Just in Time for Christmas

Here is a product I can get behind. TV-B-Gone. A gadget that turns off all TV's within a certain radius. It will also turn on all TV's, but this is only an unfortunate side effect. [[[[I'm reminded of Woody Allen's inventor character in "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy." He invents a machine that will take the bones out of fish. "It will also put the bones back into fish, but what's the point?"]]]] I especially like the vermin metaphor. It's quite difficult to find a restaurant these days where patrons (including myself) aren't drooling into their food staring into a high corner. (Waiter, there's a TV in my soup.) I don't want to get all Andy Roony on you, but I think that our news world has gotten even more sound-bitey and screen-crawley because of television's adaptation to (what used to be) public (read: human) spaces. Don't forget the other side of the camera, too: Sousveillance. As Arthur and Marilouise Kroker of the Critical Art Ensemble tell us, "Technology is about the language of harvesting, and what is being harvested today is ourselves. Technology harvests our consciousness; it harvests our thoughts; it harvests our bodies. We're simply raw product for the great technological dynamo."

Also, check out the Mighty Morphin Administration (AKA: "The Great Technological Dynamo"). This is likely a rare find this Christmas, but if I could, I would get everyone on my list the Ashcroft Sings LP: "Truth: Volume I". Oh, when you get a chance, stand up to those who hate our freedom.