Sesame Street :Knickers in a Twist was aired this morning at my area's local National Public Radio (NPR) station.
Here is an audio link for anyone who would like to here my western New York accent:
wbfo NewsRoom
This commentary is copyrighted so please do not copy and distribute.
Thanks!
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
#36 - Television: The Other Side of the Coin
I love Sesame Street, and I am not ready to give up the family television quite yet...
but, TV Turnoff Week is coming soon: April 24 - 30, 2006. (Welcome to TV Turnoff Network)
That is certainly food for thought.
In the meantime, in all fairness to the folks who are working hard for humankind to regain control over the technology slumping into our homes... here is an interesting article printed in full with the author's permission:
A LOOK AT HOW THEY DO IT
By Steve Wagner, LMNOP
(Lake Merrit Neighbors Organized for Peace)
The Society for the Eradication of Television was started by Mary Dixon and some friends in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1980. Following several all-night discussions about media, especially television, and the bad effect that it usually seems to have, they printed a simple membership card that read: I do not have a working television in my home and I encourage others to do likewise. The befuddled and sometimes hostile response from the people they gave these to (who seemed to be just regular folks otherwise) reinforced their worst fears about what television was doing to people.
One thing led to another, and soon S.E.T. was holding meetings and publishing a newsletter. Anarchistic from the get, S.E.T. members started to spread the word in many other ways as well. Ester Erford sent a response to Dear Abby when Abby gave a tepid response to a woman who had written that her husband had stopped even acknowledging her presence once they bought a television. Esther asked Abby why she hadn't suggested booting the boob tube -- a perfectly reasonable question, it would seem. Abby printed Esther's letter, and then a blistering response, in part calling S.E.T. unamerican. Ellen Trabilcy and I coordinated a Radio Bridge dialogue about television between Americans and people in the Soviet Union on Radio Moscow. Radio Moscow and the Voice of America were at that time heard by more people worldwide than any other stations anywhere. Pat Brown did interviews on both the Voice of America and Radio Australia. In short, S.E.T. members were innovative in getting the message out in both big and little ways. After the Dear Abby column, followed by a second Dear Abby column given over totally to rabid attacks on S.E.T., and then the radio interviews, S.E.T. was suddenly flooded with requests for information from all corners of the world.
Now, many years later, the Society for the Eradication of Television is even more timely than it was when it first started in 1980: The number of non-television households is still right around 2%, the number of televisions manufactured is almost identical to the birthrate, and the media masters who own television still try to dictate what we think, what we think about, and when we think about it.
The most important thing we've learned So far as children are concerned Is never, never, never let Them near your television set - Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. . . They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotized by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. . . 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: They used to read. They'd read and read and read and read and then proceed To read some more. -Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. A couple of years back Mary Dixon wrote a brief guide called Start a S.E.T. Chapter in Your Locality: Not hard to do, which outlined several activities step by step. The steps, which apply to organizing around this or almost any other issue, are these:
Decide on an easy-to-find, easy-to-get-to meeting place. Maybe a coffee house where everybody can order what they want and no responsibilities are put on a host or hostess;
Publicize this as best you can. Some papers allow social issue groups to put in a classified ad for free. Consider getting yourself interviewed as a non-watcher of television and include the organizational announcement in the article. Distribute flyers in places like laundromats and libraries. Other newsletters might announce your meeting;
Show up at the announced event. Feel optimistic and positive no matter what happens. If no one shows, enjoy your cuppa and consider what kind of rumblings just your ads and flyers caused. If one other person shows up, the two of you can have a good talk and cook up plans. If more, enjoy each other's company and establish a regular time and place to meet;
Keep organizational matters to a minimum. Concentrate on the purpose of the group. Just talking about the media, reinforcing each other, gives you strength when dealing with others. Other projects are as varied as your imagination:
Speaking to other groups
Making and displaying posters
Entering the Xmas parade as a unit
Setting up a booth at a local fair
Protesting an offensive media event
Starting a small library concerning media and television
Working up a comedy routine for a coffee house "open mike" evening
Designing quick radio spots and trying to get radio stations to run them as Public Service Announcements, etc.;
Enjoy the process. Since we have nothing to lose, we can be outrageous. Almost any publicity is better than none at all;
Put out a newsletter. Ideas in print seem to carry more weight.
