I had lunch with my Dad at a casino in Queens, New York yesterday, and, as usual, I found the sight to be particularly disturbing. The minute I walked in I was bombarded by an obnoxious assortment of sounds and lights including the many slot machines and the radio on in the background. To top it all off they have big banner that puts out helpful messages about how to gain more points on your rewards card and tales of jackpots that have been won. Nausea started to settle in shortly afterward. There were tons of senior citizens, some of them with oxygen tanks, sitting contently at their machines despite all the noise surrounding them. It made me feel like I was in the Matrix or some similar such apocalyptic tale. I could envision us all slowly being taken over until, like a scene in Wall-E, we all zoom around on little machines with a huge soda in one hand while watching television, and we lose the ability to walk as the result of gross obesity and muscular atrophy. I find it especially scary because I can see how easily it can happen judging by my own behavior. I have refused to purchase cable in the past because I realize that if I did have cable, I would do nothing but watch television, but the ease of watching television via my Netflix app on my IPhone has presented another danger. It’s so easy to lie in bed, or wherever, and watch shows that I’ve really taken to. After my episode at the casino, I thought about it and realized that I have watched 129 episodes of Bones and 39 episodes of Drop Dead Diva within the past couple of months. While, I do really love watching these shows, I must acknowledge that within that time I have spent approximately 5.25 days of my life watching television, and that’s not including any other television time or movies that I may have watched. This is extremely disturbing to me considering that today there are things such as GMO’s, meat treated with ammonia served in school lunches, hydro-fracking, and other such things that are happening without objection (at least not by the government). Not to mention, it is nearly impossible to figure out what is going on in local politics. Sure, I could try to dig out what is happening on my own, but why is it that I can find out that Snookie from the Jersey Shore is pregnant by just standing in line at the grocery store, but to find out who my local politicians are and what they’re up to, I practically have to become a private eye? Why can’t I stand in line at the grocery store and learn about some family who has lost access to clean water in Pennsylvania, or about how the Supreme Court effectively overruled Brown v. Board of Education with its ruling in Parents Involved v. Seattle? It seems a little ludicrous, and I do not believe this is a coincidence. This whole episode has made me think of a bumper sticker that someone stuck on one of the security mirrors at school that says “Do Not Blindly Follow.” So, I implore everyone, regardless of your party affiliation or personal beliefs, please do not blindly follow.