All the News Unfit to Print

I don't usually do political stuff. I'm not all that savvy and there are people who know a lot more about that stuff than I do. I know where my turf is.

Besides, I tend to argue both sides of an issue and can never make up my mind. I'd make a good diplomat as long as you didn't want to push anything controversial. After three hours of people screaming at each other trying to get their point across, I'd be the one to say, "So! Who's for Chinese food!"

However, I have to admit something, at the risk of offending some readers.

Quite frankly, my life and the lives of those around me have not changed a bit since Dick Cheney waited 24 hours to tell the press that he shot his hunting partner.

It’s a little early to see how the rest of the world is faring after such an earth-shattering gap in the information flow, but as yet no one has burned anything down in protest.

In fact (Sisiggy says, ducking the flames directed her way), I’ll go so far as to say all this indignation about Cheney waiting so long to inform The Media is a smoke screen to hide the truly amazing fact: It took The Media 24 hours to get wind of the incident.

Has anyone questioned why, the same media that subjected us to a Brittany Spears Uterus Watch, took so long to find out about something that happened to the vice president of the whole country? Sure, it happened on private property, but was no one watching when what probably was a speeding motorcade left the location of the vice president of the most powerful nation in the world and headed for the hospital?

And since when did The Media become an official agency to which government officials are required to report? And now they’re setting the deadline too?

I’m not arguing whether it is or is not news. (However, I will say, having experienced several hunting seasons in a rural area: This is nothing. Around here we’ve got hunters shooting themselves out of trees or forming their own posses. One beer at lunch? Real men only hunt on a six-pack.)

This is part of my assertion that, with all the information and non-information thrown at us all day long in every facet of our live, we have to act as our own filter. It’s why I hardly watch any television. And it’s why I even have to edit out some of what others consider news.

So. Filter. The News.

Yes. I do.

I don’t care:

1. What the Bush twins are doing.

2. What percentage of something wears/believes/buys/imbibes a percentage of something else. I took basic statistics and they can be manipulated to say whatever you want to say. (Internet polls? They only reflect the views of people who take internet polls.)

3. What (insert name of any dubious blond celebrity whose only talent is being a celebrity) is doing.

4. What the cast of the TV show on the same network as the news show is doing.

What I do need to know is about issues that affect us all universally. Everything else is flack, mental static that gets in the way.

I suppose we should be grateful. If there were something really dire going on in the world…Oh wait! There is!