I Don’t Want to Hear It

“Around 15 percent of U.S. households don’t have satellite or cable, and they tend to be poorer. Nielsen Co. said minority households were less likely to be prepared for Friday’s analog shutdown, as were households consisting of people under age 35.” (Yahoo Tech News)

Here’s the only story I want to hear:

“I have been in Brazil for the past three years, living along the banks of the Amazon River while working with language experts to prepare books in the dialect of two indigenous tribes. It has been a time without electricity, clean water, adequate food, or any of the ‘creature comforts’ we have come to expect in life. Living in grass enclosures at night, and spending every waking hour communicating in a couple of particularly difficult dialects, my life has been interesting, to say the least. Returning to my home here in America today, I was a little surprised that my TV was not working as I had expected.”

The changeover from analog to digital television broadcasting has been ‘heavily’ advertised for two years. Adapter boxes have been easily obtainable, and hooking them up is about as simple as anything electronic can be.

But I know as well as anything can be known that there will be a spate of TV watchers who will be taken by surprise. They will be calling the TV stations, the police, 911, the FCC, and the mayor, to see if we have been attacked by terrorists, or if TV transmission has been blocked by Congress, or the weather, or too many fire ants in the back yard.

Perhaps you wonder why I would be concerned?  It’s because these same people are allowed to propagate, vote, and work in public places where I have to shop. I know it sounds mean (because it is mean), but hey, we’re losing our once great America to ignorance and apathy.