Sandra Dodd

I've received this by e-mail (two copies):

===============================
Hi Sandra. I have what is about the best ammunition against TV that
you could hope for.
http://radicalacademy.com/studentrefphilfmd11.htm
I am the author. Frank Martin DiMeglio
What can you do to help?

==============================

It's a very short article. Before I quote part of it, I want to
share something from "Teach Your Own"--John Holt quoting an article
called "Pumping Polysyllabism, from August 1977 Mother Jones (I
couldn't find that article):

*******************

Two Chicago English professors have found that a good way to improve
your grade on a term paper is to use what they call "verbose,
bombastic" language.

Professors Joseph Williams and Rosemary Hake say they took a well-
written paper and changed the language a bit. They kept the ideas
and concepts the same, but wrote two different versions--one in
simplified, straightforward language and another in verbose language,
loaded with pedantic terms.

They then submitted the two papers to nine high school teachers; they
were surprised to find that all nine gave the verbose papers nearly
perfect scores but downgraded the straightforward essays as too
simple and shallow.

The professors then submitted the same two papers to ninety more
teachers and came up with similar results. Three out of four high
school teachers and two out of three college professors gave higher
marks to pompous writing.

***************(end of the quote)***********

The premise of the DiMeglio article is that hallucinations are like
dreams, and hallucinations have to do with mental and emotional
disorders, so TV being like dreams in some ways.... well I shouldn't
do him any favors by extracting clarity from muck.

Here's the middle of the article. The beginning and end aren't any
better:

+++++++++++++++++++

It is not only in the dream that the vision of each individual person
is necessarily different. That is obvious. Importantly, the
experience of television is uniquely that of the individual.

Television may be understood as a creation of generalized thought.
The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately
dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sense.

Television makes thought even more like vision than in the dream,
thereby reducing thought and vision.

++++++++++++(end of the quote)+++++++



I'm going to link that anti-TV article on this page

http://sandradodd.com/t/anti

I like that his writing and thinking are so garbled, while my own
teens are so articulate. Holly's up watching a DVD of Fresh Prince
of Bel-Air and Marty was playing Rock Band when he got tired of
watching a DVD he got for Christmas of Tenacious D episodes from HBO.

They both got books for Christmas, too, and lots of music and
movies. Holly got a sewing machine. Marty got a skateboard (from
Holly) and a drum stool and some new Rock Band drums. I'm not
worried about them at all. This guy with the terrible article on
the evils of TV (and of sleeping and dreaming, it seems), though...
he could use some clarity (and sleep, and dreaming, and TV-watching,
and Rock Band playing, maybe).

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Robyn L. Coburn

<<<Hi Sandra. I have what is about the best ammunition against TV that
> you could hope for.>>>>

Where on earth did he get the idea that you were hoping for good (or any)
ammunition against TV?

Robyn L. Coburn
www.Iggyjingles.etsy.com
www.iggyjingles.blogspot.com

Melissa Dietrick

--- In [email protected], "Robyn L. Coburn" <dezigna@...>
wrote:
>
> <<<Hi Sandra. I have what is about the best ammunition against TV that
> > you could hope for.>>>>
>
> Where on earth did he get the idea that you were hoping for good (or
any)
> ammunition against TV?
>
yes, that is what lucia (dd1) and I were wondering, with big loud
chuckles...

melissa
in italy
mamma of 7
lucia 21.5yr, lidia 17.9yr, matteo 14.75yr, raffaele 11yr,
elena shanti 8.5yr, giacomo leo 5.5yr and gioele 3.25y

Sandra Dodd

Because I got two copies, I figure it was a spam mail to lots of
people made to look like it was personal. Or maybe a cut and paste
mail he sends to anyone whose webpage comes up when he googles TV?
I don't know.

Jenny C

> I like that his writing and thinking are so garbled, while my own
> teens are so articulate.

I couldn't even finish reading the article. I got about half way
through it before I couldn't take any more of it.

In the very first paragraph, I started balking at the idea of finishing
the article because of this...

