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You Cannot Turn it Off: News Addiction
BizangoBob writes: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help. There's a great piece about news addiction in the Washington Post. It made me feel I'm not the only one."
I called in sick Tuesday so I could watch all the events on TV. I believe world war 3 has started (not the end of the earth though) but over the next 5 or 6 years various countries will have differing opinions and stand up for their opinions. Then again I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it.
Treat Arab-Americans with respect. Treat terrorists with disdain, etc. Let law enforcement agencies decide who is suspicious and who isn't.
I know exactly what you mean! Think about what we do here day in and day out. We talk about the incremental release of software as if it's the most important thing in the world.
/., mailing lists, Usenet, etc.
We endlessly follow every possible civil liberties encroachment though
I read Slashdot compulsively. I also read Slate, Salon, and the NYT daily. Have I really learned anything important, or am I just wasting time? I tend to think more towards the later.
This is a timely topic in wake of the recent tragic events. I have been refreshing CNN and MSNBC's website obsessively searching for the latest (often wrongly reported) news.
OTOH what is the alternative? It seems today, it is important to process a lot of information quickly. I'm just not sure that I know what is important.
As I look back over the tragedies that have occurred over the past six days, I can't help but think that stronger laws and policies governing religion would help prevent much of it. From the hospital-bombing Christians to the terrorist Muslims, religion inevitably causes that which it tries to eliminate: senseless violence and ruthless killing.
A comment i just sent to Rob Malda (after a short bit of praise for him and his team):
- Please consider making a "permanent" story -- or call it a forum. When i
want to post something about the tragedy, i'm forced to choose between three
options, none of which is great: I can submit a story, and odds are great
that you will have to reject it. I can post a comment to an old story, where
it will likely be missed since the story is off the front page and will
certainly be missed when the next update is posted. Or, i can wait for the
next update and hope i hit it early.
If you had one huge permanent story instead of lots of smaller ones, people
would sort by "Newest First" to get news, which is what they should do
instead of just waiting for the next story to be posted. It lets new +1 and
+2 comments have a chance regardless of how early they're posted.
Also, raising the maximum comment rating above 5, if technically feasable,
would really help in these stories, where dozens and dozens of comments are
rated at 5...
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
The most powerful and moving coverage of Jeremy Glick's story, from Dateline NBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/629077.asp
Please read. Please mod up so people will see.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Folks, this war is going to take a long time. This isn't gonna be over in days or weeks or months, and the resolution is not gonna be on tomorrow's news. Once we find out who these people are and who their superiors are and how everything works (CNN reports that one of the guys we picked up in St. Louis tonight on a train is telling the FBI a lot about that shit), we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either. The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with. (Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.) Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though. I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan (and I firmly believe we will.)
Those who think we can't afford to kill innocent civilians there too, though, please take your rose-tinted glasses off. This isn't grade schoool and everything has a price in the real world. Freedom from the creeping tyranny of terrorism, though -- teaching those people that this is NOT the way to make friends and influence people -- requires some struggle and loss.
I am confident that, in the end, the good will far outweigh the bad in this thing. But it's going to take time.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
No religion with any significant number of followers advocates this sort of violence. Hatred is responsible for these crimes, and all who hide their behind any mantle of religion are traitors to the very religion they pretend to support. They are either liars or frauds.
No true Christian could ever possibly bomb a hospital. No true Muslim could ever possibly commit a terrorist act. Anyone who would do such a thing is a murderer, not a Muslim or Christian. The two concepts are not mutually compatible.
In order to end the senseless killing, we as a society need to do two things: Stop teaching hate, and effectively deal with mental illness. No other remedy will succeed. Well, maybe one other. We can always exterminate ourselves.
I've turned off my television and stopped visiting CNN.com and all the rest of the mainstream media outlets. I'm becoming extremely disturbed by the direction which they've been heading since rougly 20 minutes after the second plane hit, and (as I recall) even before the first WTC tower fell.
The talk is of reprisal, and how the United States is going to respond to the attacks. Granted, nothing can justify what has happened, and there is no rationalization for what was done. However, could we perhaps get a bit wider perspective or perhaps even some critical thought/discussion regarding what has happened from CNN?
Today there was a poll on CNN.com that makes my point perfectly: "If Afghanistan refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, should the U.S. bomb Kabul?" 79% of respondents said yes, we should bomb Kabul.
Hello, my fellow citizens! The people of Afghanistan are currently living under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban, having just come out of a long and very punishing war with the former Soviet Union. Not only has all the major infrastructure *already* been bombed, but the people are suffering tremendously as it currently stands.
Even more to the point, what could "we" possibly gain by bombing Kabul, which is a CITY full of CIVILIANS, after all? Does it make any difference whether it's a cruise missle or jetliner causing the explosion? Do you think the Taliban government, the only ones with access to food and equipment, will still be in Kabul when the bombs start to drop? Hardly--they'll be off in the hills with bin Laden, and the only people left to suffer the brunt of such an assault would be the civilian population.
