a subject in which I'm an expert!  (I'm also an elementary
  school teacher).  Any questions about children's tv?  Please direct
  them to me.

Yeah!  So what about TV eating kids' brains?  Is that bunk?  Or is
there a cutoff age at which they become immune?  Or has it just all
been eaten?

I hope this doesn't all come out twice.  I tried to post once and it
vanished.