A dollar not spent on cable tv, local newspapers, financial newsletters, nonessential services associated with the internet, leaves not only extra money, but time that can be spent on essential human inquiries, such as the search for truth. These nonconsumer activities give full meaning to the human experience, as opposed to merely being another consumer zombie.
While consumer spending powers 3/4 of the American economy, does that mean that consumer activities should take up 3/4 of the typical american's time?
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Giving up cable/satellite TV is a no-brainer: the only networks worth watching are the commercial-free ones (PBS, C-SPAN, TCM), and you can get the very cream of what *they* provide free via the web and the library, plus lots more they can't cover, and at times of *your* choosing, not the schedulers', e.g., I put last year's desert-island nature-doc-of-a-lifetime, David Attenborough's PLANET EARTH, on request at my local PL.
With the c. $50+ you save in killing cable/satellite, you can consider satellite radio @ c. $12.95/mo., but even in that case there are so many web radio stations to choose from - try www.live365.com for starters and play around with the hundreds of choices. I've been hooked lately on a great African-music station at http://www.live365.com/stations/henrys
And since falling big-time last year for indie Canadian music, an "undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns" without immense refreshment, I discovered in CBC's Radio 3 an even richer source than XM's all-Canuck channel 52, aka "The Verge."
As to the coarsening effects of cable TV, I'll let my fellow comment poster at Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Con" blog at BeliefNet, Maclin Horton, speak for many of us; his critique applies to all of cable, not just the showbiz-in-drag calling itself the "news" channels:
"My wife & I went for many years with no cable, thus no CNN etc., and very little TV news at all, which gave us an odd perspective on the news--we never had much idea of the TV pseudo-events (so-and-so's gaffe, etc.) that drove so many things, didn't recognize parodies of politicos or catch-phrases, had little idea of the TV presence of major figures. Then we got cable and for a year or two switched between CNN and Fox at breakfast. It was fun for a while, but then one day we said to each other "I'm really sick of these people"--their ginned-up urgency, their saturation coverage of the trivial and superficial coverage of the serious, their endless teasing of some big story "coming up soon," their self-importance, and of course the damned commercials. Now we read the morning paper at breakfast. It's very pleasant. It's mostly local stuff. For non-local news we browse multiple sources on the net."
Thanks for the excellent comments. I will cancel the satellite radio once the term of the 1 year subscription ends.
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