50 Ways To Leave Your TV

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”

Originally uploaded by Jiya101

 

 Kelsey B has very kindly agreed to let me
post his excellent song, sung to the tune of
“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon.

 

50 Ways To Leave Your TV

The problem is all inside your head
She said to me
The answer is easy if you
Take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle
To be free
There must be fifty ways
To leave your TV
She said it’s really not my habit
To intrude
Furthermore, I hope you’ll learn
There’s nothing worthy on the tube
But I’ll repeat myself
At the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways
To leave your TV
Fifty ways to leave your TV

CHORUS:
You just hop on your bike, Mike
Pull out the plug, Bub
Time to get ready Betty
To do something else
Go to the park, Mark
You don’t need to discuss much
Just turn off the switch, Mitch
And get yourself free

 

Television Rule # 2

TV Rule # 2

 

Cussing vs violence

Here is a letter-to-the-editor that I quite liked.
San Francisco Chronicle, May 7th, 2009

Cussing vs. violence

Are we @#$%*! kidding? The Supreme Court rules that the government can threaten broadcasters with fines over a single swear word on TV? I rarely watch TV, and on the occasion I’ve turned it on, I am appalled and offended by the content. It seems every show has someone with a gun or knife or is being terrorized, threatened, beat up or shot. This is entertainment? Not to mention the video games that offer, in a recent review, “brutal, up-close and personal contact.” Now little Bobby can spend a couple of hours in his room tallying up how many guys he killed.

What’s going on here? I’d rather hear someone swear than to subject myself to all the violent garbage put out by the entertainment industry.

MARY JO THORESEN

Berkeley

Post Turn-off Week – May 2009

Playing hopscotch on the beach

Originally uploaded by annulla

Every year when Turn-off Week rolls around, my tvSmarter.com pageviews go way up. This year especially, the pageviews were double and even triple what they normally are. And since most of my pageviews are the result of internet searches, I think this is evidence that Turn-off Week does indeed succeed at increasing awareness of the harmful effects of too much TV (and other screentime).

Congratulation to Screentime and all the participants for another great Turn-off Week !

Congratulation also to Sarah of Unplug-Your Kids for her excellent Turn-off Week Blog Challenge.

Sarah recaps here (with quotes and links to plenty of very entertaining stories):

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/04/27/so-how-did-it-go/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/06/and-the-winner-is-3/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/06/another-non-bloggers-story-jeanna-from-new-zealand/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/03/baking-soda-boats/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/02/a-non-blogger-report/

Regarding Sarah’s turn-off week, she made this encouraging observation:

ENCOURAGING NOTE:  One thing I have observed with my children which might be encouraging to other parents, is that once they get over the first hump of reading fluency, they seem to have much less interest in videos and spend a great deal of their non-play time reading.

This was certainly true with my 8 year-old daughter when she became comfortable with independent reading, but she was never a huge video watcher to begin with.

It was far more remarkable with my 6 year-old son.  He was always the one who would have been Mr. TV had I allowed it.  In the past few months he has suddenly taken off with his reading and is rarely found without a chapter book in his hand.  He honestly seems to have forgotten that the TV ever existed.  My husband and I are absolutely astonished!