Commentary: Turn off your TV!
10th TV-Turnoff Week coming up
By Frazier Moore
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- In your role as a devoted TV viewer, are you a little like a fish: submerged, but unaware you're wet?
If so, how would it feel to spend a week on dry land?
That's the idea behind TV-Turnoff Week, which for the 10th year is inviting viewers to "Turn off TV, turn on life."
This year the week is April 19-25, which gives you a full month to put together your own group "turnoff" with neighbors, co-workers or fellow students. Last year, some 7 million people in thousands of such groups pulled the plug, according to the nonprofit, Washington, D.C.-based TV-Turnoff Network, whose Web site can show you how to coordinate a similar effort.
Or you could simply resolve not to watch television -- all by yourself. That would mean you've got a month to prepare for seven days' withdrawal from "American Idol," "SpongeBob SquarePants," "The Sopranos" and cable-news pundits handicapping the presidential race.
Think you can make it?
Why not? This year, a tidal wave of anger toward television may make the idea seem downright appealing. You might treat TV-Turnoff Week as a rebuke to media bosses foisting Janet Jackson and "Fear Factor" on you and your family.
Does the pool you're swimming in seem more tainted than ever? Congress sure seems to think so. A couple weeks ago, House lawmakers voted to raise the maximum fine for broadcasters and personalities who air indecent material to $500,000 per incident -- up from $27,500 for license holders and $11,000 for personalities. The bill now goes to the Senate.
"One reason viewers come to TV-Turnoff Week is because they're troubled by the messages they see on TV, and that's a perfectly good reason," says Frank Vespe, TV-Turnoff Network executive director.
On the other hand, his organization takes a dim view of television regardless of its "good" or "bad" programming.
Of greater concern is the sheer quantity of time Americans spend watching whatever they watch -- an average of more than four hours per day that could be better spent on other things. Or so Vespe's group contends.
"Do you focus on TV's inappropriate messages," he poses, "or on remaking your relationship with the TV to break its hold on you?"
In the past year, the cumulative health consequences of excessive TV-watching, particularly among the nation's youth, have seized national attention, with the federal government declaring last week that overeating could soon replace smoking as the No. 1 preventable cause of death.
A pair of recent studies say thousands of commercials for candy and sugary foods have contributed to the epidemic of childhood obesity in America.
The number of commercials children see annually has doubled to 40,000 since the 1970s, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported last month, "and the majority of ads targeted to kids are for candy, cereal and fast food." The study said that 15.3 percent of children aged 6 to 11 were listed as overweight in 1999-2000, compared to 4.2 percent in 1963-1970.
In a separate study, the American Psychological Association called for the government to restrict advertising aimed at children under 8, arguing these youngsters are uniquely vulnerable to ad come-ons. It proposed "specific restrictions on advertising junk food," among other actions.
Of the nearly 17 weekly hours of TV binged on by youngsters 2 to 11, slightly more than nine hours is kids programming, according to Nielsen Media Research.
"It's pretty clear that excessive TV time has been implicated in the childhood obesity crisis," says Vespe, "so TV-Turnoff Week is a good way to call attention to that connection: Turning off the TV is, or should be, part of a healthy lifestyle."
The goal, then, is to discover some of the things you can do apart from television, the Internet and video games.
"One of the great lessons in participating in TV-Turnoff Week is the realization that 'Every time I turn on the TV, I'm deciding not to do something else,"' Vespe says.
He points to U.S. Census data that suggest his organization is making an impact: More than 72 percent of children under 12 have a limit on television time -- up from about 63 percent in 1994.
There you have it: A sign of recognition that life exists beyond submersion in the TV pool. TV-Turnoff Week is as good a time as any to poke your head out and learn that lesson for yourself.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
And for those of you not strong enough to get rid of the TV there is this:
Wal-Mart sells anti-smut DVD player
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Wal-Mart is selling the world's first DVD player that can seamlessly skip over violence, swearing, nudity and other potentially offensive movie content. The $79 unit features technology by ClearPlay and is manufactured by Thomson Inc. under its RCA brand.
The product comes in the wake of the Super Bowl halftime controversy as well as the FCC fining Clear Channel for indecent content on "The Howard Stern Show." But ClearPlay CEO Bill Aho said the timing is coincidental.
"It's just fortunate," he said. "There is a lot of interest and sensitivity around the topic of potentially offensive media content."
RCA's player is the latest development in a legal battle between the Salt Lake City-based software company and Hollywood. Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh and other members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) filed suit against ClearPlay in September 2002, when the filtering product was available as a computer program.
Those legal proceedings are still under way in Colorado's 10th District Court. Both sides currently are waiting for a ruling on a summary judgment filed by ClearPlay.
The DGA, for its part, is sticking to its guns.
