Posted on 03/13/2012 6:10:12 PM PDT by iowamark
Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is fed up with The History Channel’s programming and took his rage out on Twitter, unleashing a fury of tweets, chewing out the network for their reality programming and lack of actual historical shows. “When I signed up for the History Channel on my satellite service, I expected to get history,” Grassley told the Washington Examiner. “Instead, all I see are people chopping wood or driving trucks on an icy road.”
“I love history,” Grassley added. “A better understanding is going to strengthen our country. It’s going to strengthen patriotism.”
Grassley began his jeremiad against The History Channel in February, and revisited it this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
Ironic considering the show American Pickers is about a history based business located in his own state LOL.
We have a local picker in my neighborhood who started over 50 years ago buying up various items including old log cabins, grist mills, old tools, chairs, wagons, musical instruments etc. He founded a museum called The Museum of Appalachia and is considered one of the best regional historians.
Cable TV is really getting awful. History Channel thinks history is pawn stars, pickers, and alligator hunts. AMC thinks CSI is a movie, Time Warner takes Versus away from me and gives me another home shopping channel - then tries to sell me Versus as a premium channel. ESPN commentators spew pro Obama “public service announcements”.
Well, there's always the Learning Chanel...
Wait.
...never mind...
Well, there's always the Science Chanel...
Wait.
...never mind...
Well, there's always the National Geographic Channel...
Wait.
...never mind...
What's wrong with wrestling, cage fighting, dancing with the stars, the great Amazing races, anyway?
You some kind of an elitist dork?
There’s almost nothing left on any channel worth watching now, part of a devolutionary spiral going on for years:
Borderline IQ average programing (80-70) 20 years ago, then Borderlines tuned out and it devolved to a Moron audience (69-50) about 10 years ago, and now it’s hovering within the Imbecile range (49-29). In another few months, just before the end of the Mayan Calendar, I think, Imbeciles will get bored and it will piddle out down into the 20-0 Black Hole IQ of the Idiot, from which there is no return or escape. Along the way, various forms of cretins and pinheads have come and gone, leaving their indelible mark on the medium.
If this insipid medium lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
But I miss the straight history that used to make up most of The History Channel's programming.
There's more to WWx than Hitler, Mussolini and Obama...
Just today I watched Great Tank Battles for the first useful depiction of the 1983 Tom Kippur war; even that was woefully inadequate. Had I not recently read The Eve of Destruction, I might still not know about the 80% of the events of that war that were left out.
MTV is a made up marketing word.
I wasn't aware that the definition of "History" had changed; or "Science" or "Geography" or...
Heh...I said the exact same thing last night when I was channel surfing.
Couldn’t agree more. All the channels I used to watch (TLC, A&E, Discovery, History, Natgeo, etc) now mostly are mindless “reality” shows. I’ve had enough of Hillbilly Fisherman, Storage Wars, Pickers, Pawn Stars, Croc Hunters, Doomsday Preppers, State Troopers, Jousting. No wonder TV viewership is declining - the dumbing down of America is upon us. Like the Springsteen song, 57 Channels and nothing on. Seriously considering cancelling cable at our house.
Bering Sea Gold doesn't go that much into history like Deadliest Catch does with maritime history. But with most History Channel shows if you watch them close you will learn something.
I developed an interest in searching for certain historical artifacts when I was a kid. When I first started out I used to hunt for old bottles with my dad and an uncle. My uncle started one of the fist flea markets in our area. By old bottles I mean late 1800's and earlier with few exceptions. Much of the huntng involved a rather risky method where we would dig out filled cisterns in town. We had a brief window of maybe 4-8 hours in which to dig before the walls began too dry and cave in danger made it too dangerous to continue.
We barely missed one of the best local finds though. Someone located it before us. It was one of the first taverns in East Tennessee.
I’d love to get involved with something like that, but there’s precious little western history here out on the coast. Everything is less than a hundred years old.
Last episode their home needed repair. They pulled up a sunken Cyprus log, got it too the mill and cut, and made their repairs. Think about it. Their living expenses per year are likely less than many persons per month. Yet looking at last weeks show they seemed to have a decent rig for extracting logs {which takes considerable skill}, a decent boat, and pick up truck as well. More power too them. :>} They have the good fortune to live a way of life they love.
Top Shot is a great show, despite Jake in the last season.
Damn I'm getting old.
don’t disagree with the Senator but, in an election year, is this the best focus of the Republican party?
Maybe running the country should take priority over the Senator’s private viewing practices.
Maybe out of control spending, maybe talking about Obama’s negatives. . . .
I’m ticked that Netflix dropped Starz and so I can’t see Spartacus, but is this news?
again.. your point is? Should history change their name? Maybe. However, it can be argued that trucking (IRT) has roots going back far enough to be considered historic. Same with Pawn brokers go back to biblical times, Lumber jacks have a long line of history...
While the shows themselves are not “historic” they do have roots in history.
There was a time (granted, I was much younger) when I would have MTV on for hours at a time. This was in the early to mid 1980s when they played virtually nothing but music clips. Best thing about it was they showed the artist, album and song title at the beginning and ending of every song so I knew what to look for when I went to the record store.
Then they started with their "hip" shows and eventually music clips all but disappeared from MTV. As a result, I haven't watched MTV in about a quarter century.
History channel, same thing. I used to like the WW2 shows and learning about the Roman Empire and such. Now all you get is a bunch of crap - mostly shows about pawn shops. What the hell?
Why can't they just show on the channel what the name of the channel says? Create a Pawn Shop channel and put those shows over there and give me back my history on the History channel!
You stand a better chance of finding things intact out west due to dry environments. A few years ago for example a wooden wagon wheel intact was going for several hundred dollars. There is also pottery etc than can be hundreds of years old.
One of my dads last interest was hunting arrow heads. He would find ones made of flint whereas flint is not common to our area. The Indians would trade with northern tribes for it. He didn't do it for any gain but rather just for the thrill of finding them. None he found were ever sold.
But as for valuable items? The old wooden Coca Cola cases are worth quite a bit now as most were destroyed. Here's you another rare find. Any fruit jar with 13 stamped on the bottom. Moonshiners busted them because they thought they were bad luck LOL. The weirdest things can made something valuable.
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