My least favorite story to come from the WGA strike so far is CNN's open forum on whether you could "survive without TV." Naturally, people who like TV in ordinary, healthy, normal ways aren't particularly drawn to the question of whether they could survive without it. First of all, this situation isn't about being without television, so it's a dumb question anyway. There will be television. There will be reruns, and there will be unscripted shows, and there will be game shows and sports shows, so if you're the kind of person who would actually tell CNN, "WITHOUT, TV, I WILL DIE!"? You have nothing to fear.

Who IS attracted to this kind of question is the sort of obnoxious lecturer who likes to explain that television is all terrible ANYWAY, and people who watch television don't have good conversations with other people, and people who don't watch television devote all of that time to reading great novels and doing volunteer work. People who don't have television actually talk to their families!

There is going to be a lot of this in the next however long, I sense. High-minded whoop-de-doo about how, without Prison Break, we will all have time for embroidery projects, marathon running, and becoming involved in charitable organizations. I fully anticipate an avalanche of stories like, "Now that there's not so much TV, here are ten great museums to go to!" "You know who hopes to benefit from the writers' strike? The local symphony!" You will be told by many people in the next few weeks/months that if you watch television, you should take this opportunity to become a living, breathing human being, and not the lifeless, thoughtless zombie you became when you started watching television. I hope you enjoy your personal Renaissance.