Cosmoline

My favorite are these Lexus commercials that feature the two preening and quipping housewives who each think the Lexus with a bow on it is for them. What a hellish, shallow existence.

It's a lot of fun to ride around the rich neighborhoods on summer weekends and see how many aging men are out in their driveways polishing and re-polishing the fetish instrument on four wheels.

kf5nd

The ignore list is a wonderful thing for I-Like-To-Spew

I-Like-To-Bike

Yeah, almost as shallow (and intelligent) as observing strangers and making up a story line about them to fit your own prejudice.

I-Like-To-Bike

What's a matta? You don't like anyone shooting down goofy speculation and strawman arguments? Don't like to think sacred cows aren't sacred; even worse subjected to goring by by skepticism?
Well then, you should take a fellow poster's advice; ignore criticism (justified or not) and continue to babble on with an unvarnished (by reality) version of the truth.

dynodonn 

My one pet peeve about forums in the ignore button, I do not activate it on anyone. My second dislike is private messaging, it's great if used to convey personal information, such as email addresses and phone numbers, etc., but most times it's used to "clique" someone out.(pun intended)
Here's my take on such users:




We'll return to our regularly scheduled program after a word from our sponsor.

I-Like-To-Bike

They must be pretty intelligent fellows since they don't watch much TV. Not watching TV and being under the undue sway of commercials would also explain why chimps don't buy or drive cars.

Roody

Most chimps that I know are too busy posting on internet forums to drive their cars.

But I have heard that they are mounting keyboards on dashboards so you can now drive and post at the same time. Civilization marches on. . . . .

Artkansas 

Well, I will agree that the fellow in the center doesn't watch much TV. But the other two might. After all, Cheetah, the film star, now retired and living in Palm Springs appears to enjoy TV. I read it in articles and when I lived there, friends who knew him and his human companion confirmed it.

But we have to admit that few commercials are aimed at Chimpanzees. Probably because the number of Chimps actually watching TV is pretty low.

Though I have seen a chimpanzee driving an Austin Healey. He lived down in Florida. Shortly after I saw him he was busted by the cops while driving down Highway 41. His person was asleep in the passenger's seat. After that Florida passed a law specifically forbidding animals from driving on public highways.

Chris L

Yes, you're good at that, aren't you.

gwd

Guess is the wrong word. It isn't a matter of watching is easy, according to neuroscientists watcing TV is bad for your brain. Maybe people who don't watch aren't naturally smarter than TV people, its just that their cognitive abilities aren't degraded by the TV watching. I don't think the TV apologists posting in this thread know what they're talking about when they accuse these TV critics of making up stories about strangers. Check out these articles:

The main article and the abstract:

Wang, J Y.J. MD, PhD; Zhou, D H.D. MD, PhD; Li, J MD; Zhang, M MD; Deng, J MD; Tang, M MD; Gao, C MD; Li, J MD; Lian, Y BSc; Chen, M MD
Institution From the Department of Neurology, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Title Leisure activity and risk of cognitive impairment: The Chongqing aging study.[Miscellaneous]
Source Neurology. 66(6):911-913, March 28, 2006.

The authors followed 5,437 people aged 55 years and older with normal
baseline Mini-Mental State Examination score annually for 5 years. The mean
incidence of cognitive impairment was 2.3% per year. Cognitive activities in
both the individual item (playing board games and reading) and the composite
measure were associated with the reduced risk of cognitive impairment,
while watching television was associated with an increased risk of cognitive
impairment.

Some quotes from an editorial in the same issue:

Rundek, Tatjana MD; Bennett, David A. MD

Institution From the Division of Stroke and Critical Care (T.R.),
Department of Neurology, Columbia University in the City of New York, NY;
and Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center (D.A.B.), Rush University Medical Center,
Chicago, IL.
Title Cognitive leisure activities, but not watching TV, for future brain
benefits.[Editorial]
Source Neurology. 66(6):794-795, March 28, 2006.

"Interestingly, watching television was associated with approximately a 20%
increased risk of developing cognitive impairment. "

"...it seems prudent to encourage persons of all ages, not just older persons,
to engage in an active lifestyle that includes frequent participation in a
wide range of cognitively, physically, and socially challenging activities,
but to turn the TV off."

