Leavittation

Every so often, some idiot will do or say something incredibly stupid on television (often sports related) or will do something so incredibly stupid that it ends up being shown on television. Invariably these morons will be taken to task for "embarassing themselves on national television." Isn't it time we stopped putting "national" in front of "television"? I used to think of this phrase as meaning "televised on one of the national broadcast networks." But now people use it to describe images on CNN, ESPN, Court TV, Animal Planet, whatever. With the proliferation of digital cable, satellite dishes and high-speed internet, isn't all television pretty much not just "national" but "international"? Are we really trying to distinguish these events from the Walmart openings on local news? From cable-access talk shows in some militia member's basement? From bootleg video tapes? Let's just say they embarassed themselves on television. Or better yet, let's not watch the news at all. Night Court is probably on TV Land right now.