небольшой рассказ о тинейджерах на англ яз)помогите.

It's been nearly 35 years now since I left my parents' home at 19 and entered into a life without television. In all the time I have never had a tv in any place I've —1 called home.

I have read more than 2,000 books, seen more than 1,000 movies, spent 5,000 hours in conversation with some 10,000 people, spent thousands of hours in public service to my community, traveled to 18 countries and learned bits — and snatches of 15 languages.

I am less inclined to talk in sitcom cliches, less likely to mention brand names, and less likely to be afraid to go outside at night. I know far more about world events, speak better English, know more of my neighbors, have more — opinions about everything, and am more inclined to help a stranger in need.

You will probably laugh a little at that list, but there is a clear relationship between the amount of tv viewing one does and all of the qualities I've described. After all, being the audience for a tv is a passive act; scientists told the Los Angeles Times that on average, a child watching television slips into the passive brain state within 30 seconds of beginning to watch television. Most adults I know seem to start out that way.

For me, watching television is an exercise in observation; I am aware of camera angles, staae-settina. editing and message-shaping more than of what tv tries to sell me; indeed, it doesn't take much to become a sophisticated tv viewer — all you have to do is turn it off for a while to see how empty and manipulative it is when you turn it on again.

That unreality was never more painfully real than the time I watched Mike Wallace recap key moments of the '70s during a New Year's Eve broadcast. The most powerful of the images was of the terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. I re-experienced the horror of the murders of the Israeli athletes growing more deeply involved in the story with every passing second.

With no warning, a Miller Beer commercial suddenly blared onto the screen, and it was as though a fully-loaded garbage truck had plowed into my gut. I almost vomited with the shock _ and sense of violation.

Admittedly, I have spent a few great moments in front of the tube. Live [laiv] coverage of the Detroit riots in 1966, the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby in 1963, and the end of President Reagan's first State of the Union address might qualify, though.

Each of those events, I would note, was broadcast live, free of commercial interruption. But I suspect that television executives would decide whether to show Jack Ruby's act today. That's another problem with tv: It's carefully controlled and information is fed to Americans by just a few huge corporations, and thev seem unable to understand it.

April 23-29 is National TV-Turnoff Week, and I urge everyone who wants to see another world in this lifetime — namely, this L one — to join those of us who have learned how to live in it.