Bill McKibben - The Age of Missing Information

PRAISE FOR
The Age of Missing Information

McKibben grasps the nature of television, and does so brilliantly.

The New York Times Book Review

A brilliantly lucid and effective challenge to the myth of the Information Age McKibben persuades us that there is another real world out there that also broadcasts around the clockand that it has the power to transform us if we can stand still long enough to listen to its faint and ancient call.

Kirkus Reviews

Do yourself a favor: put down the remote and pick up this book.

Houston Chronicle

This book is so well thought out and written its bound to make many couch potatoes uneasyif they can take their eyes off the tube long enough to read it.

Christian Science Monitor

Stimulating a pleasure to read.

Newsweek

Witty, well written, and sobering a wise and thoughtful book about the effect of television on our lives.

Los Angeles Daily News

By turns humorous, wise, and troubling a penetrating critique of technological society.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

2006 Random House Trade Paperback Edition

Copyright 1992, 2006 by Bill McKibben

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE T RADE P APERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Portions of this work originally appeared in The New Yorker as Reflections: Whats On?

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1992.
Published in paperback by Plume, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA, in 1993.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

NOEL RIEDINGER-JOHNSON : Seven lines from a poem by Jeanne Robert Foster from Adirondack Portraits: A Piece of Time, edited by Noel Riedinger-Johnson, copyright 1986 by Noel Riedinger-Johnson. Reprinted by permission.

VARRY WHITE MUSIC, INC .: Excerpt from Bust a Move written by M. Young, Matt Kike, and Michael Ross, copyright 1989 by Varry White Music, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

BMG MUSIC PUBLISHING, INC., AND BMG MUSIC PUBLISHING CANADA : Excerpt from Pump That Body by Robert Smith/Lee Haggard, copyright 1990 by Zomba Enterprises, Inc.

(ASCAP)/House Jam Music (ASCAP). All rights in the U.S. on behalf of House Jam Music (ASCAP) are administered by Zomba Enterprises (ASCAP). Rights outside the U.S. are administered by BMG Music Publishing Canada. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
McKibben, Bill.
The age of missing information / Bill McKibben.
p. cm.
ISBN0-8129-7607-X
eBook ISBN: 978-0-8041-5343-0
1. Television broadcastingSocial aspectsUnited States. 2. United StatesPopular culture. 3. Nature. 4. Philosophy of nature. I. Title.
PN1992.6.M38 1992b 302.23,4520973dc20 92-40397