"Television thus compels attention, as it is compelled in the dream; but
it is an unnatural and hallucinatory experience. Hence, television is
addictive."

I can't stand logical fallacies if they are being used to convince me to
believe something! They are kind of fun if you are just reading and
playing with ideas!

Since the whole article is based on a logical fallacy, it was hard to
finish it, or look at any of the ideas presented in it as having any
validity.

Sandra Dodd

-="Television thus compels attention, as it is compelled in the
dream; but
it is an unnatural and hallucinatory experience. Hence, television is
addictive."

-=-I can't stand logical fallacies if they are being used to convince
me to
believe something! They are kind of fun if you are just reading and
playing with ideas!-=-

Jenny, you were kind to give him "logical fallacy." I thought it was
just purely bullshit within each phrase. For something to "compel
attention" it needs to be a baby screaming or an imminent accident or
something beautiful and fascinating. If something on TV is beautiful
and fascinating, I SHOULD look at it!

HENCE, I'm addicted to things that are interesting. I want more
interesting things in my life.

And I'm allergic to bullshit. It kinda makes me sick.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jenny C

> Jenny, you were kind to give him "logical fallacy." I thought it was
> just purely bullshit within each phrase.

Yes, well, I couldn't finish the article because it was too hard to
read. A good article should draw me in with valuable information based
on solid reasoning. I kept reading and wandering off, because I wasn't
able to follow the convoluted thought process that started off with a
logical fallacy.

It was terribly ironic that all the sideline articles were on
philosophy, which is supposed to be logical reasoning of ideas and
thought. There was even a definition of logical fallacy in their
glossary of terms section.

For something to "compel
> attention" it needs to be a baby screaming or an imminent accident or
> something beautiful and fascinating. If something on TV is beautiful
> and fascinating, I SHOULD look at it!
>
> HENCE, I'm addicted to things that are interesting. I want more
> interesting things in my life.

Yes yes yes! We've had lots of things around here to draw our
attention, like the record amounts of snowfall that also came on
Christmas! We still can't get out! We've found TV to be invaluable
during our time of being snowed in! Since we watched so much TV over
the last few days, we've gotten bored with our standard fare and
searched out some new and different stuff and it was interesting! And
even if our power had gone out, we still would've found something
intersting to do!

raisingexplorers

Yep. I don't understand much on the page. But, I get the strange
feeling that his basic idea could be much better expressed in a simple
sentence or two.

I did get this: "television compels attention to the relative
exclusion of other experience"

I disagree. As a teenager, I watched TV shows and built websites,
surfed the net, folded clothes, exercised, among other things. My MIL
watches as she cooks supper and FIL encouraged himself to run further
on his treadmill by putting a tv near it...so, is that watching TV to
the exclusion of other experience?

My sons watch "Activity TV' and follow the onscreen directions to
build paper airplanes, and other crafts. They spread out their legos
and build towns while they watch cartoons.

Am I misunderstanding his meaning? or is it just not true?

Melissa Dietrick

--- In [email protected], "Jenny C" <jenstarc4@...> wrote:
>
>
> > Jenny, you were kind to give him "logical fallacy." I thought it was
> > just purely bullshit within each phrase.
>
> Yes, well, I couldn't finish the article because it was too hard to
> read. A good article should draw me in with valuable information based
> on solid reasoning. I kept reading and wandering off, because I wasn't
> able to follow the convoluted thought process that started off with a
> logical fallacy.

and I thought it was my brain getting mushy from reading and writing
and thinking in italiano so much lately...

thank goodness for letting me know I was just reading pure bullshit!

>
> >For something to "compel
> > attention" it needs to be a baby screaming or an imminent accident
or something beautiful and fascinating. ...
> >
> > HENCE, I'm addicted to things that are interesting. I want more
> > interesting things in my life.
>

this definitely is *not* pure bullshit, nor logical fallacy...
thanks!
melissa in
italy

Sandra Dodd

-=-Am I misunderstanding his meaning? or is it just not true? -=-

I think you understood it better than he did. I had the impression
that the author thought if he strung enough negative phrases together
that suggested dangerous evil that he might accidentally prove a point.

