No more heroes anymore

Television has long been labeled an evil influence on all who are exposed. Yet, TV is just a tool, and tools are merely used. Being something of a tool myself, I want to defend the old "boob tube", for it helped in some small way to make me what I am today.

I really have no idea what the youth of the twenty-first century is watching. Due to an act of Thor, via a lightening strike to the dish many years ago, I have been spared the spectacle of Current Television Programming. All I really miss is the Daily Show. Oh, and Cartoon Network. Maybe the Food Channel. OK, maybe I miss it a lot. But I have never seen Reality Television, "The Apprentice", Political Ads to re-elect the President, or suffered long exposure to Fox News, and for that I am grateful. Truly grateful.

What I did see on television was wonderful, inspiring stuff. Thoughtful, intelligent stuff. Stuff that made you feel heroes existed and told it like it was. Like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Star Trek, and the Outer Limits. Yes, the Outer Limits. What a dose of reality that was. Something to fully prepare you for adulthood. And what episode had the greatest impact on my young mind? The one where David McCallum was recruited by a scientist to test drive his evolution machine. Wow. That set the standard for how I would view just about everything for the rest of my life:

You take one intelligent, bitter, working-class boy, add 10 thousand years of evolution, and presto, you get a six fingered, giant headed, pissed off guy who can kill with his mind! Does that rock, or what! And eloquent? "Your ignorance makes me ill and angry". That says it all. He was the best. Then of course, his stupid would-be girlfriend screws everything up and de-evolves him into a drooling moron who no doubt has a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on the back of his SUV.

What do today's children have? Hell if I know. I don't talk to the little shits.