TeletubbiesThis morning was totally surreal. I’m trying to get back to an early morning schedule, so I’ve begun waking up earlier and will keep pushing back the time I wake up until I reach 5am. A few years ago, I shifted my internal clock and was able to wake up at 5am every morning and believe it or not, it was a good experience. 🙂 However, it seems that in the “computer world” things tend to run late into the night and I’ve slipped back to my normal routine of staying up quite late.

So, here I am up at 6:00am and I go downstairs to do my AM Yoga. 20 minutes later, I rewind the video and turn on the TV – the war with Iraq has begun. I quickly absorb the news of what has happened thus far and am glad to hear that nothing severe has happened to our troops thus far. We’re in the early stages, but so far so good.

As my tea is steeping, I flip around a few channels and that’s when things got a little weird. Surprisingly, not all of the major stations were carrying coverage of the war. NBC was interspersing news coverage with it’s regular guests. I guess learning how to keep my colon healthy is important in times of war. CBS was showing an episode of Matlock. Matlock? That’s funny all by itself. CNN of course had coverage, in fact this is somewhat of an anniversary for them, given that the Gulf War is what put them on the map to begin with. With my confidence a bit restored by CNN, I decided to see what MTV (the voice of the young generation) had in terms of coverage and instead was presented with Missy Elliot’s “Gossip Folks” video. You can imagine how re-assuring it was for Missy to rap…

Musi ques I sews on bew I pues a twos on que zat Pue zoo My kizzer pous zigga ay zee Its all kizza its always like its all kizza its always like Na Zound wa zee wa zoom zoom zee

In trying to get back to the news, I entered the wrong channel number and landed on PBS where “Teletubbies” was on :O. That’s when I started pinching myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming.

As a virtual collage, I was having a very odd viewing experience. David Lynch couldn’t have programmed it better. I know that life must go on and all that. I know that everything can’t come to a screeching halt while war erupts. Small children need their “Teletubbies,” brain dead teenagers need Missy Elliot’s illiterate bullshit rap and baby boomers need their “Matlock.” Yet, it seems like we SHOULD pause for a moment. We should take stock for a second and reflect on where we’re going and what we’re doing. 9/11 made everyone stop and take stock, yet this war seems like a minor story line interwoven with an episode of “90210.”

Of course, maybe TV is the wrong place to look for a collective moral compass of the nation at 7am. 😛