Saturday, February 21, 2009

Why TV is good for kids

So, who's had a heart attack at me writing that title? It's actually a book, I thought i'd get it to see if it would change my mind, and started it with an open mind, really I did. Let's just say that I haven't been convinced I should race out to Harvey Norman.

The holes in the arguments are the type you could fall into and never return. For example, they seem to feel that Madonna only manages to not have a TV because she has masses of money and therefore an army of employees to help with her children. Yep, they're trotting out the tired old martyred cry of 'But the only time I get to myself is when they're watching TV!' I mean, all those poor people who raised children more than 50 years ago, it must have been terrible! The kids running around feral, constantly nagging you to entertain them, never a moment to sit down and have a cuppa........hey, wait a minute, revelation here-maybe kids could entertain themselves back then, and still could if they didn't learn to fall back on television the instant they're bored?

Or by stating that TV is a passive activity, but so is reading and a number of other things. Obviously they've never seen (or ignored) any of the number of studies that show that your body runs at the lowest pace while watching TV. While reading you actually burn more kilojoules than by watching TV. I think sleeping is the only activity that comes in under TV, but not by much.

Or by saying that BMI is totally unreliable because it can't be applied to all people in the population, using George Gregan and his 'overweight' BMI as example. When anyone who has a clue about BMI ranking knows it can't be and isn't applied to super-fit body-builder types or some ethnic groups. But if they admitted that they wouldn't be able to write off BMI as an indicator and therefore also write off the increase of overweight and obese children would they?

And my favourite, deliberately interpreting the well-documented correlational link between TV watching and attention disorders as a direct cause-effect link. As in, watch x amount of hours of TV per week and you WILL get ADD. Well, it's easier to refute something that is obviously wrong, isn't it? Morons.

And that's only one chapter. I don't think i'll bother with the rest (except the education chapter, that should be fun), as books that choose their POV then selectively search out information that supports it while leaving glaring omissions frustrate my husband-yes, I argue out loud with books ;P Pity, I agree with a lot of it, like TV is not too bad if used properly (I use the guns analogy, it's not the thing it's how you use it), but the rest is just too crap.

Friday, February 20, 2009

SNAKE!!!


This picture was taken from my back door on Wednesday. Even freakier when you consider that my back door is 15 steps off the ground!

D saw it an hour or so before this, he went downstairs and made it halfway down before he saw the snake wrapped around the handrail, then throw itself down into the grass and slither off-he made it back up pretty quickly! It was pretty cool though, we watched it come the last two metres up and ended up shooing it away with the broom when it appeared it wanted to come inside.

Nowhere near as scary as this picture taken a few years back in Lilydale, Tasmania-yes, that's a juvenile tiger snake in between us and the kids. Still makes my blood run cold.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Phew.

My best friend from high school grew up in Kinglake, and moved back with her husband after they got married. And I hadn't heard a thing from her since the fires until tonight, I was starting to freak out big time. Luckily, I found out her, her house and all her family are fine, but unfortunately her parents lost their house and every single thing in it. It's made me resolve to keep in touch better, we had a falling out a while back and were just starting to get back in contact, but i'm so scatterbrained I don't hold up my end anywhere near as well as I should.

I spent the end of high school in Yea, so know many people in the fire area. So many parents of friends have lost everything, there have been some injuries but so far (fingers crossed) no-one I know lost their life. It's been so strange to see newspapers with pictures of people I recognise, to know the areas the radio reports are talking about. News is normally so arms length, you get desensitised to it, but this has really brought home the fact that it's all real and affecting many people.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Dontcha hate it when.....

You buy stacks of pure awesomeness online and then have to WAIT for it to arrive before you can enjoy it? Yep, I went a bit crazy last week and ordered 31m of fabric (wow, that actually looks quite scary tallied up like that!) and am now prowling around the house in frustrated boredness because nothing else looks quite as exciting to make.

Yes, I am getting five hours straight sleep every night-I am human rather than zombie! Speaking of which, i'm eating into that five hours now-goodnight.