"...Silence Really Is Golden...In Large Measure, I Imagine, Because It's In Such Short Supply..."

Nature, we are taught at some point in our elementary educational experience, abhors a vacuum.

Put into a more "mottos for dummies" form, any space left lying around empty will inevitably get filled up with something, anything.

One universally relatable example is that hole we all try to dig in the sand at the beach, the one that fills with water and, no matter how hard we try or fast we dig, we can't keep ahead of the water determined to fill it.

I'm reminded of that hole, among others, every time I scan online news sites or spend more than five or six minutes watching any kind of "news" program on television.

And try to determine, for myself, what's wheat and what's chaff amongst the miles and miles and miles of crops being grown out there.

Don't mind tellin' ya, I think the chaff is getting the upper hand.

A lovely lady from my checkered past who spent her working years as a reporter for a medium market news station used to make reference to "feeding the monster", the metaphorical allusion, of course, being that television, by its twenty four/seven nature, required a never ending supply of "in" in order to facilitate the "out" required when you're broadcasting twenty four/seven.

Then, of course, in recent years, the original, accept no substitutes media monster had an offspring, so to speak.

"...from the twisted minds who brought you the monster classic, "T.V", comes a ravenous beast that makes television look tame....look out, it's everywhere...all the time...it's...it's...."WWW dot"...........

Buzzkills (read common sense advocates and most Republicans) will simply roll eyes and offer that the solution to the "problem" is a simple, classic "duhh" category no brainer.

Turn the damn thing, or things, off.

Fair point.

But let's keep it real, okay? and just admit to ourselves and each other that approach really doesn't work for most people.

If it did, then "just say no" would have been the end of the drug problem in this country.

And Jenny Craig would have never become a household name.

I'm not sure how to whittle the www down to make it taste great and be less filling (obscure TV ad reference, Googling required for those under the age of thirty five), but I remember a time when television kept itself trim and toned by following that aforementioned buzzkill suggestion.

And, in effect, turned itself off every night.

Then, the whole monster feeding issue became moot mathematically.

Fewer hours to fill, less mindless, mundane, mediocre material necessary to fill them.

That's the problem with this technologically wondrous time in which we live.

There's never a good national anthem and test pattern/snowy screen around when we need one.