exhaustedAnyway, due to this I don't get a chance to watch much in the way of TV, so I keep up with most world events either in newspaper format or via the web browser. I even have one of those 500-satellite DirecTV dish systems at home, and it's highly annoying that I never get a chance to watch much in the way of anything.
So recently I ended up turning on the idiot box because I was trying to watch the news.. and geez, news coverage has taken a pretty dramatic slide to the right wing in the last few years. The new State-Run Media (also known as "Fox News") is pretty much unwatchable, and most of it is sound-bite drivel designed for gullible people with short attention spans. Even watching Comedy Central was a shock, somehow in the last year or two it's become
"The South Park Channel". The Dumbing Down of America is, unfortunately, in high gear.
Recently I got back into something I haven't listened to much since I left Kansas seven years ago, mostly becuase I didn't know where to find it, and now I listen to it all the time on the FM dial. I'm talking about National Public Radio, which for me has been a breath of Fresh Air in the polluted media world controlled by a few conglomerates.
I had forgotten what it was like to hear newscasters that talk about issues for more than 30 seconds, who don't do lame puns and conclusions at the end of sound-bite snippets, and of thoughtful discourse in a world of sensationalistic tawdry drivel.
So now I listen to it going to work, coming home from work, and in my highly rare free time.
Cartoon for the day:
