Now I just feel terrible about how I spend all my time

Before I tell you why the world is doomed, here's what I've done recently.

I went to my school again today, using a different route. And all by myself. I took a bus and light rail and then I was there. I walked around and I didn't look at a map even once and I didn't get lost although I didn't necessarily know exactly where I was for a while but it was okay. I went to the Bursar's Office BUT I WON'T TELL YOU WHY. I also only missed one bus because I couldn't figure out which side of the street to be on. Turns out the eastbound bus was going west when it came to the stop, and the westbound bus was going east. So I had to be on the north side of the street, not the south. Catchai?

Then when I came home I didn't do much of anything. T and I sat around. I ate soup for dinner (yes, mother, I'm eating dinner). And we watched a lot of the television. More on this later.

First, before I get to why we're doomed, let me tell you something. I haven't been the best friend to Kat Scanlon of Chicago, Illinois. She goes to Loyola. She's in crazy astrophysics. Which is intimidating. The reason I bring her up is her blog, which is really really great. Kat writes out her dreams. They are ludicrous, of course, as dreams always are, but the way she treats them makes it even better. What's awesome is how much of her personality you can read from the posts, which are surprisingly descriptive. I guess it tells you something that she decided to make a blog of her dreams, too. Check it out, it's pretty hilarious.

Okay now for the destruction of the world. I recently starting re-reading Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death. I originally read it for a sociology class at UD, Mass Communication and Modern Society with Dr. Dan Miller. For whatever reason, I grabbed it off the shelf yesterday and it started depressing me all over again.

Postman's basic idea is that television is the dominant medium of our age, and that as the dominant medium it shapes our social conversations. It's straight Marshall McLuhan stuff.

Postman claims that television is a medium of show, flash and style. He says it's good for "junk," which is pretty much true. The problem occurs when television tries to broadcast "serious" material, like religion, politics, even news. What happens, Postman says, is television turns these serious things into entertainment, ruining serious topics. Secondly, television teaches us that everything--education, religion, debate--should be entertaining. TV makes serious topics entertainment, and teaches us to expect entertainment out of everything.

Thing is, the book is really, really good. It's funny, and it's an impressive mix of academic references and pop culture examples and jokes. I know I made it sound depressing, but it's not so bad. If you could handle my paragraph of explanation, you'll be fine. I would definitely recommend looking up this book, and at least reading the second half, starting with Part II. It's the section in which Postman goes through a few different facets of society--news, religion, politics, education--and explains how TV takes a big old shit on it. It's a chance for Postman to march out some hilarious examples of TV figures trying to be serious and looking sad.

Anyway, give it a shot, if you have a chance. If you're at UD, it's probably in the bookstore, and it's cheap, as I recall.

That's all for tonight. As for tomorrow, we have no plans at all. It's supposed to be really hot, like 99 degrees, so I don't believe we'll be leaving the apartment at all. We shall see.

Love,

Steve