I hate being fooled, it sucks being manipulated. How could I have been such a dupe, such an idiot, such a blind hater?
Watching the news, that’s how. Hearkening from Huntley-Brinkley-Cronkite days, I stupidly thought news still existed on the basis of it being called news. I thought there were legitimate reasons for having odious failed politicians, sanctimonious coiffed pinheads and purple-faced gasbags paraded nightly on my telly. I sat stupefied by stories about damaged entertainers, fashion faux pas and doorstop-stupid man on the street remarks. I actually bought into this stuff as reality. As news. And it agitated me no end; I shouted at the world within my 27 inch measured diagonally cathode tube screen. Its persistent impertinence finally forced me to shut it off. Then, cognizant of phantom power drain, I yanked the plug from its vampire heart. The soft, dying hiss started my journey back to reality.
A refreshing Newcastle ale restored my konichiwa. I watered plants, finished a novel, fed cat, felt much better about my world. MY world. The actual, tactile, basically safe and sane world whose scenery and inhabitants I can choose to interact with or not. The world of oxygen, sunshine, aromas and delicately flavored lemon tea biscuits, which go surprisingly well with Newcastle ale.
That’s a weird, confused world inside that box. I understand they’ve got to compensate for inertness by foisting over-simplified inanities upon us, presenting exaggerated extremes of behavior, crisis and looming disaster while synchronizing their urgent bursts in calculated pulses to fix us in supplicant trance states for subliminal sales messages, but still.
