Day #4 The Cheater News Card

So, great, I did not fill the hours of my day keeping up on what the ruling junta in Myanmar is doing or whether the worlds leaders have come to any new agreements on global warming.  No I did not.  I raked leaves.  Because hey, big news flash, there was a dandy little wind storm last night and the stupid leaves were everywhere.  Instead of parking the truck after work and heading up the stairs for a cuppa and The News Hour with all of my unbiased and fair-minded peeps, I went straight to the store room, got the rake and broom, and proceeded to scoop and stuff leaves, in the dark mind you, until the yard waste bin was fuller than full.

Coping and avoidance through manual labor.  Years ago I stayed clean on the endorphin plan until eventually a better idea came along.  Leaf raking, hours in the gym, whatever.  Same thing.  There aren't any televisions out there by the leaf piles.

Yesterday, while waiting for that perfect little plate of noodles to come down the conveyor belt, a friend of mine was giving me a coping tip for dealing with the symptoms of news withdrawal.  His idea is that there is really very little difference between the news yesterday and the news today, so I really wasn't missing much.  It goes like this:  the Evil-Doers are out to do evil and those who oppose the Evil-Doers are out to stop them.  Every day we get in-depth reports on the status of the Evil-Doers and the resistance to same.

The handy part of the Good/Evil tension is that the roles are interchangeable and can be ideas just as easily as people or things.  Or marauding insects.   If one is a right-wing conservative, the Evil Liberals are despoiling the nation and must be stopped.  If one is a centrist (are there any?) the Evil Fringes are tearing us apart and if, lord help you, one claims to be a liberal, well then you are truly evil and need to be sent to a re-education camp for a very long time.  Fortunately there are the Opposers of Evil who will oblige whatever perceived Evil needs opposing just like there are Good Scientists working against the Bad New Bug.

Based on the concept of an ever-revolving cast of Good/Evil players the idea for a cheater card to help with news withdrawal wasn't much of a stretch.  All that was needed was a blank 3x5 card and a pen.  On one side of the card I have printed the following:  "Today, Evil Doers will try to do Evil and they will be Opposed."  This is the morning side of the card and gives me an good glimpse of what will happen today in the world.  On the other side of the card I have printed:  "Today, Evil Doers tried to do Evil and they were Opposed."  Did you note the clever use of present and past tense and the conservation of resources afforded by the use of both sides of the same piece of paper?  That cleverness is a direct result of having extra time on my hands because I am not using it watching too much news.  It also a result of me stealing my friend's idea.  So there is one side for the morning, one side for the evening, a quick read and Robert is you Mother's Brother.

And that is quite sufficient for the day as we would not want the blog about the obsession to become the new obsession, would we?  No we would not.