Encourage others to find articles and cartoons. Encourage also the writing of articles and submitting of graphics. A newsletter does carry clout, allows people to mull over ideas, gets passed around, and helps to publicize both your ideas and your group.
I hope this brief history of S.E.T. is of interest. More important, I hope it is of use to Match! readers, and that they will soon create two, three, many chapters of the Society for the Eradication of Television.
Permission to post, reprint, forward, or otherwise distribute A Look at How They Do It is hereby granted.
To contact the Society for the Eradication of Television, write to
Society for the Eradication of Television
Box 10491
Oakland, CA 94610-0491
or e-mail set dot info at webwm dot com
To contact The Match!, write to
The Match!
Box 3012
Tucson, Arizona 85702
Society for the Eradication of Television
but, TV Turnoff Week is coming soon: April 24 - 30, 2006. (Welcome to TV Turnoff Network)
That is certainly food for thought.
In the meantime, in all fairness to the folks who are working hard for humankind to regain control over the technology slumping into our homes... here is an interesting article printed in full with the author's permission:
A LOOK AT HOW THEY DO IT
By Steve Wagner, LMNOP
(Lake Merrit Neighbors Organized for Peace)
The Society for the Eradication of Television was started by Mary Dixon and some friends in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1980. Following several all-night discussions about media, especially television, and the bad effect that it usually seems to have, they printed a simple membership card that read: I do not have a working television in my home and I encourage others to do likewise. The befuddled and sometimes hostile response from the people they gave these to (who seemed to be just regular folks otherwise) reinforced their worst fears about what television was doing to people.
One thing led to another, and soon S.E.T. was holding meetings and publishing a newsletter. Anarchistic from the get, S.E.T. members started to spread the word in many other ways as well. Ester Erford sent a response to Dear Abby when Abby gave a tepid response to a woman who had written that her husband had stopped even acknowledging her presence once they bought a television. Esther asked Abby why she hadn't suggested booting the boob tube -- a perfectly reasonable question, it would seem. Abby printed Esther's letter, and then a blistering response, in part calling S.E.T. unamerican. Ellen Trabilcy and I coordinated a Radio Bridge dialogue about television between Americans and people in the Soviet Union on Radio Moscow. Radio Moscow and the Voice of America were at that time heard by more people worldwide than any other stations anywhere. Pat Brown did interviews on both the Voice of America and Radio Australia. In short, S.E.T. members were innovative in getting the message out in both big and little ways. After the Dear Abby column, followed by a second Dear Abby column given over totally to rabid attacks on S.E.T., and then the radio interviews, S.E.T. was suddenly flooded with requests for information from all corners of the world.
Now, many years later, the Society for the Eradication of Television is even more timely than it was when it first started in 1980: The number of non-television households is still right around 2%, the number of televisions manufactured is almost identical to the birthrate, and the media masters who own television still try to dictate what we think, what we think about, and when we think about it.
