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Re: generalizations




In article <MOD$970929.1348@rec.gardens.ecosystems>, bum@mail.utexas.edu
(Caleb Rounds) wrote:

>  You can eventually gain a pretty powerful tool merely
>> by giving up one or two TV shows per week and investing that time in some
>> reading and (most importantly) experimentation.
>
>Give up TV! Damn it I knew you were on'a'them comunisses. Next thing you
>know you'll be asking us to cook with heat 'stead them microwave thingies.

I ain't no comunis, I's a iconoclast!  TV is the spawn of the devil, and is
at the root of much evil.  I'd guess that it's caused more harm to the
societies of the world than hard drugs ever did or could.  There is some
good stuff (Bill Nye, Nova, etc.) though even they necessarily misrepresent
what they show.   But for the most part, TV simply obliterates thinking
ability and mental energy, and it affects darned near everyone (even I have
to force myself to turn the damned thing off sometimes, and I eagerly await
the death of my failing set, without quite having the moral strength to
hasten it along).

I just finished reading _The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild
Places_ by Gary Paul Nabhan and Stephen Trimble, and in one of his essays,
Nabhan points out that even among children with easy access to wild places,
the children estimate that most of their knowledge of the wild comes from
TV (50%), with a lesser amount from school (30%), and almost nothing from
spending time outside with peers or parents (10%).  They know more about
the giant panda than they know about the house wren, or lizard, or ground
beetle in their own territory.  When three groups of kids from the desert
southwest were asked if they'd ever spent as much as a half-hour on their
own in a wild place (basically their backyard in this case), only about 40%
said yes.  Kids rarely collect things such as rocks and insects and shells
anymore, or build forts in caves and trees--they watch TV and play video
games.  Kids, and even their parents, have little or no connection to the
land, so how how can anyone expect that they will want to preserve it, even
in an agricultural context?  

Laura Kerman, an O'odham (SW Native American) elder was intervewed for TV. 
>From Nabham's account:

"[...] The news director signaled for the cameras to roll.

   "Well, Laura, you and the other elders out here have made your living
from the desert for a long time, gardening and gathering wild
plants....tell me, why do you think the younger generation is not keeping
up the traditions?"

Laura listened, stopped dead in her tracks, unloosened her arm and pointed
straight at the camera, frowning: "_It's that TV_! They're all watching
THAT TV!  They just sit around and in front of it, they hardly go outside
anymore, so how can they plow, or plant or gather fruit?  That's the
problem, _right there_!"
--------------------

Be honest with yourselves: how many hours a week do you spend in front of
the TV and playing computer games (should reading news count as a computer
game? :-))?  And how many hours per week do you spend in your garden,
either actively gardening, or simply watching the worms go by, or even
looking, really looking, at the plants you're growing, and the lives other
than your own they support?  'Really looking' is the first and most
important step towards being a scientist, so get out there and become
scientists!
-- 
Allyn Weaks  allyn@u.washington.edu
PNW Native Wildlife Gardening:  http://chemwww.chem.washington.edu/natives/
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