Musings from Brian J. Noggle

I Agree With Lileks

Lileks today:

Big tot day, Mondays. No school, no Nana, just us - and since I decree that the TV shall be silenced after two morning programs, that means puzzles and books and coloring and painting and so on. Usually I have the radio or the news on while we play, but like I said last week, I hit a point where I can't take it right now. I just can't take another "we're there for the oil" call. I can't take another 37 minute discussion about whether the PDB said OBL wanted USA DOA PDQ. I browse the news sites and the blogs, then go play with my daughter for the rest of the morning. I think April will be my month off from marinating in the news 24-7, if only to get my blood-pressure down from hummingbird levels.

I am with him on this. I told Heather just this morning, before reading Lileks, that I don't like listening to the radio for news or watching television. I don't like the practiced sneers in the tones or the unsubtle narrative framework offered for the events. So I've stuck with the online news sources.

However, when I'm lost in the day to day hysteria of the 24 hour news cycle, I turn to an unlikely source for perspective. Back when I was an eBay dealer, I purchased a collection of Newsweek magazines, a single year from 1966-1967. I paid $2 for it, okay, and I made the $2 back in selling select issues. But that's not the perspective: no, although Viet Nam was ramping up at the time, each week it was gloom and doom or hope. Granted, Viet Nam didn't turn out that well, but the simple snapshot from the beginning of the conflict showed how poorly the media could predict the course in the early time period.

Contemporary media provide the same bark-level view of the forest. Still, I don't enjoy the spoken news.

Although to be honest I can listen to the students on WSIE because they don't have the fully practiced nuance of newscasters. Heck, in many cases, they lack inflection or even proper pronunciation. So I can take their version of radio news, which is just as well; I'd hate to have to change from Ross Gentile's Standards in Jazz on the drive home from work.i

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:09 PM