The Glass Teat

I'd heard about Harlan Ellison's The Glass Teat for years, but couldn't find a copy until recently. I'd heard it was an insightful commentary on the deleterious effects television had on the human mind and American culture. Nope, it's not. It's a collection of short vitriolic rants about the lack of realism in a  TV shows and a few other things Ellison didn't like.

According to the book's intro, these rants were originally a weekly newspaper column, reproduced here the order they were written. So there's no real structure, nothing to tie them together.  And since I've never seen most of the shows he mentions, it's impossible to determine how accurate his opinions are. 

The out-of-date references and the vitriolic rhetoric make this book a waste of time for most audiences. The only readers I'd recommend this book for is those specifically studying the counter culture of the 1960s and 70s.