I never read the news or watch it on TV. Maybe that seems like the "ostrich with its head in the sand" approach to life, but every time I do read a newspaper, go online and scan the events of the day, or God forbid, get trapped in a place with either FoxNews or CNN blasting their conflicting breeds of propaganda, I always feel so bad when I'm done that it's an amazing incentive to prolong the time between exposures.
Take today for example. I do have the CNN breaking news email feature activated so if the world ends, I will at least get a message on my BlackBerry, so when the shootings at the Holocaust Museum occurred, I found out about it. That event hit one of the NYT columnists I follow on Twitter about that time, and I followed a link to learn more. What I found there made me want to cry, as such things always do: hate, paranoia, racism bearing their deadly fruit in a place that should stand as a warning of what those worst of human traits can do to humanity.
Another comment later on from someone else directed me to a local paper, and there of course, the news continued to deteriorate. Jackson, our vaunted state capital, is now 4th in the nation as far as the murder rate goes; it's second only to Flint, MI for armed robbery. How does that even happen? If you're not from here, you may never have been to Jackson. When I think about how much smaller it is than cities it's beaten for this most dubious of crowns, it completely boggles the mind....
I'm going back on a news blackout, I think. I can't stand it. It's too depressing. There is never any good mixed in with the bad, and I don't want to have to feel more anxiety about this world that I live in than I already do. Ostriches, prepare your heads....
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And then you said.....