Monday, October 20, 2008

No News Days

Apparently, the week and a half in which I paid almost no attention to the news acted as a sort of detox: I now haven't got the patience to pay attention to the news. Generally, the most I can do is read a few headlines and, more regularly, get an idea of other people's take on the news. But, as for keeping up with the daily events and trivia- it's just beyond me right now.

I think part of what happened was that I almost totally avoided the news for ten days and, after I came back to it, found that nothing had happened. The world financial system was still "troubled" or even "in crisis"; the Presidential candidates were still "unleashing attacks" (most of which are still false and unfair) and "responding to attacks"; there are still "attacks by insurgents" in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. But, the general state of things seemed completely unaffected.

In fact, it might be possible to make a list of the day's events: celebrity arrested, politicians attacking each other instead of addressing real problems, economy sinking due to stupid greed, people blowing each other up elsewhere in the world, and hints of some vague threats to our lives in the near future: and check them off once a week. It's curious to imagine that these things might not ever change. Certainly, in my life, I can only remember hearing about a handful of news items and, otherwise, they've all been interchangeable and meaningless.

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