I first saw a TV show at my grampa's home. It was totally mesmerizing to myself as a young child.My mother decided that with seven children in the home, plus a couple boarders, that there would not be a TV in our home. She stuck to her rule and each of us developed the creative side of our brain. I brought up my three daughters with a TV in the home, yet they never turned on. The girls were too busy playing in the tops of trees, swimming in our pond, or cutting down small evergreen trees and decorating them with pumpkin ornamments. I still would love to watch TV sometimes, but I realize that it is an expense I can't afford in my budget. You can wean yourself from TV. My oldest daughter was able to accomplish no TV along with her husband. 

How many less criminals would there be if we were not forced into a culture of pain, sickness and unhappiness?

Think about this:  Happy, satisfied, healthy and fulfilled people do not need most of the products and servies promoted to achieve happiness, satisfaction, healt and fulfillment.

Most profit is made from the unhappy, unsatisfied, unhealthy and unfulfilled population in this country.

TV is trash. Commercials are brainwashing.

Television also has its positives (which Dr Mercola fails to mention, which is why he loses credibility with me on this issue.  His bias gets in the way of being objective). 

On this issue alone, how many criminals have been caught because of America's Most Wanted viewers? 

I could rest my case on that example alone. 

The biggest negative about television is that most Americans watch too much of it.

Dr Mercola recommends reading a book over watching television, but if my twelve-year-old daughter came to me, asking if I would rather have her read a trashy Harlequin romance novel (which skew what defines true and lasting romantic love) or watch several episodes of "I Love Lucy", I would choose Lucy (who, though her real marriage to Desi ended amicably in 1960, the marriage depicted onscreen is an example of a typical, and of course imperfect, but happy marriage).  "I Love Lucy" was just pure, entertaining fun (though Mercola would say it was propaganda because it sneaked in advertisements for Philip Morris cigarettes, but oh well).

T'is better to watch a clean movie than to read a dirty book.  If it is mostly the advertisements that Mercola hates so about the box (television), then he should just say so instead of discounting all television programs, and for someone who respects performers for their craft and talent and hard work, I find his comments somewhat derisive.

I remember him referring to television programs in a previous article as "that fake, scripted stuff" that teaches you nothing about life or relationships or something like that, but so is the dialogue in fiction and literature, and don't most stage actors and actresses follow a script as well? 

I think we should look to the nature of the things we find amusing (dirty jokes, clean jokes) rather than where we see or hear them.