This is the first post in my first blog. Why start blogging now at age 52? Mid-life crisis or some other banal aging issue? I hope not.
The actual reason I decided to start a blog is this: I am a news junkie. Always have been, since I was a kid. Even in my heavy partying days gone by, hung over as a dog, I would read at least one local paper, often the New York Times or some other paper as well as hitting NPR for All Things Considered on the radio. When I have had access to a TV (like now) I watched PBS News Hour and whatever talking head local news did not make me puke. News snob? You bet.
Besides gleaning the National and Local news from these sources, I tried to keep up on the local scene through "alt" weeklies like The Stranger and (less often) The Seattle Weekly. I guess the Seattle Weekly long since stopped being "alt" when the yuppies took over. Hell, I still remember some of my favorite movie reviews by Jim Emerson in the Rocket. Nobody panned a flick like Jim. Bless 'im wherever he is.
But now, all that has changed. That's right, I am taking a year off from the news media. The two obvious questions for me (and anyone bored enough to read this) are:
1) Why no news?
2) What does that mean?
Why no news? I work in an small office populated mostly with very conservative right wing folks. And as they say on Sesame Street: "One of these things just doesn't belong here". Not only is "Liberal" not a bad word to me I embrace the appellation even though I am a good bit left of that. So. Another day of over-hearing my boss complaining about President Obama, trying to foist off his inherited fear-mongering agenda on whomever is on the other end of the phone (hey, he's old and he shouts into the phone, I can't help but hear him so there) and I notice that I am getting angry. Again. Now my boss and I have had our discussions and we have found some common political ground and we are pretty genial about the whole thing, but my reaction to his side of a phone conversation that was not meant for me made me angry. Why? Its his right to pretty much say whatever he wants to whomever he is having a conversation with. So why the anger.
The more I thought about this, the more I contemplated the involvement I have in politics and civil affairs, and the more I had to ask myself: does this make me happy? And the answer to that question is no, it does not. I can tell you what cases the next Supreme Court session will hear and the bearing those court decisions may hold for the our country and I can tell you that wheat rust fungus is a growing problem that may effect the world's grain supplies and lots more vitally important information that may have a direct impact in your life or my life. But can I honestly tell you that the possession of that information makes me a happier person? No I cannot.
This is a conflict for me because like lots of people, I profess to desiring happiness. And I am a news junkie. So I have decided to do an experiment. I am going to go one year without seeking out current events information from newspapers or printed news, radio, television or the internet. There is no election pending that I have to keep up on and lord knows no election could get by without my participation (yes Mom, I am still going to vote) so we are all safe there. The foolishness in Washington and the rest of the world will just have to go one without me. No news for a year. Maybe after I uncurl from the tightly cramped fetal position I will no doubt be stuck in for a while I will be happier. Maybe I will just be uninformed. I don't know.
But here goes.
What does that mean? There is no good fast without good fasting rules so here are the rules that I am going to abide by. I am not going to read the paper. I am not going to listen to news on the radio. I am not going to read news on the internet or world wide web. I m not going to watch the news on television. News that comes to me on a personal level from friends or even people I meet on the street is going to be an acceptable form of information. That is the watershed that I am setting up: if I acquire news from direct contact with another human being, or a really smart dog or cat I suppose, I am not going to run away whilst humming with fingers in both ears so as not to hear them. I will listen to them. But I am not going to try incessantly questioning my friends and neighbors for tidbits of news. OK, I might for the first few days but let's hope not.
You might rightly ask what the criteria for judging the outcome of this experiment will be and I have to answer that I really don't know. But I have a year to find out.
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