Do you agree with Mr. Shuldig? I certainly think if the news upsets people they should probably stay away from it. I’m more curious than that. Sometimes articles bother me, so I don’t spend much time on them, but I’ve always loved history and we’re living in a rapidly changing time. I like to browse and see what’s going on. As I wrote in response to bikehikebabe’s comment yesterday,
I agree with you. With the right amount of detachment it is good drama. And it’s real, not fiction. I don’t always watch movies with happy endings, I watch to understand (and feel) more about life — from a safe distance. Yes, 2014 had its share of disasters, but no more than 1914-1918 or 1939-1945. Or the Depression years, or ….
And, of course, there are a lot of positive changes happening too — they’re fun to watch. For me it’s a matter of balance. Also I’m a “big picture” type of person. I enjoy trying to put current events into a historical perspective. It’s as good a hobby as any.
January 4, 2014
Most of what we get about the news is from online sources and watching the evening news on TV. On our trip last year, we didn’t watch any TV for 7 weeks and very little during the other week when we were at Jes and Shane’s place in Wisconsin. We also didn’t pay much attention to the news online. It was great!
Yes, we certainly live in interesting times, don’t we?
I don’t watch news on TV, but I would miss my online view of what’s going on.
At the moment I’m listening to (audible.com) Battle Cry of Freedom about the Civil War. So far it’s been about what life was like before the war and now about the politics right after acquiring the new territory from the Mexican American War. It’s giving me some details that I hadn’t heard before. That’s the kind of broad view I like.
I suffer withdrawal symptoms when on the few public holidays following which our newspapers do not appear! They are my lifeline to sanity and of course to my beloved crossword puzzles.
I don’t watch TV for news but subscribe to a few papers online to read in the computer. Here too I am addicted.
I am quite detached about the news though. I don’t get all worked about what I can little about.
I’m hooked too! The land is great to visit, but we’ll never get reliable and affordable internet up there in our lifetime. I like the luxury of being plugged in. And not just for the news, my online friends are even more important.
I’m immune to News. It’s catastrophes everyday. We don’t get a lot of feel-good stories.
It’s not that I don’t care. I do care. I remember my aunt, who btw had a great sense of humor, saying as she turned on the RADIO (the early days of TV), “What are the disasters for today?”
I think your attitude is healthy. I don’t listen to the news because they sensationalize to get our attention. I like articles with a broader perspective.
I agree that the News is too often unbalanced; it encourages pessimism. So I make a point of reading our local weekly paper with all its stories about what we’re all doing or trying to do, and I subscribe to online info like Yes! magazine. It’s a way of creating balance. And then, for historical perspective, I read Paul Krugman’s blog. Do you?
I subscribe to the online NYT and occasionally read Krugman’s column, but it’s not my favorite. I’m a cheerful pessimist, so don’t have much trouble being depressed by the news. I read articles that stimulate thinking rather than ones that are trying to stir my emotions.
the jury is out on me.
it’s conflicted.
it has ordered more coffee and cokes and a huge pizza.
its deliberation is so paradoxical as to be stymied. how do you spell stymied?
i am a lover of history. and we’re merely in the midst of making history.
my favorite era was that of the world war two years . . . just before and during.
one of the most horrendous in said history.
i’m fine until i hear of animals children innocents tortured abused or otherwise.
that simply STAYS WITH ME. i cannot unsee or unhear it for days on end.
therefore i shy away for awhile again. then the cycle starts all over.
just the way i am jury. oh.
well. i just heard. they’ve agreed to deadlock. case dismissed for lack of caring what i think! LOLOL. 😀
We Love you & are glad that you’re out CARING while we’re out going about our daily lives.
WW II — that’s always been a fascination for me, too. When I was a kid I used to duck when a plane flew over. I would check to make sure it wasn’t dropping bombs on me. That wasn’t nearly as bad as the atomic bomb preparedness drills in school and the public service ads on TV about what to do in case of an atomic attack. I suppose that’s why I now tend to look for long-term trends rather than reacting to sensationalism.
I must be getting my news from different sources than you are. I mostly avoid stories of people/animals being abused.