The most important thing we've learned So far as children are concerned Is never, never, never let Them near your television set - Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. . . They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotized by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. . . 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: They used to read. They'd read and read and read and read and then proceed To read some more. -Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. A couple of years back Mary Dixon wrote a brief guide called Start a S.E.T. Chapter in Your Locality: Not hard to do, which outlined several activities step by step. The steps, which apply to organizing around this or almost any other issue, are these:
Decide on an easy-to-find, easy-to-get-to meeting place. Maybe a coffee house where everybody can order what they want and no responsibilities are put on a host or hostess;
Publicize this as best you can. Some papers allow social issue groups to put in a classified ad for free. Consider getting yourself interviewed as a non-watcher of television and include the organizational announcement in the article. Distribute flyers in places like laundromats and libraries. Other newsletters might announce your meeting;
Show up at the announced event. Feel optimistic and positive no matter what happens. If no one shows, enjoy your cuppa and consider what kind of rumblings just your ads and flyers caused. If one other person shows up, the two of you can have a good talk and cook up plans. If more, enjoy each other's company and establish a regular time and place to meet;
Keep organizational matters to a minimum. Concentrate on the purpose of the group. Just talking about the media, reinforcing each other, gives you strength when dealing with others. Other projects are as varied as your imagination:
Speaking to other groups
Making and displaying posters
Entering the Xmas parade as a unit
Setting up a booth at a local fair
Protesting an offensive media event
Starting a small library concerning media and television
Working up a comedy routine for a coffee house "open mike" evening
Designing quick radio spots and trying to get radio stations to run them as Public Service Announcements, etc.;
Enjoy the process. Since we have nothing to lose, we can be outrageous. Almost any publicity is better than none at all;
Put out a newsletter. Ideas in print seem to carry more weight.
Encourage others to find articles and cartoons. Encourage also the writing of articles and submitting of graphics. A newsletter does carry clout, allows people to mull over ideas, gets passed around, and helps to publicize both your ideas and your group.
I hope this brief history of S.E.T. is of interest. More important, I hope it is of use to Match! readers, and that they will soon create two, three, many chapters of the Society for the Eradication of Television.
Permission to post, reprint, forward, or otherwise distribute A Look at How They Do It is hereby granted.
To contact the Society for the Eradication of Television, write to
Society for the Eradication of Television
Box 10491
Oakland, CA 94610-0491
or e-mail set dot info at webwm dot com
To contact The Match!, write to
The Match!
Box 3012
Tucson, Arizona 85702
Society for the Eradication of Television
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
#35 - Sesame Street - Knickers in a Twist
Sesame Street is releasing a series of videos designed for children under the age of two.
The American Academy of Pediatrics have their knickers in a twist over this one. Children under the age of two don't need television.
I happen to agree with that, but...
The reality is that some parents...
oh heck, let's admit this...
MANY parents plop their kids in front of the television.
I would rather have the next generation plopped in front of Sesame Street than the other junk floating about in the great unwashed masses of television shows available.
I think back to when my little guy was two.
He would not utter one word... not a peep.
My sister told me to let him watch television.
My overly educated self went into hysterics... briefly.
Television!!
Oh no!!
I will ruin my child for life!!
But, I was desperate... and Little Bear was allowed to watch Teletubbies.
I hated Teletubbies, but the programming appealed to my ever silent toddler.
He started cooing and talking back to the baby floating in the sunshine. He mimcked the early language used by Dipsy, Tinky-Winky, Lala and Po.
Lo and behold... our son eventually turned into a chatterbox.
Frank McCourt eloquently explains in his book 'TIS, that these television shows are the mythology of our childhood.
I learned classical music through Bugs Bunny which has led to an almost four decades long love affair with the piano.
I learned how to find happiness in growing up in a large family of six kids by tuning in every week to The Brady Bunch. Those kids were happy, and kind... I learned to dream that for my family.
I made bag puppets and hid behind card tables enetertaining myself and anyone in my vicinity for hours while imitating Jim Henson's muppets from Sesame Street. As a teacher and then counselor... I continued to use hand puppets to educate and heal.
I met Gene Kelly through Tom and Jerry and took up dancing in front of a mirror until I eventually got the chance to dance on a stage in front of an audience.
The television provides the storyline to our childhood.
The fairy tales, the myths that are so desperately needed to help our young minds form meaning out of this huge big world.
And after teaching and counseling over one thousand kids in my career... quite frankly, some children would do a far bit better plopped in front of Sesame Street and absorbing that mythology than the horrors that await them in their real world.
My son started with "The Count" on Sesame Street (numbers are still his passion), and now has a very rich imganitive play life full of the storylines of SpongeBob Squarepants and The Fairly OddParents.
