Did You Hear?

As you are sure to have heard (unless you are deaf, in which case you saw) the world was rocked by a momentous event this week. What, you may ask, was this gargantuan event that rocked the nations, brought news networks to a stand still and sold more magazines and newspapers than anything in recent memory other than the 9/11 attacks? It was an event so shocking, so ground breaking that America could not get enough coverage. The event transcended the news channels and was mentioned on TV and radio channels of every format.

That's right. I knew you would know immediately.


Britney Spears shaved her head.

How pathetic is it that the ramblings of an egomaniacal, child-neglecting addict can capture the consciousness of an entire nation and possibly the world? Seriously, I want you to think back to how many times and from how many sources this news was reported to you. I personally heard it from two brothers, a sister, a cousin, and an in-law, and from every radio and TV morning show, not to mention the jokes on late night TV, and last but not least (Lord help us) the evening news. And it is not like this was a flash in the pan and then it was gone. This even happened almost a full week ago and this morning I heard a sound bite from the hairdresser who witnessed the event first hand. She spoke about it in this whispered tone, with reverence for its horror, like she saw a child shot execution style or something. I have heard the incident analyzed by a clinical psychiatrist on the Today Show, a former FBI Crisis Manager on CNN, and my own mother in our kitchen.

Everyone has a take on this. Turn around and ask your wife, co-worker, or uncle-twice-removed-on-your-mother's-side and I guarantee that they have a formed take on the current state of mind of one Britney Spears.

I can't help but ask myself why we care so much about things like this. We have moved to giving super couples nicknames and speaking about them as some collective.

Now, I know what you are thinking. You can just feel a lengthy diatribe coming on about how there is so much happening the world that is so much more important and that we should spend our time talking about important issues like third world debt, AIDS in Africa, and the war in Iraq.

I say no.

I want to use this event as an example of how useless, irrelevant and unnecessary TV News actually is.

But no, you say. CNN, FOX News, and our local affiliates keep us informed. They report what’s happening in the world and bring important issues to our attention. If we don't watch we will be out of the loop of society, and we will be harmed when some issue that we should have been aware of comes back to hurt us.

I say that concern is exactly what TV News has fed you, and you have bought it hook, line and sinker. I want to elucidate for you a few reasons why you should join me in boycotting TV news of any kind. I want you to do this because it will greatly improve you quality of life.

First, I want you to understand that almost everything you hear on TV News is a lie. Now, it is not a blatant lie. They don't tell you egregious untruths. They just edit. They leave out important pieces on one side or the other. They tie together pieces so they are the most inflammatory, and most sensational, and the most biased.

Everyone in this world has an agenda. Even the good souls giving their lives to deworm orphans in Somalia have an agenda, that agenda being perpetuating the deworming of orphans in Somalia. Granted some agendas are better than others. But the existence of one's agenda skews that person's vision of what truth is. It creates an incentive, in any argument, to only mention the evidence that supports the furthering of their agenda.

Have no illusion, the agenda of TV News is not to spread truth and justice. It is not to solve problems or bring important issues to you attention. Their agenda is to get you to watch them by any means necessary. Therefore they try to present every report as life saving or earth shattering. The truth is that some days are just filler in space time, and rarely is there anything important happening on a given day. So most of the time News Programs are filled with empty reports with useless information. And yet you watch.

Second, In order to accomplish the Agenda, most News shows are filled with sections about the so called dangers of everyday life. They tell you common items can kill you, your wife, your child. Everyday there is a new warning or a new ground breaking study that tells us what we are doing, what we are buying, what we are eating and drinking could kill us. Forget the fact that previous generations have somehow survived the onslaught of invisible dangers that lurk around us. The thought of the unknown being dangerous, even mortally dangerous, is the most effective tool TV news uses to accomplish its agenda.

So watching the news does not give you information to protect you from dangers. Instead it makes you afraid of things that are very unlikely to happen to you. It cripples your ability to stratify risks in your life.

There are many other reasons to avoid the intellectual vomitus that is expelled into the airways every day. I could regale you with stories and instances, but instead I issue this challenge. Next time you spend any time watching this news, take a moment and reflect if you learned anything you would consider significant.

For those that are keeping score at home, Britney's hair, the true father of Anna Nicole's baby, and how your eyeliner could kill you don't count as significant. But I guess it depends on whom you ask. These events together probably took a collective 12 years off of Ryan Seacrest’s life (not really, just a joke. Everyone knows his deal with Satan gives him immortality, not to mention a new Buick every year for his assistant. Ryan fought hard for that one, but I digress. You have to admit that those picture just look right together)

Plus, after all, getting you to skip the news will give you a few minutes every day for you to help accomplish my agenda, to read and further distribute this blog. (Insert evil maniacal laugh here).

However, this is a free thinking blog, so if you prefer you daily serving of illogical fear… no sorry I can’t justify it for you. Just surrender to the despair. The News won’t care. Just as long as you watch. There is plenty of despair to go around.

Tell your cardiologist I at least tried.