It Goes Both Ways

Digital TV is no big deal to me but I did take heart in the decision this week to delay the end of analog signals. The poor, the elderly and rural areas are apparently not ready for the conversion and would be disadvantaged by the change, according to proponents of the delay. Personally, I don't believe anyone is disadvantaged by not having television reception but that's a particularly iconoclastic view and wholly irrelevant in this culture. Previous efforts to delay were met with the objections that delay would harm business interests. For once (and maybe again sometime) the political system acted in favor of the powerless.

This same week also brought an interview with Chris Hedges on Free Speech Radio News. Hedges, author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning described Obama's first two weeks in office as disastrous: committing a crippled nation (think economic and military exhaustion) to a long-term war in Afghanistan while simultaneously supporting the "largest upward transfer of wealth in American history" in the form of economic stimulus.

Suddenly, keeping an analog TV signal for disadvantaged Americans isn't that big a deal.