limited attention spans

I completed my screening of Ken Burns' The War (thanks, TiVo). Some people said this 7-part miniseries (17 hours total) was too long, but .. 17 hours is 70% of 24 - which would be a daily dose of The History Channel, so .. I'm not sure what they're complaining about. I suspect Limited Attention Spans [LAS] are involved here.

My only complaint about the series: they didn't use subtitles whenever a Southerner was interviewed. I couldn't understand about half of what they said.

Speaking of LAS, I took the freeway en route to this afternoon's doctor visit, and only had to travel 3 exits. Before I got to the onramp, I flipped on the AM radio to catch the traffic report (in case I had to use the surface streets). Since AM radio is dominated by talk radio (100% of which is CFRP in Texas - probably a state law) I thought I'd be able to listen long enough for one traffic report, since they update every ten minutes. No such luck. I could only stomach the lies and distortion for about 3 minutes before the blatant stupidity made me turn it off. Pity there's no more Fairness Doctrine, which would require the airing of both sides. Good thing I didn't need a traffic report, as it was moving smoothly during my lengthy exposure.

Remember the V-chip? I think there's a market for an S-chip: a Stupid-Detecting Radio. When enough Right Wing BS is detected, the radio would either change to NPR or (if there was no local NPR affiliate) play electronic cricket chirps. Ideally it would be mandatory in all SUVs - and could not be turned off or muted if there was only one occupant (98.4% of the time).