But this quote struck me:<br><br>[color:green]I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. </font color=green><br><br>And this one too:<br><br>[color:green]Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what [censored] will be peddled for truth on this network? </font color=green><br><br>The movie may have been made in 1976, but it seems pretty relevant to me in this day and age. Now if only I could rent Network from the iTMS<br><br>

Network is a great movie and in 1976 the world was going to hell in a hand basket just like today. But on the flip side violent crime peaked in 1976 and has been falling ever since. We hide in our houses now because we have non stop CNN mayhem which does make the TV a very powerful propaganda tool. We don't even realize that we live in the safest world with health unheard of in the past because to realize that somehow makes us weak. (We are that.)<br><br>A good idea is to stop watching it. Stop watching videos on the internet too. Don't click on Pat Condell or any other You Tube videos. Skip over them. Search for the text and read it. Books and the written word are the most powerful propganda tool but at least while you read your brain is somehow attached to the process and you don't find yourself in your barcalounger drooling.<br><br>I'm sitting in a Bruegger's bagle shop waiting for my car to be inspected and I would kill for a barcalounger right now.<br><br>[edit] Just dawned on me that you must have been reading the script and not watching it. Kudos to you. (But the movie is well worth watching, maybe a tad dated in parts.) "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by polymerase on 04/01/08 09:47 AM (server time).</EM></FONT></P>

Violent crime did peak in '76. That's because the baby-boomers were of violent-crime-committing age. But I take no solace in that-- as though times are somehow less vulgar than they were. Things seem pretty bleak to me nowadays.<br><br>And you're absolutely right about the printed word. But it's tough. One has to wonder what kind of long term affect commercial television (especially the way it is produced these days) has on one's consciousness:<br><br>Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! <br><br>Interruption. <br><br>Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!<br><br>After a lifetime of that sh!t, it's a wonder I can think at all for more than 15 minutes continuously. Books? Sheesh, what an effort!<br><br>They have medications for ADD, I guess. But it would be interesting to see how a person's mind would develop from childhood without the effects of contemporary media. I know that it wouldn't be possible to conduct a scientific study of that nature, but it's an interesting topic to speculate upon.<br><br><br><br><br><br>

<center><br><br><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MTN3s2iVKKI&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MTN3s2iVKKI&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_AI8mC8XucY&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_AI8mC8XucY&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dib2-HBsF08&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dib2-HBsF08&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br></center><br><br>[color:green]"...or am I a butterfly that's dreaming she's a woman?"</font color=green> [color:green]. . . _ _ _ . . .</font color=green><br>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>A good idea is to stop watching it. Stop watching videos on the internet too. Don't click on Pat Condell or any other You Tube videos. Skip over them. Search for the text and read it. Books and the written word are the most powerful propganda tool but at least while you read your brain is somehow attached to the process and you don't find yourself in your barcalounger drooling.<p><hr></blockquote><p>A better idea is to watch anything you want to watch. (I don't want to watch TV, so we don't even have one that gets more than 2 channels, with picture so bad you can barely make out what is on screen) Watch it and then CONSCIOUSLY evaluate what you just saw. Don't take anything inside your head that doesn't pass some tests. Ask... "does this fit what I know to be true about X?" For example, the movie Fitna may be a factual movie, but it's focusing only on extremists. You could make the same video and substitute Christian extremists, and boy, you'll find plenty of video of the death and destruction caused by our kind. Fitna does not fit your average Muslim, but your average Christian or Jew is going to watch it and be terrified. I was terrified until I forced myself to consciously evaluate what I just saw. Then I realized that these are Muslims hated equally by other Muslims, not the leaders who are gobbling up the religion.<br><br>The same goes for books and the written word. If you don't consciously evaluate what you read, a book can delude you, too. I made it through the entire book "Darwin's Black Box" before I understood that it was a tool for Creationists. I thought it was great breakthrough science, and that we were on our way toward a new age of discovery, in which we'd find out what was behind irreducible complexity. I expected it to involve fractal mathematics, "chaos theory", quantum theory, and everything we know. Then I found out the guy is a freaking Creationist, and that the book was just a tool to promote his agenda. Boy, did I feel stupid. <br><br>So, consumers of information should make sure they are qualified to understand that information.<br><br>Shooshie<br><br><br><br><br>[color:green]Pictures and things</font color=green>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>The same goes for books and the written word. If you don't consciously evaluate what you read, a book can delude you, too. I made it through the entire book "Darwin's Black Box" before I understood that it was a tool for Creationists. I thought it was great breakthrough science, and that we were on our way toward a new age of discovery, in which we'd find out what was behind irreducible complexity. I expected it to involve fractal mathematics, "chaos theory", quantum theory, and everything we know. Then I found out the guy is a freaking Creationist, and that the book was just a tool to promote his agenda. Boy, did I feel stupid.<p><hr></blockquote><p> just ask me next time. Michael Behe is a complete tool. He shouldn't have started with a mousetrap. He should have started with a banana.<br><br>I just told you not to click this:<br><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9zwbhAXe5yk&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9zwbhAXe5yk&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br><br><br><br><br><br>

I understand some banana cultivars are in danger...no diversity.<br><br><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/B78rrwSQB24&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/B78rrwSQB24&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br><br><br><br>Old farts, the hidden caulk of civilization. Jim Atkinson<br><br>

It's a great movie. The guy goes insane on the air and the "network" capitalizes on it because that particular news program's market share grows exponentially. It's a good movie to be viewed from several perspectives. <br><br>

Yes, we have no bananas. Man, those muppets are entertaining. What were those two clowns in that other movie? The one Poly posted? Geez. That was gross! Some kind of gay food-fetishists? (not that there's anything wrong with it)<br><br><br><br><br><br>[color:green]Pictures and things</font color=green>

scene 1: Wonderful, the way the music chimes in when he collapses.<br><br>scene 2: No nations any more---only IBM, ITT, DuPont, Exxon...and all the people's anxieties tranquilized, their boredom amused.<br><br>scene 3: an absurdist triumph---the people in the windows are as mad as he (that is, crazy).<br><br>That was some great movie, but the bleakness and truth of it sometimes was difficult. <br><br>