Thursday, February 12, 2009

Current Event Apathy

I have been having a crisis of current events lately. I don't watch the news on television because that news is just geared towards ratings and the majority of that news isn't really news. It's just stupid people doing stupid things and I get mad when I watch it, so I don't. When I travel out of the country I am amazed at the amount of real news that is shown. News that isn't about the idiot car chases, or about the murder suicides, or IRAQ. Did you know that there are other countries in the world other than the US and Iraq? I also don't read the newspaper because I don't have time to sit down for an hour or two every day to get through all of it. So I have been left in a perpetual state of ignorance about what is going on in the world, unless of course it's the Bill Maher, Real Time season where I do get an overview, albeit quite liberal, of the week's events. I have been left with a feeling of apathy, which is a feeling that I hate.

I was mentioning this to Jason a few months back and he told me about a weekly magazine called the "The Week" that Pietro, his father-in-law, reads. The magazine gives a quick rundown of the previous week's news, and it's news from all over the world. I was intrigued!
I received my first issue the weekend of the Presidential Inauguration. The magazine is right up my alley. It's a quick read and to the point; just about 30 pages. I'm already feeling smarter and I've only read 2 1/2 issues.

6 comments:

  1. You did get smarter. I can totally tell in this post : ). I keep thinking that I need to watch the news because I NEVER know anything people are talking about. Like the whole Chris Brown abuse thing. I didn't know one thing about it until today...3 days after the event occured. That seems kind of ridiculous to me. I need to do something.

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  2. I used to read that magazine, too. I don't know why I stopped...

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  3. I will have to check out this magazine you mention. I HATE our news media in this country. It's yellow journalism, it's horrible.... "if it bleeds, it leads". And then they are SOOOOO self-congratulatory. It kills me. I simply can't deal with the Gloom Merchants anymore. I want to be informed, but Brian Williams and the others make me want to throw a brick at my TV. (And then I'd miss "The Bachelor", and we CAN'T have that, now can we?!)

    sigh....

    one last vent.... if I hear the name Nadya Suleman one more time... you will hear me scream ALL THE WAY on the West Coast. Really.

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  4. I have to find that magazine. The news here is 10 minutes Paris Hilton and 20 minutes sports.

    that is why, I honestly did not know about the bushfires until like 3 days ago

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  5. I am SO with you on this but I feel I am even worse off than you, before you started reading this magazine. I rarely listen to the news or read the paper for the same reasons. That mag would probably be really good for me.

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  6. I'm so glad you're liking it! You've been looking smarter lately.

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