the travails of a news addict

So I don't watch the news on TV anymore.  You'd think that the internet owns the lion's share of blame for that, but nope.  See, the news on TV isn't really reporting news anymore.  Local channels only do the sensational, it-bleeds-it-leads stories, try to sell me crap and offers the local sports and weather.  Whoopee!  That would be great if I were a no internet havin', infomercial lovin' Springerite or just stupid, but I'm neither.  The half hour of national news by CBS, ABC, NBC all tell virtually the same stories with little variation.  10 minutes or so of real news and onto science and technology.  Knock knock!  There's a bloody war on that is being mismanaged and costing American lives.  Shit, a half hour of news wouldn't be enough if I was any self respecting major national media news outlet CEO.   Are you kidding me?  Surely the cable news networks can provide me with neutral news 24/7.  Ugh!  It's enough to make you rip your hair out when you are looking for what the hell is really going on around the planet.  Sorry I give a damn about what goes on to other people from America to Timbuktu, but back in Sunday school they taught me pretty good that you are to love your neighbor as yourself and everyone in the world was your neighbor.  Damn Christian hippie nonsense!

So I don't watch TV news though I enjoy the Olbermann/Maddow segments on MSNBC and Stewart & Colbert on Comedy Central.  Already I hear the screams of "I knew it!  You're a liberal!" from my imagined Republikkkan readers but are you kidding me?  Oh, sure!  A few hours of the left's views against the whole of news media out that's out there pumping moderate moralist right crap (or worse; FOX news I'm looking at you) non stop, even on Christmas.  Sure, that's what makes me a liberal.  Never mind I'm a Constitutionalist who believes every man & woman everywhere is free to pursue a course of self determination without government intrusion as espoused in the Bill of Rights or that Christians brainwashed me as a child into believing peace, love and charity.

Ah!  Tangents!  The point is that the news on TV is all entertainment.  It's what they want you to see.  That's why all the news coverage is identical.  Like, I realize that the Gulf spill was a huge ecological disaster (that even now is being swept under the rug thanks to the upcoming election cycle) but so is being shot in the face like our noble soldiers get over in Afghanistan.  Where's the embeds for that?  Or where are the reporters asking Presidents why they need to take so much power and abuse their authority in violation of every moral code or human rights law out there?  But that's not what anything on TV is about.  It's all a play with nice looking girls and serious looking me, actors on a national stage selling you a bill of goods so you don't get too smart, don't all come together & unite as a nation.  They even give you a colored foe so you don't need to feel bad about being a racist because all brown skinned people are a problem to be dealt with by killing them or locking them up.

Up until this last September 11th, I naively thought I was free of that TV news crap by getting all my news from the internet but --haha!-- I wasn't.  I fell for that Qu'ran burning in Florida hysteria like many of you did.  Hook, line & sinker.  So was this just a publicity stunt?  Were lives threatened by the Federal government?  Life seems to have gone on as usual for everyone in America even though we were told that the Arabian world were up in arms about it. 

Suddenly Mufreesboro, Tennessee is no longer a news item of interest even though people had dogs used on them and reports of shots being fired.  So what was it all about?  Naturally, it is suspicious, now that 9/11 has become an unofficial American holy day that our holy day was overshadowed by real American racism and xenophobia while simultaneously being reminded of our collective phantom foes overseas.  It was like a test of the internet's ability to filter out crap and to see what it took to get a meme to get computer news geeks everywhere worked up and ready to go whoop some ass and it was an Epic Fail.  Our soft, pink underbellies have been exposed.  Now what do I do for real news?