www.atrandom.com

v3.1

I f you have a cold, you do not need to worry about reinfecting yourself with your lip balm. Thats Beverly, who leads Christian calisthenics on Channel 116, Family Net. If you used someone elses lip balm, I could see that. But not your own. So much happens between seven and eight in the morning on the ninety-three stations of the Fairfax, Virginia, cable system, until recently the largest in the world. On Good Morning America, Joel, the movie critic, says, I learned something about England. For sore throats, the actors of Shakespeares time used to take a live frog and lower the frog by its foot into their mouths. They figured that would keep the juices going. Thats where the expression a frog in your throat comes from. Since seaweed grows in the nutrient-rich ocean, it comes as no surprise to anyone in the Annushka cosmetics organization that it attacks and destroys cellulite. An Amtrak train has gone off the rails in Iowa, according to CNN, and American companies will now be allowed to sell laptop computers in Eastern Europe. Kevin Johnson of the Phoenix Suns, so racked with the flu he had to be fed intravenously, nonetheless tallied 29 points and 12 assists in last nights game. Meanwhile, a robot surgeon has successfully replaced a dogs arthritic hip with an artificial joint. On the Fox affiliate, a cartoon Mr. Wilson is sure thats Dennis (the Menace) in the gorilla suit, so he uses a pair of pliers on the snout; entertainingly, however, its an actual gorilla escaped from the zoo. The Infiniti Q-45 goes 060 in 6.9 seconds Wow is an involuntary response of pure pleasure. Type A personalities are five times as likely to have a second heart attack, according to Otto Wahl, the psychiatry professor at George Mason University. Following vertical roasting on the Spanik Vertical Roaster, a chicken can beiscarved with a carrot. In Czechoslovakia, Ambassador Rita Klimova tells C-SPAN, the newly emerging democracy has spawned dozens of political parties, including one for beer drinkers. Sesame Street is brought to you this morning by L, S, and 6. Only 11 percent of Americans feel the penny should be banned. Mr. Wizard is ripping apart fireworks to get at the chemicals inside. Finally one of my favoritesstrontium chloride, he exults. In Japan an exchange has opened to trade memberships in golf clubs as if they were stocksthey are already accepted as collateral by banks. Margie Grant now uses Dove soap: I had this revelation. Its about time for me to start paying more attention to my skin, my face. Because you just dont realize how fast time passes. The Travel Channel provides the Lisbon forecast (high of 77) and then a documentary about Austria, a country you may encounter on the far shores of the world, wherever humanity is striving to improve life. For instance, airport passengers in Los Angeles may be driven to the terminal by airport buses made in Austria. The Hobel, a machine from nearby West Germany, is featured on Breakthroughs. It transforms food preparation from a tedious routine into an exciting event, and is top-rack-dishwasher-safe. Precision-minted pewter medallions celebrating former President Reagan are available for $10 on the Nashville Network. Tums tastes like chalk, proclaims an exTums user. On McHales Navy, all leaves have been canceled until annoying enemy pilot Washing Machine Charlie can be silenced, much to McHales disgust. (If hes a menace, Im a ring-tailed goony bird, he declares.) Hans, a Dutch national, prepares a creamy Gouda sauce to drizzle over cauliflower for the A&E audience. A harrowing documentary on the Howard University station documents the British genocide of Tasmanian aborigines, right down to the last man, whose skeleton hangs in the Oxford Museum. Richard Simmons introduces his brother, who used to weigh 205 pounds: Here I was only forty-two and I felt fifty-two, maybe sixty-two. Theres terrible flooding in Texason the Today show, a woman is plucked off the roof of her submerged car by a helicopter. Richard Nixon tells Bryant Gumbel that while its true his resignation from the presidency may continue to cloud his record, the main point is to live life to the hilt, all the time you possibly can, and to continue to give it your best shot to the end. Owning a firearm is a deeply personal decision, says a young woman in a checkered suit appearing on behalf of the NRA. Whistle at me, will you, you shirt-tail cousin to a piccolo! declares Wally Gator, the swinging navigator in the swamp. A preacher is explaining something on the Inspirational NetworkAs long as youre holding on to cash, you cant do anything with it. And if God tries to give you more, what happens? He demonstratesthe bills bounce off your closed fist and fall to the floor. On the CBS morning news a controversial Milwaukee alderman says that unless a hundred-million-dollar minority jobs program is created soon, revolutionary violence will be committed against the city of Milwaukee. Newly released hostage Frank Reed declares from his hospital balcony that he is looking forward to a three-pound Maine lobster. A man named Delvin Miller has been harness racing for eight decades, not including a stretch in World War II where he trained mules to deliver medicine in Burma for General Vinegar Joe Stilwell. The members of singing group Wilson Phillips remark that people tell them their name makes them sound like a law firm or a type of screwdriver. Fairfax County residents are encouraged to burlap-band their trees for gypsy-moth detection and control. The reason Ill always make a big deal about three-quarters sleeves is that you always used to have to push up your sleeves, says an announcer on the J. C. Penney Channel. Hamstrings work in opposition to quadriceps, according to an exercise instructor on the Lifetime Channel, who adds the adductor muscles are too tight in most of the population. More CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were born under Taurus than any other sign; also, age-based sizing for childrens clothing is out-of-date because children are larger than they were when the sizing was devised. A National Family Opinion Research survey discussed on Channel 34 found that most consumers arent shy about testing out beds in retail showrooms. On MTV, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden describes his new solo album, which has songs about how there are all those people at the cocktail party with their little masks on, and all the businessmen in their suits and ties and theyre just stabbing each other in the back all the time. (Adds Dickinson, Weve got a real rip-your-head-off direction in Maiden, and were very proud of that direction. But with the solo stuff I can do stuff thats a little more varied.) Research from the University of Wisconsin indicates that hamburger may contain certain substances that inhibit skin cancer. Congressman Donald Buz Lukens, who was convicted of having sex with a sixteen-year-old, said he had made a dumb mistake but that he would run for reelection anyway.