Amazingly, I Agree With Charles Grassley About Something

It is very rare that I agree with a conservative about anything, so it made me sit up and pay attention when paleolithic Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA)  complained about there not being enough history on the History Channel.

Petulant old fart Chuck Grassley

I totally agree, and when they do show something about History, it’s always either World War II or The Titanic.  Admittedly, World War II was a pretty intense period in human history, filled with lots of interesting stories of tragedy and triumph, but the Titanic was just a shipwreck.  Not even as important a shipwreck as, say, for instance, the Lusitania.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a good documentary about the Whiskey Rebellion, or the Teapot Dome scandal, or the 100 years war.  These things were part of history, too.

But the uncanny part is that hateful  old geezer Grassley apparently dislikes specifically the same shows I dislike.  “Every time I turn on the history channel,” he wrote, “I see men chopping down trees or driving on icy roads.”

First, it’s false labeling.  If TV executives want to market shows like that, they should put them on the “Odd Jobs” channel and leave history out of it.  Actually, that might be a very successful channel.

Secondly, I don’t care for the programs.  My interest in people driving on ice is entirely satisfied by reading the sentence “Up in the arctic, sometimes they drive trucks over roads of ice.”  Watching them do it is about as exciting as watching trucks drive down the freeway in nice weather, with even less variable scenery.

As far as the logging show goes, I don’t want to watch people cut down trees.  The world needs all the trees it can get.  The loggers are the bad guys.  I know they are guys just doing their job, but they’re still the bad guys.  And I certainly don’t need to watch a bunch of people yelling at each other and cursing.  I don’t need to watch TV for that.

I’m not saying I’m suddenly a fan of Chuck Grassley.  He’s still a withered up old prune, a nasty, miserable, bitter old man, a living impediment to human progress, but we do agree about the History Channel.  It sucks.