ShareThisThe coming year will be a year of change.Regardless of what occurs in the coming months, 2009 will be a new era in America. A change unlike any in history, a change for the better, will sweep the nation. In another decade, children will be unaware that life in our country was ever any different.I speak, of course, of the transition to digital television.In February 2009, assuming we are not bartering for eggs and linens in the streets, America will complete the switch to all-digital broadcasting. Rabbit ears will prove even more useless than before and high definition will be broadcast across the airwaves.For those with a few grand to send to China, the change will prove reason enough to purchase a high-definition television and an HD channel package. In time, the format will become as common as color. But in the interim, America is in for a 48-inch rude awakening.Those with high definition and a taste for touchdowns have likely seen the awful future. A recent college game, for example, featuring a genial older announcer, sent an unintended chill through HD homes across the country.As the rosy-cheeked gentleman spoke of the game, a horrible, pallid, liver-spotted hand reached from the bottom of the screen like a gnarled appendage from the crypt, clutching -- of all things -- a microphone. Once the screaming subsided, viewers realized that they were seeing the announcer's hand, without the benefit of rose-hued makeup.Professional-football fans have faced similar shocks when, returning from commercial, the HD cameras place their unyielding gaze on a hapless cheerleader. A few unpleasant seconds of caked makeup and crow's-feet are enough to remind us that the view is sometimes better from the nosebleeds.In these ways and more, the advent of nationwide high definition is bound to bring something into American homes that has never been broadcast on television before: Reality. And not stranded-on-a-desert-island-with-six-supermodels reality, but the terrible reality of cellulite, puffy eyes and dandruff.Is America ready to see the gaping pores on its talking heads? Can our country handle the fresh cosmetic scars of its "Desperate Housewives"? Will anyone ever watch "The View" again? Perhaps we can petition for mandatory standard definition, for the good of the people.But as they say, the truth shall set you free. In this case, the truth shall make you sick first, but the realities of high definition could very well unlock the body-image chains that bind us.For too long our nation has suffered under the unrealistic standards of airbrushed magazine covers and Photoshopped celebrity spreads. High definition will prove, in 1,080 horizontal scanned lines, that nobody can really look that good. It will be a revolution and a release unlike any in history.In another decade, our children will have no inkling of the unattainable images of glossy actors and pop stars. Celebrities and schlubs alike will share the common experience of the stray nose hair and the poorly camouflaged zit. The curves of a common diet will outweigh the skeletal diagram of a starved physique.A change is coming, called down by Congress, and it's a change we sorely need. So get yourself to a big-box store and plop down that last line of credit. Because unless you're a cheerleader, change is good.(Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread(at)gmail.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
A revolution and a release unlike any in history
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