A lot of mean things are said today about commercial television. There is the horrible spectacle of Video Boy - he just sits there, sucks his thumb and stares at the tube. He doesn’t climb trees; he watches Tarzan do it. The slick, raunchy blurt it out material of some comedians like Carson, Rowan and Martin is almost totally accepted. Theodore White says of political power: “Our thinking is so strongly shaped by television that it frightens me.”

There is much to do - and soon.

But when you’re in St. Joseph’s Infirmary, armed with the luxury of TV, you grasp the treasures there are. You watch Ben Gazarra, the defending Marshalls, those excellent new reports (especially Paul Shields’), Ray Moore’s “The Search,” the fine dialogues with churchmen and young people. I even enjoyed WAII’s opening at 6 a.m. with a rousing Star Spangled Banner.

Case History Of A Madman

But those documentaries! Costeau’s underwater films, the beauty of Venice, the frightening “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” the case history of a madman and the terrible acquiescence of a Christian, educated nation.

Remember last year’s wondrous, “Romeo and Juliet?” The woman speaks, “Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.”

“It was the nightingale and not the lark that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear, Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”

And as events moved to their terrible end, she finds his poison of death: “What’s here? A cup, closed in my true love’s hand? Poison, I see hath been his timeless end...”

What magnificent verse.

Select What You Want

Allowing the set to aimlessly meander simply will not work. You have to watch the newspaper schedule and just pick what you want. Conversation, eating, housework, telephones and other people will have to take second place, but with perseverance you can sufficiently isolate yourself! Do what you can.

TV and radio too are trying hard in many ways. We should help them. Have you heard WGKA’s fine day of good music? It’s great.

It hasn’t been long since Newton Minow described television as “wasteland.” But there are now fresh ideas, young oases, even areas of green wonder. We must watch TV, move with it, help it and treasure it. It is an instrument of power.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta