Television has been my friend since I was just a boy; it still is.  It’s taken me to the Enterprise for Tribbles and to the moon for Tranquility, to Yankee Stadium for Larsen’s perfect game, to Berlin to see the wall fall.  Color television made it clear that the Ponderosa was fake, and thrilled me when the peacock fanned its tail.  I’m still drooling at what I see on my HDTV.

Tee Vee has made me laugh, made me cry, and for years has made me my money…although I laugh about that part to keep from crying.

But who knew it was taking dead aim at my heart!

The conclusion of the Australian researchers, reported today in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, is that more time spent watching television comes with a significant increase in risk of death than does watching less television.  They also find that exercise alone is not the answer, that “we also need to promote avoiding long periods of sitting, such as spending long hours in front of the computer screen.”

Just a minute…gotta stretch.

No long periods of sitting?  What if I sit for four or more hours reading?  Have there been reports of high death rates among the world’s book editors?  And woe to those who sleep sitting up, like your cube farm neighbor.

Personally, I wonder if there’s any special dispensation: does it count against me when I watch TV professionally?  And, is there transitive benefit I can gain by watching other people exercise?