Media... Mediocre... Hmmm

As a foreword I should say that it is not my intent to judge anyone but rather try to lend you my point of view for the duration of your reading.

I was browsing through some channels the other day as I was holding my copy of Glenn Beck's Common Sense idly in my free hand. I'm not sure what sort of program I wanted to watch or if I wanted to watch anything at all. At some point I set the remote aside and went back to my reading while there were some commercials on the T.V. I had no idea what program was gonna come up next but honestly I cared little about it. After all I had a book to read.

When the commercials ceased, a Latin entertainment news show came up. The host began to mention how some Mexican actress was seen in some island by herself and therefore that must mean that she's divorcing her current husband- some famous Mexican singer. I reached out eagerly for the remote to change the channel because my ears were beginning to bleed!

But before I get to that glorious button that will make everything better for my ears, my mother leaves a burning pot on the kitchen to run to the T.V. and find everything about the gossip- she even asks me to turn the volume up!

I did turn it up out of respect but I just stared at her. Almost felt like I was facing my worst enemy. No, this has nothing to do with her cooking, it's the fact that we live in a media (entertainment) dominated world.

I mean, be honest with yourself, would you rather watch American Idol or a debate about global warming? Survivor or an explanation of what the proposed health care actually entails? If you preferred the second choice in the examples above, I applaud you, in fact, if I ever get to meet you in person, coffee is on me- but if you're part of the majority of Americans that spend 4 to 6 hours daily watching gossip shows like The Soup (Seriously??!?) then you may be part of the reason why we're headed towards a third-world-country economy.

Sure, maybe the finale of Real Housewives of Atlanta was far more important than paying attention to what our government was doing with our tax money but do you ever wonder why we're in a recession?

My mom finally caught up to the fear in my eyes and asked me what was wrong. All I could say was "I bet you wouldn't run like that to watch a session in the House of Representatives. She thought about it for a moment until she finally said "I probably wouldn't."

Again, I'm not judging her and I'm certainly not judging you- I just think it would be nice if you give up an hour (even just thirty minutes) of your T.V. time to get yourself informed about what's going on with the country. Sitting at a Starbucks to randomly say "so how about that economy" to quickly change the subject to "How about that party in Hollywood last Saturday night" doesn't count.

Maybe this is me asking for too much and maybe my voice will go unheard, but there's also the tiny chance that maybe today you'll watch CNN instead of keeping up with Kardashians... And I write here today to honor that tiny chance.