FLOYD COUNTY —
To reduce stress and promote low-pressured blood flow, I have tried weaning myself from the news. It’s like taking a baby off a bottle or getting a wino to drink orange juice. Without the news, my hands shake and my mind feels unfilled. But I must learn to live within myself, hoping that what’s happening out there doesn’t end as it did during the Big Bang. But if you are a creationist, you must understand that what God giveth, he can also taketh away.
Back in the old days when I was growing up, there wasn’t much news and few reporters to report it. Not every home subscribed to a newspaper, had a telephone or a radio. We heard dull local news at the country store on Saturdays, and received the good news straight from God at church every Sunday as reported by the preacher anchor. Church news covered two basic topics — sin and salvation. Our congregation heard this fire-and-brimstone news on Sunday, returned to sin on Monday and then to boost our chances of salvation, went back to church the next Sunday.
At the store, we talked about the weather, heard dull local news and considerable amounts of gossip, which spread like modern-day Tweets. Government wasn’t that big back then and didn’t bother us that much, and for all we knew, Afghanistan was a disease.
Now when the channels run out of news to report, they make stuff up and employ panels of insightful experts to analyze what happened and predict what will happen, which seldom ever happens. This jabbering goes on all day and late into each night. It can drive you nuts.
News now is mostly about crime, war, elections with a lot of sex thrown in. Weather, sports and the ticker at the stock market are also big news. Weather news is good one day per month and sports scores are more important than the stock market, which causes heart attacks. Then you hear, “we interrupt this program to bring you late-breaking news.” Late-breaking news hasn’t completely broke yet, but they report it.
When I watched the news, I’d sit there nervously waiting for an on-the-spot report such as a courageous reporter in the middle of a hurricane or on a war front. In the old radio days, they’d never interrupt a program such as Fibber Magee or Lum and Abner, who ran the Jot’em Down store. In 1949, John Cameron Swayze became the first TV nightly newscaster. His “Camel News Caravan,” ran for 15 minutes each evening. Camel cigarettes were very popular back then, because as the commercials explained, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” Times have changed. Cigarettes are out and news programs have increased from 15 minutes to 24/7.
When I turned off the news to reduce medication, President Obama was the president, but Republicans were trying to exterminate him. They had about 10 candidates all lined up explaining how they’d save America from socialist elitism, but then turned against each other. The last I heard Gingrich and Romney were in a slime-ball fight.
It’s not easy giving up the news, especially for us old folks. Without the news and a couch, what do we do? We do go out into social settings frequently and spend considerable time in medical-complex waiting rooms, because there is something wrong with us. We wait with other sick people with nothing to do but worry, or watch the news on the TV attached to a wall over a rack of worn out “better-health” magazines.
I try to stare at the opposite wall, but when hearing weird stuff on the TV, I reluctantly turn and look. The other day I saw the governor of Arizona, which is over-run with immigrants, point her index finger up to the president’s nose. I also turned toward the TV when I heard Mitt Romney release his tax return. He said he paid about a 14 percent tax rate last year on investment income of $57,000 per day. He says he wants to help the middle class, but doesn’t worry about the poor, because they have a “safety net” under them. Then I heard Newt Gingrich say that he will establish a colony on the moon by the end of his second term. I’d vote for him if he would go.
To live a stable life, avoid the media, politicians and waiting rooms, and remember to position yourself over a safety net.
Do not send news to Terry Cummins at TLCTLC@AOL.com.
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Terry Cummins
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CUMMINS: How to live a stable life
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