No News is Good News

I'm still not sure what that's supposed to mean. Does it mean that not getting any news means nothing bad has happened? Or does it mean that all news is bad? Are those basically the same thing, and I'm all confused about it for nothing? Is this statement even true, for cryin' out loud?

The first time I read Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau, I got to his rant about news and felt a little—miffed? He basically says news is worthless unless it directly involves you. At the time, I was in my first year of college, idealistic, and very much into news and politics.

Lately, I'm not really into either. Why? Jaded cynicism, I suppose. What passes for news largely consists of the following:

Congress isn't doing anything. Each party blames the other and/or the White House. (Insert clips of politicians spouting meaningless rhetoric.) In other news, (insert latest disaster or coup I can't do anything about), (update on celebrities I don't care about), and (sports I don't care about).

I find myself agreeing with ol' Thoreau. News is worthless. Unless I'm going to be voting in a local election, sandbagging the local creek, or going to a multiple author appearance at a local middle school (which should have been in the news before it happened, dang it!), nothing in the news really applies to my life.

The idealist in me feels bad about this. He thinks I should be actively trying to promote change. To borrow a line, I'd join the movement if there was one I could believe in. Maybe I'll run for school board, someday.

Until then, it doesn't matter who I vote for in presidential elections. (I'm in Utah.) It doesn't matter who I vote for for U. S. senate or house. (Same thing.) Our state legislators all deserve the boot, so I never vote for an incumbent. I don't live in a city, and county positions are usually unopposed.

Activists annoy me, and I'm not going to become one.

I'm not likely to travel long distance to help disaster victims, and I already donate money to a charity I trust to make good use of it.

I do like reading about new books coming out. I get that from blogs. In fact, I get all my news from blogs, Twitter, and Facebook these days, and that suits me just fine. Most of the news is about people I know and care for. When they need my help, I can give it directly, sometimes over a great distance.

And so, the mass media in my life have been replaced by social media. You know what? I'm happier that way. (I mean, you see how grouchy I get at the mention of politics.) I'm in touch with the real world of people's lives, not that fabricated reality of mass media where nothing ever changes.

But if anything ever does change, someone let me know in 140 characters or less.

Comments

  1. SpendloveMay 11, 2011 at 8:16 PM

    Hear hear! Occasionally I read updates on MacWorld or some such related tech newsplace, and I still pay attention to Motor Trend and Top Gear's website for all my car news, but other than that... Facebook.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No, wait! I like this query better!

And I posted it on this very blog back in October of 2011, before I even started writing The Freezer . For some reason, it's better than any of the four (or five?) queries I've written since then. What do you think? (Yes, you.) THE ORIGINAL, PRE-WRITING PITCH, BACK FROM THE DEAD: The world is about to die a violent death at the hands of a rogue planet. The last escape ships have gone, leaving billions of people knowing the exact date and time of their demise. Society is coming apart at the seams. Violence is spreading. Food is disappearing. There's one month left. Thane Ryder turned down a seat on a spaceship to stay with his six-year-old daughter Mandy, and he intends to make her final days happy. He'll stay in his home and refuse protection. He'll feed his enemies and treat them like friends. He'll plant a garden, clean the house, and teach Mandy to ride a bicycle. He won't pick up a gun or show any of the fear gnawing away at his insides. And
Read more

The Writer's Voice

This is part of a blogfest that's part of a contest and it's all explained here . It's run by four popular writer-bloggers and I was lucky to secure slot 149 out of 175. It's a writer-eat-writer world out there. Rawr. Anyway, Drivers: Ash arrives in a foreign country to begin an exciting, high-stakes job. He’s young and inexperienced, but his new employer sought out and recruited him because of one important qualification—Ash is suicidal. He’ll be inside an armed robotic vehicle that’s supposed to be unmanned and autonomous. Ash will ride until the artificial intelligence reaches its limits, and then because his boss oversold the robots’ abilities, he’ll be given control to drive and fire the weapons. It’s meant to be Ash’s last suicide attempt, but he just isn’t any good at dying. He survives the first mission. One other driver also makes it back, a girl named Zephyr. As Ash gets to know her, his perspective changes. There were so many reasons to die,
Read more

LDS Writer Blogfest: The Atonement Covers All Pain

By way of introduction, I'm taking part in the LDS Writer Blogfest today. (LDS = Latter Day Saint, as in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.) For this blogfest, I picked a favorite talk from the church's most recent General Conference, and now I'm going to write about it. I chose the talk given by Elder Kent F. Richards called "The Atonement Covers All Pain," and you can read, listen to, or watch it at LDS.org. So, yeah. Pain. Dang, this is harder than I thought it would be. I've written the beginning of this post five times, deleting each approach. I ought to forget trying to be clever and just say what I need to say. I've hurt. So badly I wanted to die. So bad I nearly killed myself to end it. For several years, I dealt with depression ranging from moderate to severe. Ten years ago when I was twenty-one, my illness faded quietly away for the last time. My life now is sweeter than I could imagine during my darkest years. I've b
Read more