Wise Advice

I ran across this poem on the internet years ago. It has no credited author, and I've searched, but cannot find any. I'm listing it here as "Unknown". About 6 -7 years ago, we disconnected our cable. It was the most productive thing we have ever done in our home. We still have a television set for viewing films of our own careful, limited choosing, but our life changed dramatically once we cut off that connection to the "prince and power of the air" and his wicked domain.

TV OR NOT TV
The most important thing we've learned,

So far as children are concerned,
Is never never never let
Them near your television set.
Better yet just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been
We've seen them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
Past week we saw at someones place,
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.
They sit and stare and stare and sit,
until they're hypnotized by it.
Until they're absolutly drunk,
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill.
They never fight or kick or punch.
They leave you free to cook the lunch
and wash the dishes in the sink,
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
this does to your beloved tot.
It rots the senses in the head.
It kills imagination dead.
It clogs and clutters up the mind.
It makes a child so dull and blind.
He can no longer understand
A fanstasy, a fairyland.
His brain becomes as soft as cheese.
His powers of thinking rust and freeze.
He cannot think he only sees.
Alright, you'll cry alright you'll say.
But if we take the set away ,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain.
We'll answer this by asking you
what use't the darling once to do?
How use't they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?
Have you forgotten, don't you know
We'll say it very loud and slow.
THEY USED TO READ, THEY'D READ AND READ
AND THEN PROCEED TO READ SOME MORE.
Great Scott! Gadzooks!!
One half their lives was reading books
The nursery shelves held books galore.
Books cluttered up the nursery floor
And in the the bedroom by the bed ,
More books were waiting to be read.
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter,
With Mr. Todd the dirty rotter.
And squirrel napkin, pigling bland,
And Mrs. Figgywinkle, and
Just how the camel got his hump,
And how the monkey lost his rump,
And Mr. Toad and bless my soul,
Was Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole
Oh books! what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago
So please oh, please we beg, we pray,
Go throw your T.V. set away.
And in it's place you can install,
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams, the yells, the bites, the kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks.
Fear not because we promise you
That in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something good to read.
And once they start Oh boy! Oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts, they'll grow so keen.
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridicules machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive, television screen.
And later each and every kid,
Will love you more for what you did.

-Unknown