The cruel, the stupid, the cruel and stupid. That's infotainment!

Let's agree on something. There are real problems in the world.

Let me put forward my view. TV isn't helping.

I don't watch Bill O'Reilly's show. I gave it a view for a few uninterrupted minutes on a YouTube clip once and I tuned in on during the Iranian protests when innocent bystander Neda Agha-Soltan was killed to see what the Fox News take was on the crisis.

From these unedited clips, my take on O'Reilly is that he's stunningly dim-witted, incompetent at his job and massively full of himself.

To make himself look better, he brings on guests like Ann Coulter, who has all his traits but perhaps a little more so. This week during a segment on the Japanese disaster, Ann came up with the remarkable statement that the modern scientific consensus is radiation is good for you.

As I said before, real problems in the world. TV isn't helping.

If I have any part of this wrong, please enlighten me.



And just to be fair and balanced, let me bring up The Ricky Gervais Show on HBO. Several years ago Gervais and his friend Steven Merchant started making podcasts that were incredibly successful, and last year they were turned into a cartoon show on HBO. The show has been picked up for a second season and when the first season DVDs appeared on Netflix, it had that sure sign of a hit, the VERY LONG WAIT label.

The show consists of Gervais and his friend Stephen Merchant mocking a not very bright man named Karl Pilkington.

It is the worst piece of shit I have seen in ages.

Gervais is allegedly on my team. He's an atheist, I'm an agnostic, yadda yadda yadda. I've laughed at some of his stuff, notably parts of The Invention Of Lying. I dislike embarrassment comedy, so I am not a fan of any version of The Office. But listening to these shows, you get to hear the real Ricky Gervais and he is a miserable excuse for a human being. Being trapped in an elevator with him would be as much torture as being locked in that same elevator with Coulter or O'Reilly.

If you get through to the end of one episode of this dreck, you are either a stronger person than I am or more sadistic. I'll let you decide which.

I had a similar experience with Kathy Griffin as an entertainer. I saw some of her performances, thought she was funny in a mean sort of way, laughed because I disliked her targets.

I then watched her reality show. She's mean to everybody.

I talked to a friend who dealt with Griffin professionally once and said it was an experience she will never repeat.

But let me repeat.

Real problems in the world. TV isn't helping.

I can give multiple examples to back up both these statements.

To quote my friend Victor Manjarrez, we don't deserve to survive as a species.