Sunday, November 13, 2005

Are we too connected?

I decided that Sundays are going to be my day of rest.

At least as far as cable news is concerned.

One of the reasons that pundits and the media rule politics the way they obviously do is our complete dependence on the News.

Every since 9/11 the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is turn on the TV and make sure the rest of the world is still there.

Once upon a time we did not do things like that.

Even during WW2 Americans went on with their lives and I doubt if the partisan friction was nearly so great.

The News seems intent on making a fuss, because a fuss is what makes us all tune in.

Which came first: the pundit or the scandal?

So I am going to clean house today and watch the History channel and call my moonbat brother and talk about the weather.

Maybe we should all do more of that kind of thing.

Live.....

9 comments:

Unknown said...

I do more and more of that myself, but I think maybe we get a lot of stuff that is not news.

Syl said...

I still check once a day to see if the world is still there (good way to describe it, terrye).

For weeks, months, at a time I have done no more than that and instead immersed myself in the 3D world as if nothing else was going on.

Then some issue or another brings me back, and I'm caught again :)

Unknown said...

Imus is such a joke. I can not stand that guy.

I listened to NPR for years and years, but here of late I can't stomach them either.

Overload.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

I think a critical component for me is that I have the blogs so I don't need the media. I think the truth is we all want to be connected, whatever that means, we all want to feel that we're a part of our communities.

A hundred years ago that meant that we spent a lot of time at the local barbershop or pub. I suppose they still hang out with their neighbors in the pub but in my neighborhood there isn't any such thing for miles, so I don't know and will never know most of my neighbors.

Since the invention of radio, people have learned that they can live entirely alone in the middle of nowhere and still feel "connected" by watching the media passively. I think that's the danger of the media: like a drug, it scratches the itch without really filling the need.

Now I can learn what's going on in the global community merely by reading this blog. The inevitable propaganda gets prefiltered for me so I don't have to blow my top, and I don't have to sit there passively and take it: I can talk back. What's not to like?

Unknown said...

meaningless:

There is really nothing to not like, it is just that sometimes we need some time to center ourselves, we can get lost in all the noise.

I used to spend a lot of time, just thinking and noticing things.

God, I sound like Oprah.

Unknown said...

mark:

Repulsive is the word and I am not talking politics either.

I know that is not fair but it is like my aversion to oysters, it is just there.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Mark,

Misinformed or no, the truth is there's very little that passes through the media that I really need to know about, and even less of that that's telling me the facts as they really are, not as the reporter wants me to believe they are.

Do I really need to know about it if a grandmother falls off here bicycle in Peking? No. Do I really care whether they drill or don't drill in some obscure corner of Alaska I'll never see? No. Even if I do care, does my opinion make one whit of difference? No. So why get worked up about it?

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Mark,

It's a good question. I guess I'm drawn to it like a moth to flame. You?

Unknown said...

mark

I have seen him on in the am smirk and hat and all.