Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Swine Flu - Over? (and a rant about "news")

I think I may have just killed someone with the power of my own mind.

I was just getting ready to post a really smug blog about how the swine flu thing is so last week, and it's over, and no one got it, and 30 million people didn't die, and aren't I smart for realizing early on that it was no big thing... and then BJ turns on CNN and someone died in New York.

I would like to apologize to that person's friends and family. It's all my fault. I will refrain from being smug. It's the only safe alternative.

In other CNNews, people are worried that the images generated by the new TSA machines are "going to show up on the internet." Um... Hello? They're about as sexy as an x-ray. There's real porn on the internet. Why would anyone look at spooky black and white security photos, when they could look at Chesty Bubbles in all her airbrushed glory?

Seriously.

Other national news: Someone rescued a bunch of ducklings from a sewer.

The tagline under the shot of the Shuttle and the Hubble? "Lift and separate."

Are they kidding me? This is the news? Good grief. I think I learn more watching Little Einsteins.

I quit watching the news after September 11, 2001. Well, that's not accurate. I quit watching the news as a result of September 11, 2001. The eleven-trillionth image of the towers falling flipped my lid, and I decided that I didn't want to keep filling my mind with the "news." "Here's why you should be terrified! This is gonna kill you!! This is gonna kill your kids!!! The sky is falling! The SKY is FALLING!!!!" It alternates between shrillness and banality. There's no real information that is going to have any impact on my life. It's just EvERYbodY PanIC all the time.

I watch CNN and I find myself saying, aloud, "Oh shut up."

This is why I shouldn't get up before 8:30. I was up at 6 this morning because someone had an accident. Of course, that person had already snuck into my bed, so... Yeah. I couldn't go back to bed after that. The laundry's going (at this rate it'll be done by noon), the kitchen is clean. I feel like I should do something fun with the kids, since I'm home today, but I know I'm going to run out of steam and need a nap by lunchtime. What are you up to today?

7 comments:

Della said...

Why, I'm visiting all my favorite blogs, of course!

Way better than reading the news, and if there is something urgent going on in the world, it usually gets mentioned in a blog within a week. Works for me!

KaityK said...

I'm at work...my eyeballs are dry! Gracie was up from 2:30 to 4 for the 2nd night in a row!
I'm sorry but they should give new mom's some flextime for sleepless nights. This is my 2nd day in a row of getting like 3 hours of sleep. I'm not gonna make it a third!
Sorry for the rant, it's a sleepy rant.

Brandon Stenger said...

"Why would anyone look at spooky black and white security photos, when they could look at Chesty Bubbles in all her airbrushed glory?"

I refer you to the master, Sam Kinison:

"OH! This is my dream!"

Cate said...

I SO agree; I started boycotting the news at some point in the last 10 years as well, because you're right, it's fear-mongering! Even though I don't like to sound like a conspiracy-theorist, if you objectively watch any given newscast, the stories all seem designed to give you new things to worry about, and then you have less time/energy to actually go out and enact change/do good things because you're too afraid. I have left Esther with various relatives here and there with the admonition not to let her watch TV, and I come back and there she is in front of the tube, and I look at them quizzically and they say, "It's just the news" and I'm like YES exactly, that's the problem. The news is horribly disturbing! It seems like people get addicted to it and have to watch it, and believe it is innocuous, when it is so vile. I'm happy to hear someone else thinks so too! :)

Honig said...

OMG...Chesty Bubbles? I just snorted lemonade out of my nose at work...too funny, but not cool. :)

Julie McIntosh said...

I don't watch the news, either. I rely on my husband to let me know if I need to duck n' cover. Otherwise, I don't care. It stresses me out.

Still giggling over "Chesty Bubbles"... Seriously, people are concerned about this? I feel about this the same way I feel about people getting their panties all up in a knot about the government supposedly wanting to listen in on our phone conversations and read our emails. Hey, if some Homeland Security schmo wants to be bored silly listening to me bitch about my husband to friends or argue with my credit card company about interest rates, be my guest.

Geez.

Great post, Amy, as usual!

Rob Monroe said...

The other thing you might notice is that it's not news unless someone in New England is dead. I really want to live somewhere where the national news is not the local news. I WANT to hear about the ducklings saved once in a while.

Deer, on the other hand... Let them go people! :o)

I read the news on the web - I can dictate what I see, not the TV producers.