AP Anonymous

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the Associated Press, people of Earth, I am an addict.  I stand before you today a broken man, unable to resist the need for my next fix and consumed by thoughts of time, no, life wasted.  I am a man fearful of the diminishing prospects for my own life and for the prospects of the world.

Just last evening, a young man walked into a grocery store in the sleepy but restless town of Richmond, Virginia and selected a frozen pizza, a bag of potato chips (Lay’s) and a bottle of cheap white wine (because let’s face it, not only is he hungry he’s also classy) to purchase.  While lamenting the wait in the self-checkout line and the disembodied female computer voice at the register, (Welcome, valued customer!) he was quietly, but forcefully and incessantly bombarded with spam news.  No, not news about Spam, the canned mystery meat that enjoys immense popularity in Hawaii, but greasy, vacuous, self-indulgent publications spouting the relationship woes and victories of Hollywood’s elite.  However, he leaves this industrial wasteland of retail production with new knowledge.  Taylor Swift is in love with some guy from the Twilight movies.

24-hour news – nothing new.

The idea of around the clock news coverage has been around since I was a kid. I remember my favorite shows being interrupted by “This Just In” or “We’ve Just Learned…” and then for what would feel like hours I’d learn about one tragedy or another that happened which at the time would freak me out or scare the crap out of me. More than anything, I was just really pissed off because nothing could have been more important that what was happening in Hazzard with Bo and Luke Duke.

Do we really need a twenty-four hour news network?

Do we really need a twenty-four hour news network?

No.  The short answer.  And like John Kerry, I will now elaborate for the next forty-five minutes.
No, we do not need a twenty-four hour news network.  Yes, news happens all the time.  Somewhere in the world, news is happening, along with lighting strikes.  We don’t need to cover that news with the current system: minutia without data.

There used to be a gay (happy) morning show then a lunch time few-minute update, and then an evening news program followed by an 11 o’clock edition.  The evening news was then outbid by the early evening news, in some locales so brazen as to only go on 30 minutes before!  This is like dinner before supper.
One of my relatives is fond of saying he has a dinner (repas) and then a supper (dîner) and which then this allows him to have smaller portions, evenly spread out, and saves hum from gluttony, lust, the neighbor’s house, the wife, the idols and the rest.