I got rid of my television as a time waster. I confess to missing the baseball games, and "Cracker", but overall I am well rid of it. It does make you feel out of the loop. I sometimes sit in the office lunchroom and overhear co-workers talking about the dreadful conduct of some person, only to learn the person is a character on a television show of which I have never heard. It is hard to escape from televisions these days. Every bar and diner seems to have one or more, and even if you do go to an actual ballgame they have televisions by the concession stands.

I was brought up to believe that it was the height of ill-manners to turn on the television when you had guests, but now it seems that televisions are kept on from breakfast to the late show. (Maybe my friends have found an easy way to get rid of me.:))

I had a happy childhood. We received only two TV stations, one English, one French. Now they get close to fifty. Perhaps we should start licencing them, like they do in England.

Somebody mentioned Nike. I would never buy their products anyway, considering them grossly overpriced, but you have the added dimension of how the products are made and by whom. It is however difficult to take a principled stand on such purchases. Your computer parts could be made by a political prisoner in China, and if you want to buy a cheap cotton shirt for the hot months it might well be made by a child in a third world country. I am surprised, though, that Tiger Woods would endorse Nike, given his background. He could have made a great statement by publicly refusing to have anything to do with them until they wised up.