It didn't work.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dina

wow that is complete bullshit for the sake of being bullshit. its almost as if he thought, i
know, i'll write an article comparing two things that don't relate AT ALL, throw in a handful
of "hence"s, "likewise"s and "accordingly"s to convince and impress people.

does that really work on most? scary if it does.

can't stop myself from thinking that maybe the article was written in another language
and translated using Babel Fish.

maybe he SHOULD watch some tv to help him reconfigure and hence compel the
cultivation of what i would consider to be his hallucinatory and unnatural perception of
English syntax, grammar and semantics. wink, wink.

dina, who's off to watch something on tv while knitting




--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> I've received this by e-mail (two copies):
>
> ===============================
> Hi Sandra. I have what is about the best ammunition against TV that
> you could hope for.
> http://radicalacademy.com/studentrefphilfmd11.htm
> I am the author. Frank Martin DiMeglio
> What can you do to help?
>
> ==============================
>
> It's a very short article. Before I quote part of it, I want to
> share something from "Teach Your Own"--John Holt quoting an article
> called "Pumping Polysyllabism, from August 1977 Mother Jones (I
> couldn't find that article):
>
> *******************
>
> Two Chicago English professors have found that a good way to improve
> your grade on a term paper is to use what they call "verbose,
> bombastic" language.
>
> Professors Joseph Williams and Rosemary Hake say they took a well-
> written paper and changed the language a bit. They kept the ideas
> and concepts the same, but wrote two different versions--one in
> simplified, straightforward language and another in verbose language,
> loaded with pedantic terms.
>
> They then submitted the two papers to nine high school teachers; they
> were surprised to find that all nine gave the verbose papers nearly
> perfect scores but downgraded the straightforward essays as too
> simple and shallow.
>
> The professors then submitted the same two papers to ninety more
> teachers and came up with similar results. Three out of four high
> school teachers and two out of three college professors gave higher
> marks to pompous writing.
>
> ***************(end of the quote)***********
>
> The premise of the DiMeglio article is that hallucinations are like
> dreams, and hallucinations have to do with mental and emotional
> disorders, so TV being like dreams in some ways.... well I shouldn't
> do him any favors by extracting clarity from muck.
>
> Here's the middle of the article. The beginning and end aren't any
> better:
>
> +++++++++++++++++++
>
> It is not only in the dream that the vision of each individual person
> is necessarily different. That is obvious. Importantly, the
> experience of television is uniquely that of the individual.
>
> Television may be understood as a creation of generalized thought.
> The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately
> dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sense.
>
> Television makes thought even more like vision than in the dream,
> thereby reducing thought and vision.
>
> ++++++++++++(end of the quote)+++++++
>
>
>
> I'm going to link that anti-TV article on this page
>
> http://sandradodd.com/t/anti
>
> I like that his writing and thinking are so garbled, while my own
> teens are so articulate. Holly's up watching a DVD of Fresh Prince
> of Bel-Air and Marty was playing Rock Band when he got tired of
> watching a DVD he got for Christmas of Tenacious D episodes from HBO.
>
> They both got books for Christmas, too, and lots of music and
> movies. Holly got a sewing machine. Marty got a skateboard (from
> Holly) and a drum stool and some new Rock Band drums. I'm not
> worried about them at all. This guy with the terrible article on
> the evils of TV (and of sleeping and dreaming, it seems), though...
> he could use some clarity (and sleep, and dreaming, and TV-watching,
> and Rock Band playing, maybe).
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Bob Collier

--- In [email protected], "Jenny C" <jenstarc4@...> wrote:
>
>
> > Jenny, you were kind to give him "logical fallacy." I thought it was
> > just purely bullshit within each phrase.
>
> Yes, well, I couldn't finish the article because it was too hard to
> read.


LOL

I started nodding off at line three.

Oh well, that's philosophy for you. I expect he wears a bow tie and
one of those tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows.

Bob