Why do I listen to the news?

[scaeagles]

So I get in my car a bit before 6:00 this morning to go to work. The news comes on the radio. Top three stories -

1 - Woman arrested after beating her 10 year old son bloody in a Walmart. Turns out she had a previous child abuse conviction where a child FREAKIN' DIED several years earlier, but she was out of prison with custody of this child. What the hell??????

2 - Another woman goes on trial today here in Phoenix for giving birth in a bathroom, drownnig the child, throwing it the trash, deciding she needed a better story, so she took the kid, put her in the turnk of her car, drove to the hospital, and said the baby was born no breathing. Not too hard to find the toilet water in the baby's lungs. Who cares that we have drop off laws in Phoenix where all she had to do was take the kid to a hospital, drop her off, and drive away, no questions asked.

3 - An illegal immigrant was working as a janitor in a local highschool and had placed hidden cameras in the girls locker room. He's going on trial soon, too.

Sometimes this world and the people in it make me freakin' ill.

[Snowflake]

Not that I can think of a better place, but maybe it's time to leave Phoenix? Of course, SF and the Bay Area have their own horror stories.

I rarely listen to the news, I don't watch it on TV much and I parted ways with CNN a long time ago. I look at it more like garbage in garbage out and I don't want it on my head.

[PirateMunkee]

Wow, and people wonder why I keep praying for an asteroid the size of Texas to slam into the Earth.

[Gemini Cricket]

Sometimes this world and the people in it make me freakin' ill.
Go on a media diet.
No tv news, no radio news, nada.
Just take a break for a little while.
It helps.
:)

[scaeagles]

Perhaps I should.

[Stan4dSteph]

I watch BBC World News. There's usually less of those kind of stories. Still a lot of depressing stuff, but it's more the kind of news we don't get as much from US outlets.

[sleepyjeff]

Wow, and people wonder why I keep praying for an asteroid the size of Texas to slam into the Earth.

I thought you wanted an asteriod to hit Texas...not the size of Texas;)

[BarTopDancer]

We have drop off laws too. They still find babies in dumpsters :(

[MouseWife]

I watch the news, I read the stories. It is sickening. It hurts my heart and it puts ugly images into my head, don't like them.

My niece always stops me from reading her things {I'll be talking with her on the phone while reading the news on the internet} and says she just can't hear it. I tell her, I don't enjoy it but I think I do need to know, it does happen.

Maybe it makes me paranoid and I hound my kids to keep their cell phones charged, to make sure eveyone has AAA, ask when they'll be home and to please call {I am not so much trying to know what they are doing just when to expect them home}. I've been ribbed about not going in to 'bad neighborhoods' but hello, I grew up in one and it is still on the news, a lot.

I think, while I don't read every single thing, that it is good to know that things happen. Helps keeps us aware and what to look out for so that as concerned people we can do something, if need be. That we learn when to help and when to run, ourselves.

Like all of the stories about people meeting people over the internet...oh, wait...:D ;)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I stopped watching and reading the news years ago. People may call me apathetic but I know my life is better for it. I don't need to know about these things. I'm trying to pay more attention to the election stuff but it's hard, since I find our broken system every bit as depressing as all the other brokenness in this world.

I've realized I'm a glass half-empty person when it comes to human nature, so I do what I can to avoid abject depression.

[Capt Jack]

Wow, and people wonder why I keep praying for an asteroid the size of Texas to slam into the Earth.

Im workin on it! Im workin on it! geez, people are so impatient.

;)


Go on a media diet.
No tv news, no radio news, nada.
Just take a break for a little while.
It helps.
:)

I stopped watching and reading the news years ago. People may call me apathetic but I know my life is better for it.


no lie. I abandoned ship on "world affairs" via regular news outlets eons ago. I decided back then to concentrate on the things I can change and try to separate myself from the exasperating, depressing, enraging ones I couldnt. the news still gets around, but at least I dont feel saturated by it.

as my sig on another board says

"if you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed
if you DO read the newspaper, you're misinformed
- Mark Twain"


I choose the former.

[Kevy Baby]

Also remember that for all of the horror stories you do hear about, there are also stories of people championing others. People taking at risk children into their homes and teaching them what unconditional love is. People overcoming personal tragedy to make themselves and the world a better place. The everyday heroes who coach kids (like, in basketball ;) ) so that those kids grow up to be better human beings.

Unfortunately, those people are just not newsworthy. But they are out there!

[Gemini Cricket]

And when all else fails, there are Looney Tunes cartoons.
There's nothing that will make you feel better faster than watching a cartoon rabbit drop a boulder on an opera singer.
:D

[scaeagles]

I'm more a Sponge Bob kind of guy, but Taz works for me.

[Moonliner]

Perhaps I should.

And yet you know you won't. Which of course is the very definition of addiction.

[Morrigoon]

I think the issue with the dumpster thing is this - we adults know about the drop off laws, but we're not making an effort to make sure our kids know about them - and guess who's most likely to need them? Yep, teenagers.

[BarTopDancer]

Sex is dirty. Sex is bad. Birth control promotes sex. If we ignore sex our kids will never find out about it! Won't SOMEONE think of the CHILDREN?!?!

[Strangler Lewis]

Given your response, I assume that you listen to the news for the reasons they broadcast such stories: to make the people who patronize their sponsors feel better about themselves at the expense of those less fortunate who commit these crimes. It's tough, of course, but I believe the first reponse to such horrors should be "There but for the grace of God go I." Yes, the janitor is a pervert, but illegal immigrant does not equal pervert. The criticism here should lie, if at all, with a school willing to hire someone for a position around children whose background it cannot reasonably expect to check.

[scaeagles]

Well, I oft feel that way regarding my god fortune in life. Many things which are beyond my control I am fortunate in. For example, I have a great wife, great kids. I know plenty of better men than I with a less than great wife or kids that struggle mightily in various areas of their lives.

However, there are certain things that I know I would never be party to. I will never, ever beat my children. I will never ever kill a baby. I don't understand the mentality of those who do and they sicken me.

I do hold the school administration to a high level of responsibility as well.

I don't listen to the news for such stories, though I know there are people who do for precisely that reason. I want to know what's going on in the world, and I don't consider such stories as really news worthy. What good comes from me knowing about a woman who has beaten her kid bloody? Or about a woman who drowns her newborn? Nothing. I guess they get the play, though, for the reason you cite.

I don't regard someone who beats their child or kills a newborn as less fortunate. I regard them as depraved.

[Strangler Lewis]

Victimization of others is all horribly foreign to me, too. Because it seems logical to assume that it should be easy to choose to do better, the fact that people make unspeakable "choices" tells me that, be it nature or nurture or both, they can't.

[JWBear]

I don't watch news on TV because it has a strong right wing, corporatist bias.

[Alex]

I try to only consume news from sources where I know that they are filtering out anything with which I might disagree or have to think.

[Morrigoon]

So you avoid the news entirely, yes? ;)

[Kevy Baby]

If it is not on TMZ (http://www.tmz.com/), it is not news

[PirateMunkee]

Sex is dirty. Sex is bad. Birth control promotes sex. If we ignore sex our kids will never find out about it! Won't SOMEONE think of the CHILDREN?!?!

Didn't Horror movies teach you anything??!! You have sex you die...End of story!!!:eek: