Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Addictive News Reading

I've developed this somewhat healthy/unhealthy habit of reading the news while I'm procrastinating on the work I actually should be doing. Reading the news is good in one aspect - I'm keeping up with what's going on the world - but at the same time, I spend many hours just reading relatively the same material over and over, just written by different news sources... which leads me to conclude this: in this era of 24-hour news, the quality of the news has horribly diminished.

Strangely though, I still keep reading it. I read a lot about the election, the global economic crisis, world news (Haiti is flooded!), and news in general. It all tends to make me very jittery and somewhat stressed, although it doesn't affect me that much in my day-to-day activities. Why, I ask myself? I care too much.

I care too much that McCain is old (72!) and Palin is not prepared to be President should McCain get elected and then died; I care too much that Obama may not win the election because people can't bring themselves to vote for a black guy (who is half-white by the way); I care too much that neither of the candidates have much of a plan for getting us out of the economic crisis (although there seems to be some good news today); I care too much that people don't want to vote for some "elitist"; overall, I care too much about this election.

It doesn't help that the news agencies keep polling all the time. But I have to remind myself - the only thing I can do is talk to people and vote (which I already did). I am such a worrier.

Buuuut it does bother me that people want non-"elitists" to be President. This is the downfall of a democracy - the dumb people get to vote too. It takes a certain kind of person to be a good President, and oftentimes, it's not the guy you're going to the bar to get a drink with. Why do people think that they're going to go get a drink with the President anyway? The President has more important things to do than go to the bar.

Anyway, I should read less news. That way I can focus on the news that is newsworthy.

On an entirely different note, I really like Seattle. It does have rainy days (the worst is yet to come), but when it's sunny out, it is sooo beautiful. I live right next to a lake, so it's easy to go on a nice stroll on sunny days.




Now if only I could get a hold of Sergio's new spiffy camera, then I could take nicer pictures (where you can actually see the mountain in the background).

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