"ClearPlay software edits movies to conform to ClearPlay's vision of a movie instead of letting audiences see, and judge for themselves, what writers wrote, what actors said and what directors envisioned," a DGA spokesman said in a statement Monday. "Ultimately, it is a violation of law and just wrong to profit from selling software that changes the intent of movies you didn't create and don't own."
The Motion Picture Assn. of America, which lobbies on behalf of most of Hollywood's major studios, declined to comment directly regarding Wal-Mart's decision to sell the players but spokesman Matt Grossman did say, "our position is that we are wholeheartedly against any individual or enterprise that alters our studios' copyrighted material."
Consumers can play any DVD in these units in the usual manner. In addition, however, they can activate a variety of different filtering levels that work according to ClearPlay's preprogramming. The player filtering works only on selected titles; it has no effect on movies that it has not been preprogrammed to handle, but for those it doesn't recognize, it has the capability to completely block movies based on their rating.
The sophisticated process is rather like very smoothly fast-forwarding and muting the original movie as it plays back. The DVD remains unchanged and unharmed. Aho said that is an essential distinction between ClearPlay and fellow defendants named in the pending suit, because others provide consumers with a copy of a physically edited DVD or VHS movie.
According to Aho, the studios' allegations imply that consumers "are violating copyright law when they use ClearPlay to mute and skip the playback of movies on DVDs that they have lawfully bought or rented."
He believes the industry's objections are lessening now that Hollywood has had a chance to evaluate what ClearPlay actually does.
"There is a natural reaction when faced with a new technology to make sure that it's managed, that your industry is protected and that the application is good for both consumers and the industry," Aho said. "It's clear that there is a much better understanding of ClearPlay as opposed to companies that make copies of the movies. I think the industry is more aware of the distinction now, and there's a search for how to make it work for them."
ClearPlay offers several settings in four categories of filtering -- violence, language, sex/nudity and explicit drug use -- with the user able to choose any combination. For example, the language setting can range from irreligious exclamations to ethnic slurs to graphic phrases used as profanity.
Aho said the product is important, because standards differ from one person to another. Some people have no objection to innuendo, he said, but shield their children from seeing violence. He added that it's consumer choice, not censorship.
Demonstrating a low violence setting, Aho showed a scene from "The Patriot." The viewer sees a soldier firing a rifle at an enemy followed by Mel Gibson's character turning away in dismay: ClearPlay eliminates the close-up of the bullet's impact and blood spurting from the wound.
Aho said ClearPlay tries to program popular movies that contain elements people might be uncomfortable seeing or allowing their children to see. "About a Boy," "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," "When Harry Met Sally," "Zoolander," "As Good as It Gets" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" are among the movies with available filters.
He added that ClearPlay will not offer titles that cannot be edited in a way that retains their sensibility, such as "Saving Private Ryan," "Schindler's List" or "The Passion of the Christ."
Thomson did not return calls by press time. But Aho said none of ClearPlay's partners were worried about the pending lawsuit. "We have had so many big public companies look at it and decide to proceed," he said. "Some have decided to wait it out, but none of them have declined to work with us because of the legal risk."
Each RCA unit comes with 100 filters. Additional filters can be purchased from ClearPlay's Web site for $4.95 per month or $49 per year. Movies more than 90 days old are less expensive at $20 for as many filters as the customer wants during a three-year period. Once a filter is installed it is permanently in the player.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Hollywood's reaction, as usual, is sickening! 
I read the posts on television and the internet as something to be avoided with interest, especially the studied article by Archbishop Vitaly.
The 'bad' influence of both television and the internet have troubled a number of groups. Only today I, by mistake, found that almost all the 'Ultra-Orthodox' rabbis in Israel have banned their followers from using the internet. They wanted to ban computers but recognised these have 'beneficial' uses.
Whether I could give my television up, with its limited five channels, is something I might struggle with.
I had put my television & vcr in the closet, several weeks before the Nativity Fast began. Then I visited some Orthodox friends who don't have one at all, for the weekend. It was lovely being in a home where the TV wasn't the focal point of the living room (they had chairs & a sofa gathered around their non-working fireplace). I then came home and sold both (for $30) to a co-worker, who wouldn't let me give them to her free.
I do occasionally miss watching Jane Austen movies, but other than that...I much prefer to listen to the Cubbies on the radio, anyhow!
Theodora Elizabeth
I wholeheartedly agree with the bishop who wrote the article about ditching television. But what about radio?
I've always listened to a lot of talk radio (AM). For a while I was listening to NPR, but the liberalness just drove me insane. Then most recently, I was listening to local talk radio, but some of it was raunchy. I can have a radio at work, so I listen (which I do since otherwise the day just dragggs). Today I've had the all-news station on and it's been much better. It's rare for me to listen to music radio, unless it's classical. I pray in the car in the morning on my way to work, as my priest instructed me to. Listen to the news on the way home, with some praying.
What have you folks done? There is definitely a LOT on the radio that is not compatible with an Orthodox life.
Thanks,
Theodora Elizabeth
