From Neatorama:
Living Without TVs
“Can you live without television? It may seem strange, but there are Ameircans who abstain from watching TV by choice.
A new research by Marina Krcmar, professor of communications at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University revealed that the majority of them are either very liberal or very conservative.”
(snip)
“In contrast to the average American adult, who watches three hours of television a day, non-watchers fill their time with a plethora of activities.
“Non-viewers had a greater variety of things that they did with their free time than viewers did,” Krcmar said. “It’s not just that they were reading instead of watching TV. They were hiking and biking, and going to community meetings and visiting with friends. Overall, they tend to do more of everything.”"
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This year marks the 10th year I haven’t owned a TV. I can’t imagine going back. It’s true I have more time and that I have a “plethora of activities”. Actually I’m quite busy and don’t see how I could own a TV-I wouldn’t have time to watch it.
I find it interesting that people without TV tend to be either very liberal or very conservative. Anyone who reads my blog knows I fall on the very liberal side. As different as our politics may be I have several things in common with conservative folks; the most common is our extreme dislike of television. Other shared beliefs include a healthy distrust of the government and a love of guns.
One time in a gun store Mr. Radical and I chatted with a man who voted for Bush twice. We of course disagreed on Bush and the Iraq war but our shared love of firearms kept the conversation fun.
But back to TV. I recently came across the following article from Democracy Underground:
Who owns CNN? MSNBC? ABC? Look who their biggest donations went to…
“Who owns CNN? or MSNBC? ABC? So ya think we have a “free press” eh? Check out who owns who, and who owns what you think…….
GENERAL ELECTRIC –(donated 1.1 million to GW Bush for his 2000 election campaign)
Television Holdings:
* NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households.
* NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise.
* CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%).
The “MS” in MSNBC
means microsoft
The same Microsoft that donated 2.4 million to get GW bush elected.
Other Holdings:
* GE Consumer Electronics.
* GE Power Systems: produces turbines for nuclear reactors and power plants.
* GE Plastics: produces military hardware and nuclear power equipment.
* GE Transportation Systems: runs diesel and electric trains.”
The post lists more companies, their campaign contributions and what media they own. Sometimes I think the presidential election has already been decided; it just hasn’t been announced to the public yet. Mind you I’ll still be voting in November but I’m cynical.
Posted by Vixen as News at 10:26 PM CDT