I hope he grows up as quirky as we, his parents did. Delving from the humor of his childhood.
Should we plop our kids in front of television?
No.
But, the American Academy of Pediatrics needs a reality check.
People are gong to use the television.
Ninety-eight percent of us in the U.S. have at least one television in our home.
Try working a bit harder on helping parents to find the energy in their lives to be more active in their parenting roles. Look at healing society's ills that cause exhausted and desperate parents to turn to the television as babysitter.
Stop tromping around on an organization that is trying to make the best out of what is already there... and put the money and effort in fixing the root of the problem... because folks, it's not Sesame Street that is going to create a generation of vacuous drooling t.v. watchers.
© Copyright 2006, WBFO
RESOURCES:
1) AOL News: entertainment tv articles - Sesame Street Videos Spark Controversy
2) American Academy of Pediatrics Web Site
3) PBS Kids: Sesame Street
4) relationships : electronic babysitters
The American Academy of Pediatrics have their knickers in a twist over this one. Children under the age of two don't need television.
I happen to agree with that, but...
The reality is that some parents...
oh heck, let's admit this...
MANY parents plop their kids in front of the television.
I would rather have the next generation plopped in front of Sesame Street than the other junk floating about in the great unwashed masses of television shows available.
I think back to when my little guy was two.
He would not utter one word... not a peep.
My sister told me to let him watch television.
My overly educated self went into hysterics... briefly.
Television!!
Oh no!!
I will ruin my child for life!!
But, I was desperate... and Little Bear was allowed to watch Teletubbies.
I hated Teletubbies, but the programming appealed to my ever silent toddler.
He started cooing and talking back to the baby floating in the sunshine. He mimcked the early language used by Dipsy, Tinky-Winky, Lala and Po.
Lo and behold... our son eventually turned into a chatterbox.
Frank McCourt eloquently explains in his book 'TIS, that these television shows are the mythology of our childhood.
I learned classical music through Bugs Bunny which has led to an almost four decades long love affair with the piano.
I learned how to find happiness in growing up in a large family of six kids by tuning in every week to The Brady Bunch. Those kids were happy, and kind... I learned to dream that for my family.
I made bag puppets and hid behind card tables enetertaining myself and anyone in my vicinity for hours while imitating Jim Henson's muppets from Sesame Street. As a teacher and then counselor... I continued to use hand puppets to educate and heal.
I met Gene Kelly through Tom and Jerry and took up dancing in front of a mirror until I eventually got the chance to dance on a stage in front of an audience.
The television provides the storyline to our childhood.
The fairy tales, the myths that are so desperately needed to help our young minds form meaning out of this huge big world.
And after teaching and counseling over one thousand kids in my career... quite frankly, some children would do a far bit better plopped in front of Sesame Street and absorbing that mythology than the horrors that await them in their real world.
My son started with "The Count" on Sesame Street (numbers are still his passion), and now has a very rich imganitive play life full of the storylines of SpongeBob Squarepants and The Fairly OddParents.
I hope he grows up as quirky as we, his parents did. Delving from the humor of his childhood.
Should we plop our kids in front of television?
No.
But, the American Academy of Pediatrics needs a reality check.
People are gong to use the television.
Ninety-eight percent of us in the U.S. have at least one television in our home.
Try working a bit harder on helping parents to find the energy in their lives to be more active in their parenting roles. Look at healing society's ills that cause exhausted and desperate parents to turn to the television as babysitter.
Stop tromping around on an organization that is trying to make the best out of what is already there... and put the money and effort in fixing the root of the problem... because folks, it's not Sesame Street that is going to create a generation of vacuous drooling t.v. watchers.
© Copyright 2006, WBFO
RESOURCES:
1) AOL News: entertainment tv articles - Sesame Street Videos Spark Controversy
2) American Academy of Pediatrics Web Site
3) PBS Kids: Sesame Street
4) relationships : electronic babysitters
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