Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

We've taken time out from our busy schedule as journalists, phone hacking and making sensational stories out of nothing, to bring you this column. It's more authentic than Obama's birth certificate and more sincere than anything Murdoch is going to say.

You're a blood thirsty lot, apparently.
Especially on a Monday night. Because if you want to settle down to a night of pleasant television with a hot cuppa and a cat on your lap, be prepared for bloodshed, murder and general mayhem.

This is because 90 per cent of the television offerings on a Monday night contain vast amounts of killing, crime, gunfire and medical dramas.
One featured Criminal Minds, Castle (which seems to nearly always involve a murder) City Homicide then Surviving Disaster. Two wasn't much better with Body of Proof and then an attempt to patch up the carnage on Miami Medical.
Three usually splashes out the highway disasters with a bunch of cop yarns, featuring road carnage and smatterings of violence then sinks its teeth into Wolverines; while Prime oozes True Blood.
At the same time on Sky the movie slots are dominated by violence and bloodshed all night.

There's hardly a night goes by without a handgun being drawn and collectively across all channels, several hundred people blown away on a regular basis.

Shortly after our family got its first television set back in the ‘60s, Mother often used to remark, after a particularly gruesome black-and-white episode of Bonanza or High Chaparral, that she wasn't looking forward to cleaning up all the bodies under the TV cabinet the next morning. She was concerned the Electrolux might not handle the Indians piled up outside the stockade or the cowboys with arrows sticking out.

These days the Electrolux would be a complete waste of time. She'd need a bulldozer.
Our first reaction to all this mindless and usually quite unrealistic, bloodshed, is to blame the media or television stations for programming so much of it. But a quick check of reality reveals that they are merely responding to ratings. The public is demanding to see this level of violence against fellow human beings. It seems the majority crave the carnage.

Chilling when you think a bit deeper about what it says about the human race.
Just as Mr Murdoch's scandalising newspapers and dirty tactics have shocked the world – they only exist because a lot of people buy into it!
The world would be a much better place with less muck racking, more intelligent and educational programmes, and more jokes like this, from Wally:

Parting shot ...

A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghan desert when he saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the oasis, only to find a little old Jewish man at a small stand, selling ties...
The Taliban asked, 'Do you have water?”
The tie man replied, 'I have no water. Would you like to buy a tie? They are only $5.”
The Taliban shouted, 'You idiot! I do not need an over-priced tie. I need water! I should kill you, but I must find water soon!”
'OK,” said the little old man, 'It does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie and that you hate me. I will show you that I am bigger than that. If you continue over that hill to the east for about five miles, you will find a lovely restaurant. It has all the ice cold water you need. Shalom.”
Cursing, the Taliban staggered away over the hill.
Several hours later he staggered back, almost dead, and said:
'You little ****, your brother won't let me in without a tie.”