TV Sludge (3#) -

I turned on the TV News this morning, but there was no news, if you define news as information about current events in the world around us. Instead, there was just a lot of pageantry about singer Whitney Houston who has just died.

Lately, the TV News has lost any connection to news whatsoever. Or it just has a rather tenuous connection at best.

But it's not like we went from zero to sixty last week, during which the TV News Hole was already being filled with promotions of merchandise for the upcoming Valentine holiday. I used to look forward to holidays, though not anymore. Holidays now seem like just a sleazy opportunity to hawk more cr*p and shove it down our throats.

Rachel Dodes outlines a new phenomenon, for those intent on wasting what free time they still have left: the after show. This is mostly on Cable TV, which has endless time to fill and has made it one of their specialty skills to waste as much of your time as possible.

Our local time waster on Cable TV may be Real Housewives of Miami, which reportedly didn't have many fans, but is being renewed anyway. Go figure.

"So what does it take to remain a Miami Housewife? The absence of dignity... and diva behavior with the street cred... to back it up."

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