Sunday, September 23, 2012

Has TV really gotten worse?

Quantum Leap: A TV series about a man who travels in time.  The first season was in 1989.

Journeyman: A TV series about a man who travels in time.  First (and only) season was in 2007, and it's based in San Francisco.

Which is more family friendly?

I watched a couple of episodes of Quantum Leap because I liked Journeyman and I'd heard that Quantum Leap was similar.  I wasn't terribly impressed by the quality of the show.  But what surprised me the most was how un-family-friendly the show was.  Journeyman was something you could actually watch as a family.  The supporting actor in Quantum Leap has a sex addiction, and various episodes (I only watch a couple) feature a stripper, a female streaker, a professor who has sex with students, and...you get the idea.

Don't be under the false illusion that older TV is family friendly and newer TV isn't.  It's not true.

By the way, you can check out Journeyman on Hulu for free.  I'd say it's probably a PG.

Fair and Balanced

I had a client come in last week.  Our discussion got sidetracked a little bit and he told me he didn't like the newspaper in Idaho Falls.  I asked him why, and he told me it was because the paper wasn't at all balanced.

This is NOT a liberal paper.  This is Idaho Falls, after all.  And the city's biggest newspaper, operating in a town where almost everyone is a Republican, can't afford to be liberal.

And yet it was too liberal for his taste.  That's fine.  I accept that.  I realize people like reading stuff they agree with, even if it distorts one's view of reality to only read stuff one agrees with.  But how is "moderately conservative" not balanced enough because it's too liberal?

People here are so convinced that Romney will win the election by a landslide because they know very few people not voting for him.  Lack of political diversity has contributed to the creation of an environment where anyone who believes differently is heavily stigmatized. 

A non-LDS friend, now serving the military abroad, was recently invited to an LDS picnic.  He asked on Facebook if he should wear an Obama t-shirt.  In Cincinnati, friends of ours showed up to the annual trunk-or-treat in the church parking lot with a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker.  We had a tiny ward, but a handful of members there (including some in leadership positions) were openly Democrat.  Like in Cincinnati, I don't think my friend would've had any problems showing up to the picnic in the t-shirt (his wife ultimately talked him out of it).  Unfortunately, in my Idaho county, about 90% of registered voters are Republicans.  Showing up--anywhere--with an Obama t-shirt or bumper sticker is not advisable unless you want your car keyed or public shunning.  And so "balanced" now means "far-right," and "liberal" means evil, at least here.

I'm sure conservatives living in San Francisco have the same problem.

No good comes out of demonizing the other side.  Your political foe should not be your mortal enemy.