Don't Touch that Dial!

I work hard to stay up on current events, no matter how often the political news upsets me. In my defense, I will note that I don't have any of the 24/7 news screamers as 'favorites' on my remote (there's an oxymoron). I have to surf to find them, but I always do. 

I have a decent idea of the scale and scope of the weird scenes inside the gold mine we have going on here on the ant farm, though there are days I regret having given up drinking. 

What's disconcerting, as I do my hunter/gatherer thing with all the platforms for news and information at my command, is how surreal it is to see life being shared across the country/around the world as the new normal, while we hold hands for a summer season of seances.

News, with both our permission and tacit approval, has decided that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck. We have local news kids breathlessly giving us exclusive looks at how the stars of national TV shows, which just happen to be on the same network, manage to get and keep those luxurious locks or how their breath stays so minty fresh. We always have more right after this. Seriously? Seriously.

A conversation with another of the Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame celebrities we idolize (they're like panda bears; no actual use, and a bit less fur around the edges) is promoted before the spot break and leads the news segment when we come back. 

Meanwhile, that report on how your state's budget deficit will impact your local schools gets reduced to a wrap with B-roll just before the weather guy eats a bug as part of his "Perfect Weekend Weather Promise" promotion that the Suits in Corporate Just Love. 

Can you say Ka-ching? Of course you can, and you'd damn well better. And then we have the generation that gets its news from TikTok. The old man that I now am says, 'Heaven help us all.'

We've got our mouths to the soda and have long since stopped regarding news, in any form, as a window to the world. We've decided translucent instead of transparent is just fine, and no trouble at all. The world is a car crash, or perhaps it's duck soup (or even something in between), and we can find a cable news channel to reflect your beliefs rather than inform them.

Too many facts make my teeth hurt anyway, so get the bubble-headed bleach blond on the set (would it kill her to undo another button on that blouse?) and where's that Ken doll we hired to read those stories the ugly guys write? Did you see that Dimple? Network will scoop him up in a heartbeat.

Turns out we know less now than we did then. We consider it bliss, but we know what it really is. I've learned all about makeup tips for the beach season, but still don't understand anything about speculation on oil futures and its relationship to the price at the pump. If the batteries ever die in my remote, I'll be blind as well as deaf and dumb. Just like everyone else.

-bill kenny