Enquiring Minds

Two years ago tomorrow I gave up watching network television news. I also gave up wearing a watch and reading trashy magazines. They were all a result of what I felt was a dependence upon things that seemed none too reliable. Despite what the media said, George W. Bush was elected a second time. I could function through the day without checking my wristwatch constantly. I let go to the magazine dependence after I realized how hurtful I was to pore over someone else's life, when they did not have a chance to defend themselves.

Two years on and I have managed to remain a non-tv news watcher and a non-watch wearer, but the trash reading comes and goes. I recycle my old copies of In Touch and US Magazine at work, where a co-worker brings them home to his wife and she hungrily "reads" them. We both "read" them the same way, looking at all the pictures like pre-literate children "reading" the funny pages. I miss Heat from the UK. I always buy a copy while I'm there. Right now I'm reading Dish: How Gossip Became the News and the News Became Just Another Show by Jeannette Walls. I'd like to say that it's helping me understand the fascination of looking into the dirt of other's lives, but it's really just giving me a history of the fascination. It would be impossible to understand why people like getting the goods, but we know we do. Otherwise Perez Hilton and the many others who create the spin (including the subjects) would be done. But we keep reading, and watching. I have begun to question the legitimacy of everything lately, which brings me back around to politics and tomorrow. I won't vote the party line, but vote what I think is fair and right. I just hope we don't have a new governor, since Governor Woodcock sounds like somethings right out of a British comedy.

Happy democracy day tomorrow.