"To Ease the Transition..."

This is from the June 5, New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Millions of households will lose television reception next week when about 1,000 broadcasters around the nation shut off their analog signals and complete their conversion to digital programming, federal officials say.

The government has spent more than $2 billion to ease the transition to digital television, and in the last few months has cut in half the number of households that are unprepared for the final conversion on June 12. But the latest survey by the Nielsen Company indicates that as of the end of May, more than 10 percent of the 114 million households that have television sets are either completely or partly unprepared.

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Did that really say "2 billion"?! This economic, cultural, and moral obscenity painfully reveals our national addiction to "the plug-in drug," the entertainment-addictor, the destroyer of reading, the unreality appliance. Your tax dollars are going to help "ease the transition" so millions can remain plugged in. This demands a speed poem.

I need that TV feed
Otherwise, I'd bleed
and go to seed.
You see my need
is to see
TV.

Hear my creed:
TV: yesterday, today, and forever.

My every endeavor
is tethered to
that Tube.

Without it, I would not be,
I could not see.
I'd surely expire
if that wire didn't deliver
my filler.