My wife and I stopped at a Dunkin Donuts in Mystic on Saturday to kill some time while we waited for the train to Boston. The ubiquitous large screen television, a fixture nowadays even in some restaurants, was tuned in to the equally ubiquitous Fox News, which appears to be the station of choice for all such televisions, except those tuned to a football, baseball or basketball game. At least that’s the way it seems to me.
Ever so politely, I asked that the channel be changed. Ever so politely I was told that it would be. Ever so politely, I waited. And waited. Well, as I’ve always suspected, despite what on the surface would seem like paranoia, it turns out that my suspicion that Fox is imposed from on high is fact based, like so much liberal thinking. The friendly young man at the counter could not have changed the channel even if he understood the problem. As Dave Collins, who made the rounds of our local Dunkins reports in this mornings Day, there’s nary a one in the area not tuned to Fox, and here’s why:
My tipster told me he asked at the Dunkin’ Donuts in North Stonington, and the person behind the counter told him that tuning to Fox was a standing order of the district manager.
(via theday.com Mobile Edition)
So, I urge my reader in Southeastern Connecticut to join with me and boycott Dunkin Donuts. Some might say this is hardly a sacrifice for me, as I ingest neither coffee nor donuts, but as everyone knows, you always want something as soon as you can’t have it, so there is the theoretical possibility that this will impose a real hardship on me, much as my years long boycott of Walmart has been such a strain. Seriously, though, if we libs withdrew our custom, Dunkin would go down.
Collins is wrong about one thing, however. He goes on to say:
I suspect many gyms and other places that have televisions on all the time and a wide range of customers are careful about what kind of programming they choose.
Not so, Dave. My wife has struggled with the folks at her gym, who haven’t a clue what she’s talking about when she complains about the omnipresent Fox. And just after my experience at Dunkin I went to a business establishment run by a woman I know and respect in which Fox was providing misinformation. When I told her that I would seriously consider withdrawing my custom if she kept running it (the TV had just recently been installed, though the business has been around for a while) she looked genuinely perplexed. Like the folks at my wife’s gym, she simply had no idea that there was a difference between Fox and news. This particular business is, by the way, right near one of the poorest areas in town, meaning that she was passing on propaganda that demonized the very people upon whom she depends to make a living.
As a veteran of the long but successful campaign to stop smokers from polluting the air for us non-smokers, I know these things take time. At first, it was difficult to be the lonely voice asking the smokers to respect the rights of us long sufferers, but after a while it got easier, more people spoke up, and in the end, right and justice triumphed, and smokers were relegated to doorways where they belong. So when someone assaults you with Fox, speak up and demand that they stop imposing their propaganda on you. It may take time, but in the end we’ll triumph, and Fox will be relegated to the living rooms of the mouth breathers and comatose.
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