TV or not TV

That is the question.

For much of my adult life I have lived without television. It all started when I moved to El Rosario, Guatemala with Habitat for Humanity. I had to give up watching tv, because the village was far from the capital, there was no cable, reception was lousy, and… oh, yeah… there was no electricity. Which made watching tv difficult. (But not, I learned, impossible. Many families hooked up their small television sets to car batteries which could be recharged in nearby Champerico.)

But even when I finally ended up in Guatemala City, or Burlington, WA for that matter (both of which, incidentally, have electricity) I fought the urge to plug in the tube. My compromise in Washington was to buy a tiny tv with a built-in DVD player and join Netflix, so I could watch movies.

But now I’m faced with a dilemma. Every morning I edit the Central American and International news sections for the Daily Report. Since we try to get the report out and online as quickly as possible, we’re all under a tight deadline. Which means I have to sit down at the computer, log on to the internet, discover what the heck is going on in the world, then find out which news site has the best coverage of a particular event, and finally edit that article down to a brief summary.

The fact that I’m always starting from point zero … utterly clueless as to what has happened in the world since the previous morning… makes my life just a bit more complicated than it needs be. Being able to watch CNN, or the like, before heading into the office would give me a running start each day.

Not to mention that one of my co-workers, Erwin, is a real news hound. Damn near every morning he comes in and says “Roberto, did you see the images from Mosul last night?”, or words to that effect. To which I give him the stare. To which he responds “Oh, right. I forgot… you don’t have a tv.” At first I thought he had a bad memory, now I realize he’s trying to mess with my mind.

So what’s the problem? Well, my worry is I’ll fall too easily into the tv trap… watching too much boob-tube, cotton-candy-for-the-brain kinda stuff. Television is like coffee and chocolate… its difficult to “just say no”.

For example, when I was in NY last month I actually watched an episode of The Apprentice. I’m sorry. It was in a moment of weakness. I was just flipping through the channels and there, suddenly, was The Donald. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t look away. Oh, the shame… the shame.

So what is boils down to is this: On one hand, I definitely don’t want to miss out on Guatemalan reality for tv’s “reality” shows. On the other hand, being able to watch the news and occasionally relax with a movie would be exceedingly helpful.

Oh, yeah… and I really, really, really watching miss the West Wing.