Long Time, No Blog

Yikes, it's been a while, eh?

With so much going on, you'd think I would be blooging at every opportunity. But, with so much going on there's little time to blog. Writing and producing radio commercials, designing a brochure for a candidate, coordinating media buys, interpreting poll results to try to gain an edge here and an advantage there...

Plus, I was stunned into silence by the circus under the 60 Minutes Big Top, with Rangling Dan Rather as the ringmaster...literally, silent. I mean, I still can't even begin to put into words the unbelievable nature of it all.

Then, this morning, a co-worker said he was watching 60 Minutes this past weekend, and the ever-enlightened Andy Looney Rooney commented that people who don't watch the news, read the papers, and such shouldn't even bother to vote, because they are too un-informed. I laughed and said, well, then, I guess I shouldn't vote.

I haven't watched a Network Newscast in over 7 years, and I stopped watching the talking-heads shows, for the most part, 5 years ago (though I will watch Hannity and Combs for 10 or 15 minutes occasionally, the same with O'Reilly, Mathews, Fox Sunday, and very rarely Russert). I havent' watched the "local" (Indy) news since we moved back to Indiana in '98, except on a few occasions where something specific is supposed to be broadcast that either featured me or my job, or featured something related to my job. I don't pick up any print edition of a newspaper, and rarely actually read news stories from any paper, even online. The few times I have purchased a newspaper in the last four years has been to either get the Sunday Sale Ads, or to read some half-assed, one-sided, poorly-reported, disengenuous hit-piece of fluffy bullsh** aimed at me, my boss, our fire department, or our political candidates.

But I'm not bitter. No, no...of course not.

I do, however, read lots of articles that appear in online journals, magazines, and even online editions of sydicated columns and such. Plus, I peruse the vast resources available via the web, including regular visits (some more regular than others) to about a dozen or so blogs, 5 or 6 conservative web sites, and various other portals of news and comment.

And, that's the reason I don't watch Andy Looney and his Rangling Brothers Circus. I don't learn anything from what passes for "news". News now, in the words of the editor of the local "paper", is "not so much about reporting the facts, but more about reporting perspectives on the story."

Or, if you are Dan Rather, reporting the one perspective you wish to discuss on a story you made up "documents" to substantiate.

So Andy R. can go pound sand, in the words of my boss. Of course he doesn't think anyone who doesn't watch network news and read the corporate drivel that passes for newspaper reporting shouldn't vote. People who don't conform to the media circus shouldn't be allowed to think for themselves or find alternative sources of information. Why, if folks did that, then just who would control what they see, hear, and read?