It seems odd that I am still feeling like an outsider a year and a half after arriving in California, but maybe the truth is, living in another country was just my way of disguising my own sense of being different.
I have a new dentist who has televisions in all his rooms, positioned where you can see them as you lie back in the dental chair. The woman who was working on my teeth had the TV tuned to an animals channel, and I found it relaxing to watch puppies doing tricks and horses being rescued from abusive owners. But then I was moved to a new room where another woman had a celebrity news channel on. The tone of the announcers was urgent and aggressive. This news was important-- that's why the voices come so loud and fast, with images changing every couple of seconds! This news is mean-spirited, cynical and funny! And this news invades real people's privacy and makes them and their families miserable so that someone watching daytime TV is entertained for a few seconds!
"Yeah, it's terrible what they do," said the complacent woman cleaning my teeth. She left the TV on though. I longed for the gadget I carry in my purse, a TV-B-Gone.
What year did public humiliation of other people become entertainment to Americans?
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