A meta analysis letter accusing the editorial writers of being too pessimistic
about the benefits of turning the TV off and engaging in reading or other
mentally stimulating activities:

Valenzuela, Michael J.; Sachdev, Perminder
Institution Sydney, Australia
Title Cognitive leisure activities, but not watching TV, for future brain
benefits.[Letter]
Source Neurology. 67(4):729, August 22, 2006.

"...they are unconvinced that such a trial would be conclusive since observed
benefits may be due to participation in activities over the entire lifetime,
entailing an intervention over many years and considerable resources.

Our recent systematic review of this field [4] suggests that their prediction
may be overly pessimistic."


So, TV apologists, can you cite peer reviewed studies that convincingly contradict these researchers results?

The problem we car free people have with the Car culture TV people is that we have to educate them and we're fighting the original poster's observation they TV people are saturated with false ideas about cars and they are apparently cognitively impaired by their TV watching.

jamesdenver

I watch TV. I like Lost, Prison Break, and CSI. Actually I get a lot of TV shows on Netflix (like Arrested Development). But one thing I'm adamament about in my house is controlling the noise and audio clutter that accompanies TV. In high school we had Channel 1, a barely passable 10 minute "news" show that was nothing more than promotions and advertising. My teacher despised it, and hit the MUTE button every time a commercial came on. For 12 years I've been doing that same thing. I enjoy certain shows, but when the commercials come on I instinctively mute the audio. What baffles me is families that have their TV on from the time they get home to the time they go to bed. They simply turn it one, and it becomes a noisy obnoxious stoned whiny person in the room yelling at them for six hours a night. Who the hell would tolerate that? It's one thing to gather together and watch Amazing Race, but to let the TV prattle on with screaming court TV shows and bombastic car commericals while overriding normal conversation definitely seems like a way to strain the brain.

So my take: Be SELECTIVE and CONTROLLING about TV

Roody

I like the commercials better than most of the shows. But I love Craig Ferguson.

gwd

It reads like you are saying that there is a mentally salubrious amount of TV watching that a person can achieve by selecting content. I gave up TV many years ago because of the poor content. Years after that when I picked up Jerry Mander's book, I dismissed some of his arguments. After reviewing some of the research, like in my previous post, I'm beginning to think the deleterious mental effects are due to the medium itself.

I notice among the people at work that the ones who talk about TV are also the ones who don't get car free . The ones who talk about ideas and books around the lunch table are also car free or talk to me about bike transportation in an intelligent manner. Maybe its just my workplace or my listening bias but it sure seems like car free accepting people don't watch or think much about TV shows. The bad thing is that TV people also vote and when they vote on urban planning issues they can vote for car dependance.

PS. I like the "My Commute" link on Jamesdenver's post. My city commute would look very different. I'd have to photograph it from the sidewalks and then the photos wouldn't capture the feeling of freedom you get when you ride in city traffic.

I-Like-To-Bike

What would the "good thing" be?

TuckertonRR

ILTB: you haven't responded to gwd's post regarding the Chinese doctors' study. Funny that. You curiously also haven't responded _intelligently_ to any posts in _quite_ a while.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the net effects of television watching, and car-driving.

I-Like-To-Bike

You haven't sent me the money you promised either. How quickly you forget.

jamesdenver

Thanks! I think I took most of the pics from the street, but I ride mostly on some nice long straight side streets.

My complaint with television in general isn't content, it's the intrusion factor. This article by columnist Froma Harrop I clipped last year says it much more succintly than I'm capable of.

gwd

Wow. That is right. I thought it was me. In 1999 I got in a bike accident and spent several hours in pain in an emergency room. I don't recall the main waiting area having a TV but I was with a friend. After X-ray they put me in a small space. A doctor came in and said that the policy was not to give pain medication until after X-ray so since the X-ray showed so much damage I got the "good stuff", an injection of demerol I think. Then the doctor pushed a TV in front of my face and I saw a show called "Jerry Springer" for the first time in my life. I was strapped on a table drugged up with this "Jerry Springer" show as my primary sensory input. Why is this standard emergency room procedure? Why did a doctor think that I needed to see and hear a lesbian dwarf rant about her ill treatment by a lover as part of my treatment for a broken clavical? This was more bizarre than what I recall from the novel "1984". I could close my eyes of course but couldn't turn the sound off. No, I couldn't close my eyes, the images were so weird, I was captivated. Physically I could have closed my eyes but the odd characters and their mannerisms coupled with the effects of the narcotic kept me glued to the tube. Doctors must be subjecting their patients to this scenario thousands of times per day. Why?

Artkansas