HOW ABOUT THESE HEADLINES

(HW) Wednesday, March 2, 2011:

A teenage mother took exceptional care for her 9 month old son, providing food, warmth and security as well as providing paid day-care for two other small children with the same level of excellence.

Three television stars acted in their weekly sitcoms without resorting to the use of drugs, alcohol or anger management problems. They spent their generous salaries to provide for their extended families, save for future needs, and donate to a charity which builds homes for low-income families.

A group of 87 American military personnel landed safely in Afghanistan

 

New Jersey passed a bill regulating the state's purchase of non-US produced products, intended to encourage government officials to purchase locally.

Twenty-eight windmills provided safe and reliable energy to Bakersfield, California without any threat or danger to the surrounding pasture land.

Ten senior adults were cared for by the paid staff of their assisted-living facility. They were fed, bathed, and attended to. A birthday party was thrown for the facility's live-in companion dog, with cake and ice cream for all.

Sorry - I feel obligated to check CNN headlines on-line periodically, since my husband is in Baghdad - but the headlines today just blew me away. I needed to see these stories to buoy my own normal optimism.

FAIR AND BALANCED AND MODERATE AND IMPARTIAL AND UNBIASED

Everyone thinks that they are a good driver. Everyone thinks they are impartial. No one wants to think of themselves as prejudiced. And we all believe we have the correct political/ religious/ social viewpoint.

Is it possible to admit that we are all JERKS sometimes?

The greatest thing about the United States of America is we all HAVE THE RIGHT to be jerks. We can yell and scream and argue with each other until we get hoarse, sweaty and highly agitated.

But we do not have the right to shut up the other person.

I just wish sometimes I could - FoxNews really irritates me.

SHALL WE GET COMFORTABLE?

How much of chance a part of our destiny?

Haven't you ever said, "Oh, I didn't know she/he died" - "When did that movie come out?" - "Why, is there a war going on there?" We miss two day's worth of news while on vacation - we haven't been to the cinema lately - the local papers only have a page and half devoted to international news.

We have an extremely narrow viewpoint of life. We are exposed to the news that is deemed 'newsworthy' by certain editorial process - why would anyone want to know more about the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo... unless you have a friend who lived there until last year. Did any national magazine mention the number of homicides in Naples this past year? Is there any interest in earthquakes in the southern rim of India?

It may sound like I am decrying this lack of information, but I fully acknowledge that we can only cope with a limited amount of information. Our communication avenues are so broad they are overwhelming with facts, details and trivia; we are not capable of processing all of it.

So a literal suppression of certain news is necessary for the non-specialist public to not wallow in information deluge.

I agree - in fact, I avoid the regular news like the plague. It may be true, but it's depressing, and if I can't do anything about it, I don't want to know about it.

So what is the point this crazy lady is trying to make (if she is actually trying to make any point at all!)?

My oldest daughter seems to be the one who turns on the lights for me - introduces me to blogging, to the iPhone, music, and (now we are finally get to something) some MOVIES. We sat together last night and today and watched "Mrs. Henderson Presents," a BBC movie that I had never heard of and would have never seen except to her getting it on Netflix.

It was hysterical. And poignant. And includes a full frontal shot of Bob Hoskins that I doubt you will see any where else.

How different would my life be if I had never been exposed to that?!