As a writer

and as a parent you would think that I would advocate

reading above television, but let me tell you, reading is

overrated, television is not.

What is it with these

new-age bores who over and over keep saying, "Turn

off the `boob' tube... read those Harry Potter

books"? You would have thought fantasy literature

was invented by J.K. Rowling. And if Rowling is the

patron saint of literacy and literature, you would think

she wouldn't have resorted to the butchering of her name

into two consonatal initials. At least Sally Jesse

doesn't go by S.J. (Special note: I, in no way support

the "Footloose"-like boycotting of the Harry

Potter books in Cobb county).

I know the library police

will now be looking to throw the book at me for my

atrocities against the written word. Come on, though,

comparing reading and television is like comparing apples

and oranges. People who continually go on about the

significance of reading over television are just on some

head trip to make themselves look smart. And while I am

on the mentioning of fruit: All you egg-headed

word-meisters, quit showing off and saying nothing rhymes

with orange. Door hinge rhymes with orange.

Superficially, it just

looks more intellectual to put down the colors of

television in favor of the black and white of reading.

I'm an open book, I'm not afraid to say I love

television. Television is good. Sure, reading is ballet,

but TV is the lambada, it's the tango, it's the Texas

two-step for the common man. Books and television; there

is no comparison.

Used to be, the television

was called the "boob tube," because anyone who

watched it was supposedly stupid. The meaning has

changed. Today with the bombardment of Jesse

Ventura-sized breast implants, the "boob tube"

has a much more literal meaning. This is a shame.

Television has so much more value. The only weakness of

television programming is that they try every trick in

the book to get your attention. It should not be that

way.

Even so, the literary world

should take a page out of TV's book and spice things up

just a little. I mean, with all the advances in our

world, publishers today are still using dirty white pages

with black Times Roman text? Oh I forget, about 20 years

ago they changed the print to "New" Times

Roman.

Obviously, I am just more

against placing reading on a pedestal while putting TV

underneath it. As I learned from an ABC Afterschool

Special once, "You don't have to put me down and

make me feel small so you can make yourself feel

big." Obviously, books have a very important place

in the development of the mind, not to mention in the

leveling of a coffee table. So to give books equal due

with TV, here is a smidgen of what both forms have taught

us:

Reading: Atticus Finch

could shoot a rifle. TV: Barney Fife had just one bullet.

Reading: Captain Ahab's hate rendered him powerless. TV:

Mr. Roper was homophobic. Reading: "To Be or Not to

Be." TV: "Whachu talkin' bout, Willis."

Reading: Hell is ice, not fire. TV: Jill drove the

Mustang, Sabrina drove the Pinto. Reading: "Sam, I

am." TV: "Moving on up... to the Eastside. To a

deluxe apartment...."

I guess the perfect answer

would be some media that effectively combined these two

formats. But for now we only have something that combines

the slowness, the squinting, and the word-bulk of reading

with the voltage-dependency, endless advertisements and

mass-imitating of television. It's called the Internet.

[Contact Billy Murphy at

[email protected] and https://billymurphy.homepage.com .

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