TV good

• Like so many other misguided people in the world, my mentor at work recently and proudly said, "I NEVER watch TV." I told him I absolutely love TV, and he, in a morally superior way, said, "Why?" Why, indeed?
• I remember when I was littler it was de rigeur for families to purposely not have a TV in the house. They proclaimed it loudly and proudly, inducing guilt in others (unconsciously, I'm sure). I suppose these rare birds must still exist somewhere. What a way to raise a cardboard, puritanical, joyless person, I say. When I took Rebekah in for a physical recently, the doctor chided her: "You must not watch TV/be on the computer for more than a combined three hours a day." Ya, and you must also drill holes in the skull to let out those evil vapors when you are severely ill, in addition to the mustard plaster and, of course, many many leeches. Ok so to give credit where it's due, there is actually a medical benefit to using leeches.
• To continue this questionably apropos metaphor, the prevailing idea that TV is evil, is just plain malarkey in the same way that skull holes are malarkey. Since when do doctors dictate how a child spends his/her time? Just examine the body and possibly mood, please, and leave the rest alone.
• "But TV poisons little Johnny's mind." So does going to a strip club and intently observing the pole dancing. How about this: don't let Johnny watch trashy TV shows, and perhaps you should not allow him to frequent those strip clubs either. Just as leeches can in some cases be beneficial, so can TV in some cases be harmful. OF COURSE, duh.
• Aw, heck I'm on a roll now: why not add another (grossly overused) metaphor? "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." Baby good, bathwater bad. Most TV good, some TV bad.
• A person can be an idiot and neglect relationships, exercise, and other things that deserve attention, in favor of watching TV. Is that TV's fault? No, the thought makes reason stare. To magnify: a person chooses to go to a ballet instead of attending his grandmother's funeral. Is that the ballet's fault? A clue: no.
• TV is such an amazing and relatively new art form. It incorporates all other art forms and adds in the art of cinematography. The very best artists' crafts, everywhere and through history, are available immediately and for free. TV broadens the mind. It engenders imagination. It relieves stress and provides an escape. It makes for some darn fun exercise. It allows understanding of other lands and people and ideas that was never possible before TV came along. It can teach you just about anything you choose to learn, through direct instruction, and through vicarious experience.
• And now, if there are faults in this post, they are the mistakes of men; wherefore condemn not the things of good TV, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of your own mind.