(no subject)
Consumerism is the equating of personal happiness with the purchasing of material possessions and consumption.
Today, the "Washington Post" has been running ads touting the various articles in tomorrow's Sunday paper. The Post does this every week; that's no surprise. What's suprising is that the Post has been running articles about peak oil and the need for conservation. Yet, the Post's radio ads constantly mention the massive upcoming "Car Pages" section and a big article in the Sunday Outlook section about the area's "most beautiful long drives."
Meanwhile, the nation's housing bubble continues to burst. A friend recently told me she lost 15 percent by selling her condo in Minneapolis. (She felt lucky it had sold at all.) In California, housing values in the Valley have plunged 20 percent. In the D.C. metro area, houses which used to sell in just a week now linger on the market for nearly a month.
But over on the A&E cable network, they just devoted 10 hours of programming today to "Flip This House" and other home-renovation and sales shows. What used to be the "Arts & Entertainment" network is now just "advertising effusiveness."
It's worse over on TLC. The network's acronym used to stand for "The Learning Channel." It now stands for "Totally Loser Consumerism." TLC devoted 14 hours of its programming day to home renovation, home sales, house-flipping and more in that vein.
Network executives at A&E and TLC can take solace in the poor Spike Channel, however. That network ran nothing -- not a damn thing -- other than "The Ultimate Fighter" shows all day and all night. Spike used to have a lot of programming: "Star Trek" reruns, movies, wrestling, game shows, sports. Now it's nothing more than brutal, bloody, homoerotic bare-knuckle brawling. I'm sure advertisers just want to buy time on that network now. Spike was once "the network for men." Now it's "the network for no-neck buck-toothed in-bred hillbillies."
Today, the "Washington Post" has been running ads touting the various articles in tomorrow's Sunday paper. The Post does this every week; that's no surprise. What's suprising is that the Post has been running articles about peak oil and the need for conservation. Yet, the Post's radio ads constantly mention the massive upcoming "Car Pages" section and a big article in the Sunday Outlook section about the area's "most beautiful long drives."
Meanwhile, the nation's housing bubble continues to burst. A friend recently told me she lost 15 percent by selling her condo in Minneapolis. (She felt lucky it had sold at all.) In California, housing values in the Valley have plunged 20 percent. In the D.C. metro area, houses which used to sell in just a week now linger on the market for nearly a month.
But over on the A&E cable network, they just devoted 10 hours of programming today to "Flip This House" and other home-renovation and sales shows. What used to be the "Arts & Entertainment" network is now just "advertising effusiveness."
It's worse over on TLC. The network's acronym used to stand for "The Learning Channel." It now stands for "Totally Loser Consumerism." TLC devoted 14 hours of its programming day to home renovation, home sales, house-flipping and more in that vein.
Network executives at A&E and TLC can take solace in the poor Spike Channel, however. That network ran nothing -- not a damn thing -- other than "The Ultimate Fighter" shows all day and all night. Spike used to have a lot of programming: "Star Trek" reruns, movies, wrestling, game shows, sports. Now it's nothing more than brutal, bloody, homoerotic bare-knuckle brawling. I'm sure advertisers just want to buy time on that network now. Spike was once "the network for men." Now it's "the network for no-neck buck-toothed in-bred hillbillies."