For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 01, 2018

and why waste a perfectly good hour at the telly?

Ah, the logic of a teenager.

Poor Liz, she’s just trying to spread exciting news. Teenaged siblings can be a real drag.

Michael’s too busy to watch television anyway. He has to find out where the pedals on his bicycle went.

He won’t care for another hour until his programs come on!

Has the bike helmet been added in?

Principles are sometime loosely defined.

Mike’s killing two birds with one stone here.

I remember those days before Television programming ran 24 hours a day.

Someone had suggested punishing the kids by making them only watch PBS. There actually was a place that did that; Maricopa County, Arizona, under the command of Sheriff Joseph Arpaio. He allowed no TV save for C-SPAN, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel. He disallowed any movies unless they were shown by Turner Classic Movies. In the first year he got rid of hot lunches, replacing them with cold sandwiches and fruit, saving the taxpayers $5 million a year. In his second year he abolished the taxpayer-subsidized cup of coffee, saving another $500,000. (Coffee was still available, however the inmates had to pay for it out of their own funds). Arpaio did not do this simply to lighten the tax burden, he said that “jail is not the Ritz Carlton”.

Again…do not trust sibling influences 24/7