Too late regrettably, Rupert already owns most of the media here who all echo his diktats. There are still a couple of holdouts but his reach is suffocatingly banal!
If he ever learns how to make a quid or a dollar from the internet, and he's working on it it have no doubt, then may God help us all! There'll be no refuge!

On a different but related note ... I am getting increasingly concerned by the intrusion of television into public spaces.

There is virtually no public indoor venue left where you can conduct your business or relaxation without the intrusion of one or more large TV screens - with or without the sound on. The list is long and growing: gyms, sporting clubrooms, banks, medical waiting rooms, hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, eateries, hairdressers, clothing outlets, service stations, government buildings, post offices and so on ...

I often find myself in the bizarre situation of standing in a queue with one or more TV screens on around me, all with the sound off, but with an added soundtrack of piped music playing overhead (totally unrelated to the TV) and often another soundtrack of piped music competing from the mall outside the venue. And if that's not enough, there are people in the queue playing their ipods and I am forced to hear yet another thumping soundtrack of music emanating from their earphones.

What's going on? Why has peace and quiet become public enemy number 1?

Yes. There are many books etc which describe and chronicle this decline into a dark age. One I particularly like even has the words dark ages in the title.

http://www.morrisberman.com

Although the process has been a long time coming, the author points to the Reagan years as to the point in time when the rot really started to become big time.

This dumbing down of everything in the USA was predicted by Alexis De Tocqueville in his classic Democracy in America.

Rob I think you're looking at your fellow Americans as if all they do is watch TV and read newspapers, they don't anymore, and you haven't seemed to notice what they are doing.

There is so much available information now in the US and such a range of interests that most Americans are deep in other areas due to access to good information.

They are not less intelligent, they are just not doing what older observers expect, they are simply too busy, not too dumb.

Americans still rule the world and will continue to do so. Their innovation and drive is unchallenged by the rest of the world, who I do realize still sneer at them out of what .. jealousy?

Had to spend much time waiting in hospital recently, waiting rooms are now dominated by large screen TV's, which had me searching out the few available magazines to flick through. Now, I would not have a problem if the screens were showing re-runs of the Glasshouse, or Dexter (which would be somehow appropriate given I was covered in blood) but it was crappy soapy stuff interspersed with commercials, or was that crappy soapy commercials interspersed with stuff. Whatever, I had a fractured skull in need of stitches and SILENCE.

If I want to dumb myself down I will do so on my terms, by falling and smashing my head just recently, but at least I wasn't being coerced into buying stuff I don't drink, eat or wear.

Its that same conundrum of having a Macca's at the Children's hospital - whatha?

I am not sure if the coming ages are dark, but they are certainly going to be very dim.