Andy agrees with you about them caring. One of his favorites lines is, “They never asked me.” And, of course, they probably won’t. 🙂
I didn’t know exactly what pro-active entailed. Decided it’s the opposite of re-
active. I was reactive–Drama Queen. Decided not good for health. So I’m turning Drama Queen into Plain Ordinary Me.
That comment should have gone on your Peanut blog.
I didn’t worry about WWII. I KNEW that Daddy would take care of me.
It never occurred to me when we were assigned bomb shelters in case of an atomic attack, that there wouldn’t be enough food for the 2,000 in our shelter or how could I go to the bathroom with 2,000 watching & where. I was lucky in that sense.
oooh… i like that.
turning drama queen into plain ordinary me. i so like that bhb!
and monk…
i was spared the actual memories of the WWII era.
it’s always more ‘romantic’ in retrospect. when i think of little monk looking up at the sky thinking she’d be bombed. well. there’s nothing romantic about that. just terribly sad that a child go through it.
the same thing i think about all the little children over the world going through it now! and the abuse thing happens on occasion on our local news.
they shift to it so fast you can’t block it out quickly enough.
that … and the knowledge of the ongoing plight of the factory farm animals.
i know that i let too much bother me. and like rummy says. i can’t do anything to help them. except not to eat them. which i don’t. but it’s such a little way to make a difference.
you always have such wonderful thought provoking posts! xo
tammy,
I was only 5 when WW II ended. I was aware there was rationing, because when I was about 4 I made up a song, “You can’t buy, stepping stones, in wartime.” I was having a good time singing and hopping up and down our stepping stones when my mother told me it wasn’t true. I couldn’t understand why something that important like concrete wasn’t rationed. That’s the only memory except when my uncle came home from the war.
The ducking from bombs wasn’t the war itself, it was all the war movies I saw when I was a little older.
BHB,
We didn’t have bomb shelters, we just had to go out in the hallway at school and lie on the floor by the windows. The idea was the blast would blow the glass over us so we would be safe. That part was actually fun. It was the dramatic public service announcements that gave me nightmares. It does mean I take a lot of predictions with a grain of salt.
tammy,
The local news is designed to grab our attention and manipulate our emotions. I never watch it.
I agree about factory farm animals. I give money to the Humane Farming Association. I seldom eat beef and occasionally eat chicken or turkey. I regularly eat wild-caught Alaskan salmon. It’s sustainable and so healthy for us.
Our “food” in the bomb shelters was MPF, Multi Purpose Food. Dried stuff in no. 10 cans. We bought some of those to have at home. We still have a can or two.
A news headline we’ll never see: Today more than 5 billion people did their best to live well with those they are close, obeyed most of the rules of their culture, and generally did an OK job of getting on with their lives.
thanks evan!
what a WONDERFUL insight! will have to think about that when things look bad out there!
Great comment, Evan! 🙂
the television is what the producers deem will be of interest, sell advertising and the like (I don’t have a TV now)… I really like online stuff so I can judge whether I will click through to “read more”.
I have stopped the radio most of the time, because it seems every 15mins there is an update of some news item, usually a disaster somewhere…
I decided that if I needed to know something VIP I will search online – or if I’m out and someone asks “what to do you think of…?” Usually I say, I haven’t been following that…usually the person will fill me in 🙂
some of the news I can not do anything about…and if it affects me, then/later, I will cross that bridge then. Otherwise I think we would all be basket-cases. And as Evan comments a lot of people got on with doing their ordinary every day things…
Andy watches the local weather report on the news, but mostly we ignore the news that’s around it. If I want to watch a TV series I wait until it comes out on Netflix because I hate being interrupted by commercials.
I like the internet, newspapers, and magazines for news because I can look at the headlines and skip any article that doesn’t grab my fancy, and I can decide how much of articles of interest I want to read. I get to choose, not someone else. My time and attention are precious.
I think deliberately not watching the news is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Sure, many of the stories are horrific and depressing and unsettling, but there are also stories that are informative, positive and thought-provoking. So I just move through the first at a rapid pace and focus on the second. For example, the Washington Post had an article about how in 5 to 10 years’ time solar power will be so cheap and efficient that fossil fuels will be totally obsolete. Isn’t that worth reading?
It’s a lot easier to be selective when the story is in print or on our computer screen. That’s why I don’t watch the nightly TV news. I’m with you — I do love browsing every day to see what’s going on in the world.