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too much information

too much information

I'm feeling the same as some other people. I'm feeling over-newsed and over informed and I'm just about ready to shut it all off.

CNN has become a member of our family.. It's always there, on one tv or another, laying low in the background. Even when the sound isn't on, the images flash before us, the scrolling words on the bottom announcing all kinds of hate and anger and sadness.

And it's not just the television. I already stopped reading the morning paper. I give a cursory glance to the local news on their website each morning, just to see if there is anything worth writing about. I stopped looking at all the news sites 40 times a day just to see what's going on.

It's not only the war and terrorism. It's the whole other world of hurt that is out there. It's mothers drowning their kids and husbands shooting their wives. It's 50 car pile-ups and raging fires and grown ups beating each other to death. It's dwindling freedoms and isms of every kind and sexual abuse and sexual discrimination and people suffering for just being who they are.

It's depressing. It's detrimental to my effort to get out of my doldrums and into a brighter phase of my life. Combined with my general worry over the future and the prospect of turning 40 this year, watching the news has become just another addition to the anxieties I heap on myself every day. It is counter-productive to the way I need to live my life right now.

I don't want to be completely uninformed. I'll still skim the headlines and to tell you the truth, I get a more honest presentation of the news from several weblogs than I get in my local paper, anyhow.

I don't want to put my head in the sand. But I do want a reprieve from those dark clouds every once in a while. Now is one of those times.

Now, I just have to find some more entertaining sort of news. Like the guy who got his penis stuck in a coke jar. Now, that's the kind of news I can deal with.

Posted by on March 18, 2002 11:55 AM |

Comments

i feel like this all the time. if you find a cure, would you let me know? i think i'd be much happier if i didn't care that people everywhere are doing stupid things and hurting other people and themselves.

you could try participating in tv turnoff week too.

Posted by: portia | March 18, 2002 12:24 PM

Personally, I find the idea of a penis getting caught in a coke jar to be quite upsetting (perhaps because I have a penis). What is a coke jar, anyway? I get coke in cans and bottles. Is this some drug reference?

Posted by: wKen | March 18, 2002 01:18 PM

I think I have the most anal readers in the world.

Coke bottle. You knew damn well what I meant.

Posted by: michele | March 18, 2002 01:25 PM

Just to tell you I am pleased to have found your blog (probably via Brushstrokes). It is clean, clear, lively and you are expressing much that others here in the NE struggle with, particularly this time of year. It is of help on this end knowing I am not alone. I wish you the best of health, success and satisfaction. Also, 40 is not at all so bad.
Wayne

Posted by: Wayne | March 18, 2002 03:04 PM

Shoulda used a Mickey's wide mouth? Egad, a coke bottle has such a narrow opening. Vacuum and flacidity come to mind - followed by ouch!

Posted by: chris | March 18, 2002 03:11 PM

Could have been a pickle that looked like a penis... that was mistaken for a penis. That was a story from a while back. "I'd like to return this pickle jar please. Why? It has a mumble mumble in it."

Posted by: Jon | March 18, 2002 03:16 PM

Poor Wayne may change his mind about how "clean" this place is, after all the penis comments. Also, I'm not sure what would be more embarrassing: Getting it stuck in a coke bottle; or admitting it would fit in a coke bottle to begin with.

Posted by: wKen | March 18, 2002 04:19 PM

I stopped watching tv altogether about a year ago.

I feel WAY better. :-)

not only do I have more time to do constructive, enjoyable things and hang out with people important to me, but i also think my attention span has gotten longer.

Trust me, you won't be uninformed. you will probally gain perspective.

Posted by: serene | March 18, 2002 07:22 PM

Sorry, Michele, I read this site for my news so you can't stop watching the news, too.

On a lighter note, I recall reading way back in college an article in a respected medical journal about a series of penis lacerations observed in British emergency rooms that turned out to have been incurred by gentlemen sticking them directly into vacuum cleaners with no hose attached, rather than into the hose part, and getting nicked by the fan blades.

Posted by: Miguel | March 19, 2002 03:04 AM

Seems to be going around.

Posted by: Mark Something | March 19, 2002 06:46 PM

Hello, have fun with easy blogging!

Posted by: the best radar detectors | February 9, 2004 06:42 AM