Sirius gets serious with cable

When I was young I was blessed to have a mother with a desire to see the world. She wanted to go everywhere and anywhere. The only predicament was that she was a teacher and my father fixed copy machines so, as you can guess, we didn’t have a lot of money. Nevertheless, she still had that adventurer’s spirit. Every summer we would pile into our red Chrysler Voyager and hit the road, traveling to places like Arches National Park or Mount Rushmore. The boredom was almost paralyzing. A little kid could only sleep for so long and the batteries in my old Game Boy would die in the first part of the trip because I had to share it with my brother and sisters. My mother tried her best to keep us entertained by reading to us. She would read as long as she could before she got too carsick. But it always kept us intrigued for the length of the trip.
Today, kids and parents don’t have to worry about kids getting bored in the car. It seems like every kid has a Game Boy, or that the car has a TV and DVD player in it. Recently I learned that they were installing cable television into cars. I was dumbfounded. The first thought that went through my mind was “I wonder what stations they have?” My next question was “I wonder how much that costs?” Then my last question was “How dependent on TV have Americans become that they need cable TV in their cars?” When I told my wife about it that was the first thing she said. So that is the question I ask you. Are we as Americans so dependent on TV to entertain us and babysit our children that we need it playing every second of the day?
Some of my fondest memories are of my mom reading to us. She introduced me to some of my favorite books, like the Harry Potter books, The Hobbit and Agatha Christie. I also got to see the country. I learned to love looking at the scenery and had some good opportunities to sit back and think. Those are things that kids with so many different distractions don’t learn anymore. We’ve become a nation with ADD.
The company responsible for  television in cars is Sirius Satellite Radio. They are putting their services in some of the new Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge cars. It costs upwards of $400 to install in your car, $6.95 a month for the TV service, plus the normal Sirius radio subscription cost.
Some people will look at the price and think it a small price to pay to keep their kids quiet while they drive. The TV service features stations like Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network Mobile.
I like to think that when I have a family I won’t route to installing cable TV in my car. I hope that I will be able to introduce some of my favorite books to my children like my parents did for me.