Taking a bite out of TV

Some people abhor television. To them it is a brain-numbing device sent to destroy people's creativity.

I'm not one of those people.

Odds are you aren't either. Because – honestly – let's face it, most people love TV. In the United States, the average person watches 151 hours of television per month, according to the Neilson Group. That's three hours per day. Every day. For each and every American citizen.

Taking into account the people that don't watch any television, that means that some people have to watch 302 hours of TV per month to make that average work out. Six hours a day. Every day. Monday through Sunday. As though it were their job.

Now I'm not that much of a TV fanatic, but maybe you are. Maybe you live vicariously through the soap operas and sitcoms that get broadcast day in and day out. Maybe you can't get through a conversation without saying “Hey, did you see (fill in the blank) last night?”

I'm not here to judge. If that's how you roll, good for you. I'm just here to let you know that we might have something to talk about now. Because for nearly the last year, my answer was almost always, “No.”

I've been without my trusty TV for a while for a variety of reasons, none of which are pertinent to this column. I haven't seen local news. I missed every episode of the final season of Lost. American Idol escaped me. I've never seen Tosh.0. And I missed almost all of Shark Week.

Actually it was Shark Week that put me over the edge. I was planning on waiting until the start of the hockey season to subscribe to any sort of television service, but I couldn't take all the tweets and Facebook updates about Shark Week. I just couldn't stand not being in the loop. I felt like an outsider – the new kid in school who didn't get all the inside jokes.

So last week I caved about two months earlier than planned and got myself hooked up to the rest of the world. I reveled in the glory that is HD. And I sat gleefully on my couch watching as sharks ate things. And people. I watched some Saturday Night Live and some stupid show about the 10 dumbest partiers. I recorded some movies on my DVR. I even watched a sappy chick flick. Then I watched sharks eat things to cleanse my palate.

I've always been more of a computer guy than a TV guy. Usually I'd rather watch some stupid video on YouTube than sit in front of the television going through 227 channels trying to find something worth watching. And I'm sure I'll still spend more time in front of my netbook's 10-inch screen than my television's 37-inch screen. But now I have the option.

I doubt I'll watch my allotted three hours a day. Then again, I did just sit down and schedule four movies to record today. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, none of them featuring sharks eating people.

Too bad it's not Shark Month.  

Winning with less (votes)

Sometimes when you ask a question publicly, you can be very surprised where the answers come from.

Last week I wrote about my thoughts on why Carl Paladino was running for office … especially knowing he was going to lose. I mean, why would someone do that?

A few short days after that question ran in the paper, I picked up the phone to find none other than Ralph Nader on the other end. He wanted to promote a visit he is making the Buffalo today in support of another gubernatorial candidate; Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins.

If someone knows about running uphill against the two-party system, it's Ralph Nader. He's run for president four times with no chance of winning. But as he explained to me there are victories that come from winning even when you lose at the ballot box.

“I'll tell you a few,” he said. “One is there are voters are conscience. They want to vote for someone they believe in. Not for the least worst of the two majors. And you always should have an opportunity for voters of conscience.

“The second is, you can't emerge full fledged if you're going to build a political initiative. You've got to usually start small. If you're not willing to start small, you'll never get bigger. That's the lesson of billions of seeds now fermenting in soil around the world.”

He went on to explain that in Hawkin's case there's a particular initiative that his candidacy is hoping to bring to the light of day. And that initiative, Hawkins and Nader claim, could close the state's budget gap and save hundreds of state workers' jobs.

The initiative is called the “Demand that New York State stop rebating the stock transfer tax to Wall Street.”

“Now this is an amazing situation where they collect $16 billion from the stock exchanges and then electronically rebate it immediately,” he said.

Nader said the working class doesn't get tax rebates on things they buy out of necessity, so there's no reason Wall Street should have their taxes rebated, especially since the tax that's rebated from the stock market is a fraction of a percent as compared to 4 percent state sales tax and approximately 4 percent county sales tax, depending on the county, of course.

Nader and Hawkins will be in Buffalo tonight to discuss the transfer tax rebate and Hawkins' campaign. Nader will also be signing copies of his new book, “Only the Super Rich Can Save Us.”

The event will be held at 7pm at the Dnipro Ukrainian Cultural Center, 562 Genesee Street in Buffalo. For more information on the event, call (716) 479-2351.

Noteworthy: Nader was not the only politician to respond to my column last week. Libertarian candidate Warren Redlich also sent me an email saying he liked the column, pointing me to his website (http://wredlich.com/ny) if I wanted to hear more about him.

“Maybe I can draw attention to some issues (like the budget instead of the mosque),” Redlich said in his email.

I'll share more from Hawkins, Redlich and other candidates who believe they can “win” without becoming governor (those not named Cuomo) in future columns.