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Week 7 - No news is good news
My change for this week is to stop reading, listening to, and watching "the news."
For a good part of my life I have been a news junkie. I am able to devour the CNN news that is repeated over and over every one-half hour, pour over the newspapers (either in print or online), catch the news at the top of the hour on radio, and so on.
A few years ago it became obvious that this was not the best thing in the world for me.
News seems to be bad news, simply by definition. There is the latest killing, either by war or by drive-by. There inevitably are natural disasters such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes exploding. Politicians have come out with new reasons why we should mistrust the politicians of the opposite political party.
It really is endless.
It really is repetitive.
What I notice more than anything else is that I am being manipulated by the media: the newspapers, TV, radio, magazines. They are in business to make money, not in business to tell me what I want to know. In order to make money, they have to be sensational, they have to make every story a big story, they have to stir up controversy.
Who will watch a TV news show that tells us about honest and hardworking people who raise their children in harmonious homes? Who will buy a newspaper that tells us that a small group of Girl Scouts sold a lot of cookies?
My first reaction was to stop subscribing to newspapers and magazines.
Next was to get rid of the TV. Just moved it out of the living room and threw it away.
My next step: A total news blackout.
Knowing about all the latest political dirt, war casualties, murders, and hurricanes does not improve my life. Just the opposite. It is affirmatively harmful to me. It wears down my psyche and sucks some of the life out of my soul.
A small step, or a large step? It does not matter. It is a survival step, a cleansing step, a step toward a more peaceful world.
Ross Runkel, Post Office Box 1031, Salem, Oregon
97308-1031.
Phone 503-399-8028. Fax 503-566-8844. email Ross@LawMemo.Com
