By: Hettie Basil Lighttower
When I was a kid I liked to watch StarTrek with my grandfather. As a matter of fact a good bit of us grandchildren really enjoyed it. The fascinating equipment, fading in and out for transportation, time travel, strange planets, alien beings, fasers, healing machines and flying at warp speed all was so exciting. Another favorite show of my childhood was The Jetson’s. It was all futuristic with a robot maid named Rosey, space rockets as cars, seats turned into personal rockets and the kids get dropped off at their schools by this personal rocket, walkways in the house that moved so you didn’t have to move your legs to walk(like in airports now days),a tube in the house kinda like we see at the drive through windows at banks these days but big enough for a person where the mom selects a destination for the kid and it automatically sends him to that destination like the park or wherever, food that appeared by just pushing a couple buttons, oh my goodness, I could go on and on about all the automatic services by the push of a button.
Now days we see a lot of that in real life. You can push a button for nearly everything. And new things are invented everyday where we have to do less and less and just reach for a button. I’m typing on a keyboard right now that is reactive merely to a touch! When I learned how to type on an actual manual, not even electric typewriter, each and every one of your fingers had to strike the key to make the letter. It was an actual workout and much force had to be used. Anyway, back to the subject of TV.
The early 60s and even 2 decades before that were full of very creative television shows full of imagination. Or were they? Perhaps they were actual glimpses into our future. I also have liked the television show called The Twilight Zone. I watched the Twilight Zone in recent years on Netflix with no commercial interruptions and episode after episode. I was really amazed at how much truth is actually in those shows even though they are supposed to be presented in ways of “this is so far-fetched that it could never happen” and “only in the Twilight Zone”. The programs dealt with so many issues known to man and presented them in a way that exaggerated the outcome, or lessons involved. But in every episode fate was always met in the most obvious way and worst possible outcome. The person got what was coming to them or they succumbed to irony or inevitable. The reasons were vast and based on many serious topics we face in life.
Some of the issues were exposed about greed, guilt, self image, fears, parenthood, family secrets, irony, health, longevity, integrity, gambling, death, contentment, discontentment, perspective, dimensions, and aliens being amongst us looking just like us and us not knowing the difference. It is actually a brilliant show on human behavior giving truths and consequences to choices we are given on a daily basis. But Star Trek is like that too in a lot of ways where it deals with situations of all kinds and how we handle them or react to them.
When I saw these shows as a child, they were fun and stretched my imagination and were very much fantasy. But as time has marched on, five decades later, I see correlations to real life and nearly all those episodes reflected what’s to come or what is ignored and should be brought to light. And it was done in a seemingly innocent entertaining, imaginatory way. As I reflect, were some of those episodes trying to tell us something? Was there something they knew back then that we didn’t? Afterall, in 1927, when television was put together and constructed, this picture tube had to have a name. “Tell a vision” How and why did the inventors select that name? And the shows are called “programs”. We program our computers these days, meaning we add to it what we want it to do or how we want it to serve us through programming.
And what about the names for the different avenues to make programs available. Those are called “Channels”. Channeling goes way way way back, long before TV came about. I won’t get into that deep subject here, now, but perhaps in the future we may discuss it. I’m just exploring what it might have been like when all the men were sitting at that round table trying to come up with terms for the new things this new contraption would do and be, why did they choose these terms. What words were said, what choices were suggested? What names were thrown out and why? Why wasn’t it called a “picture box”(PB)? of course, Peanut Butter was already invented in 1884, but was not going by PB yet. That came about in recent decades when people started getting lazy and losing integrity. Or “moving images lens”(MIL)? Or Electronic Motion Picture/Box( EMP)? But we ended up with Television, Programs/Programming, and Channeling. Were we being directed by entertainment to accept these terms in everyday life? We easily have taken them for granted that’s for sure. This will be continued next week but only to digress back to futuristic concepts. Send in your notions and comments to [email protected]. I will include them in the next available column as per their arrival relative to the publication deadline of Tuesday by 12 p.m. of the same week. If you wish to be anonymous let me know. Kindness is contagious~