The point I'm trying to make is that the mainstream media is so caught up in the idea that we could bomb Afghanistan that they've forgotten whether or not we should. After all, the only real way that we'll get bin Laden (or whomever is responsible for these crimes) out is by _going_in_after_them_. That will cost American and NATO lives. And, it can be aruged that it runs the high risk of polarizing other Muslim nations against what they could only perceive as an invasion by the West.
And if you've actually read anything about what bin Laden is trying to accomplish with his terrorist agenda, it's EXACTLY that--a world war between Islam and the West. And remember, Pakistan has nuclear bombs at their disposal.
Where is there any discussion of these facts in the mainstream media? That is what I truly fear, more than anything else. The manufacturing of our consent to what amounts to acts of genocide against civilian populations--and that ultimately leads to only greater and greater violence.
Try: http://www.zmag.org
Yeah, and we'll see if this item of "Breaking News" is true for a change.
we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either.
The reason the Taleban is in power is because there are significant numbers of Afghanis who support it. And even the factions that are opposed to it detest the US just as much. If we go to war against Afghanistan, we have to accept the fact that lots of people who were not involved in terrorist activities are going to be killed. If the government is destroyed, what replaces it might be just as bad. I'm not saying we shouldn't attack if that's what needs to be done, just that we have to be prepared for the consequences.
The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with.
I hope we don't have to deal with all fundamentalist regimes. They're not the only one.
Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.
Iraq does not have a Islamic fundamentalist regime, if that's what you meant to imply.
Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though.
Afghanistan is a particular problem. If you count the invasion by the Soviet Union, and the civil war that ensued after they sent the Soviets home with their tails between their legs, Afghanistan has been at war for 22 consecutive years. There's little there to bomb. The cities are full of rubble, and roads are muddy ruts. There are thousands of experienced and fanatical guerilla warriors. If we attack Afghanistan, we have to be prepared to get our hands much dirtier than we did in the Persian Gulf.
I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan
I think the reason we haven't heard about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan is that it's just not good military strategy inform the enemy of your battle plans.
I was about 4 blocks away when the World Trade Center collapsed. I saw people falling from the (North or South, can't remember) building, and saw it collapse. The day started out as any normal school day. It ended with my entire school being evacuated to use as a hospital. I have only been able to watch about 5 minutes of the news a day since it happened. I think I am still in shock, and can't stand to see what is going on. It makes me feel so insignificant and fragile to be reminded of the tragedy. I dread the days when Ill be able to return to school and will have to face the new reality every time I look out the window or go to or from school.
I guess this is me still in shock and denial
Sorry if this is offtopic or whatever
I still don't know what I'm doing since I saw this
I'm feeling really uncomfortable with the lack of logic in valuing the lives of people, who happen by chance to have been born in the U.S., so much more highly than people who were born elsewhere.
The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and an estimated 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed in any way directly threatened the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, wives and families and friends.
The average killing by the U.S. government in the last 30 years has been about 100,000 people per year.
The recent terrorism is, like all violence, reprehensible. I grieve for my country, and I grieve for the people lost. However, if 5,000 people have been killed in New York and Washington D.C., that is only 5% of the U.S. government's yearly average.
I grieve for those killed by the U.S. government, also.
The Bush Administration was requesting $343.2 billion for the Defense Department in Fiscal Year 2002. Now the budget will be much more.
Would it be too much to ask to spend 1% of that amount on an initiative to try to discover how the U.S. could live in the world without killing? I've tried to pull together some ideas about relating to other people in a non-violent but powerful way in an article called, "What should be the response to violence?"
This Slashdot story begins: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help."
Perhaps if this person had been aware of what his government was doing, he would have lost much more sleep. Knowing more will help.
Bush's education improvements were
Maybe since the events were so hard to believe and grasp, I had to keep watching for it to even seem real.
Maybe you should have used the time you wasted with watching the same stuff over and over again, hearing the same emotional hypocrisy bullshit again and again, for READING UP on the last 50 years. Might help you understand where all this hate is coming from
News Addiction != Knowledge Addiction
Here are a few things to think about when you watch the T-R-A-S-H that is television news:
Peter Jenning's network had to pay Richard Jule millions of dollars for their irresponsible reporting of the 92 Olympics. Remember him?
After the Oklahoma bombing, tv news focused on Middle-Eastern terrorists. Later it was found that Timothy McVeigh was the real culprit.
To me, TV news is there to keep its audience and make money via ads. To make you loyal they must make you happy. So they are often saying and reporting things in such a way as to mislead the American people into believing what the viewers want to believe in, NOT what reality truly might be.
But, they can't lie. So that's why they always use crafty and clever language, such as "alleged" or "might". After using words like to to qualify what they're about to say, they then spend the next hour on these "alleged" theories, until your mind reaches satisfactory orgasm.
eTrade SUCKS
Well, what did it for me is the press rolling out everyone who's suffering, and exploiting it for ratings. Husbands who've lost wives, mom's who've lost children. Certainly we have compassion for these people, but to spend a half hour filming their unthinkable grief ... the only thing worse is watching it. It's exploitation of the worst kind.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Could it be possile that the military doesn't pick it's targets baed on CNN polls?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power