26 March 2007

Abe Lincon and Iran Contra

This is the time of year when PBS and NPR do their public fund raising, which means that I do not listen to much NPR. Today I played catch-up with my podcast and listened to an Episode of This American Life produced by Chicago Public Radio. This show is one that I really enjoy listening to, the story and producer have a slow and somewhat meandering pace, as the rhythmically tell a story. (If my dad read that , he might think that it was a Rap show.) This episode that I listened today was on the Television. A device, that I do not watch very much at all, and during the course of the episode the producer mentioned that the average American watches 29 hours of TV per week. I was shocked and alarmed, that is over a day, and it is the average American. I would not want to see how much time the TV overachiever watches. There is a link below in case you want to check it out and listen to it.

What I Learned from TV

Talking about TV and the overachiever made me think of one of my uncles, (great uncle actually), named Aurthur. Unfortunately he was not the character on PBS, he was a human being. After my great aunt passed away, he picked up a strange habit of staying awake all night and sleeping during the day. During the Iran Contra hearings, he recorded them and watched them until the wee hours of the morning. They lived in Houston for a long time and when I would go for my check up we would stay with them. My great aunt would make rolled hole wheat for breakfast, and I always sleep in this huge bed that Abe Lincoln could fit in, with his hat on and everything




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