Quite Simply the Road to Happiness?? No News Is Good News.

-

I read this blog, The Economy Isn't Happening, almost every day because I think he's funny a lot of the time, he's a guy so I get some testosterone-laden perspective in my day, and although he states he's NOT Robert Goulet I'm secretly hoping that he is and will one day belt out "If I Would Ever Leave You." I also sense he has a kind heart.




His latest post is centered on the idea of not inundating ourselves with news--and by that, he means bad news--and to go on living our lives surrounded by daily, undramatic, non-crime-ridden, non-war mongering activities. He believes we and the world would be much happier.

For the record here, I don't agree with him 100%, but as I said I like the guy's writing and I'm willing to give him what small forum I have to share his point of view. I don't think a person needs to watch CNN 24/7, nor do I believe that necessarily makes a person informed. What I do believe is that the world does not need us to watch TV or listen to its woes every day. What the world needs is for us to give a damn and to participate in the work of the world. Remember Ebenezer Scrooge from a short three weeks ago? " Business! Mankind was my business!"

For those of you who may feel better knowing we are not the only generation to feel overwhelmed by the horrific acts of mankind, I offer a Henry James quote, "Evil is insolent and strong; Beauty enchanting but rare, Goodness very apt to be weak, Folly very apt to be defiant, Wickedness to carry the day; Imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of a night, we wake up to it again forever and ever; we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it."

For anyone not on a news blackout, there's over 200 children dead and over a thousand children wounded in this latest Middle East conflict. Last I've heard 14 medics killed. ABC NEWS website has a list of humanitarian organizations that are helping. So run on over to Johnny Truant's House of Idiocy for a laugh and on the way back see what help you can offer for these children trapped in the middle of war. Politics aside, I think if grown men want to get into a pissing contest about geographical borders they ought to get in the ring and duke it out. Like real men.

Comments

  1. Johnny B. TruantJanuary 9, 2009 at 7:45 PM

    See, now, this is where you and I differ. I do agree with this handsome gentleman 100%.

    ReplyDelete
  2. La FraméricaineJanuary 9, 2009 at 7:59 PM

    I went to see "Waltz with Bashir" this afternoon with Le Framéricain so your reflections upon the latest wholesale killing of children euphemistically referred to as "collateral damage" is particularly apropos.

    I believe that war should be against the law and that all war-generating disputes should be channeled through The Hague. I do not believe in destroying social infrastructure for any reason whatsoever.

    The other day on PBS I heard a man state that peace could break out in 24 hours, exactly the way wars do. It is only we who are stopping it from doing so. I could not have agreed more.

    Lovely, touching post, Dearest Distracted.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RudeeJanuary 9, 2009 at 9:01 PM

    I read, I knit, I watch movies and I work. I don't have my head in the sand, but I can only take so much bad news. There is no easy answer to the issues of violence, greed and the struggles in other parts of the world-just as there aren't easy answers to these questions here. I have hope though. Plenty of hope.

    ReplyDelete
  4. debraJanuary 10, 2009 at 2:57 PM

    I don't watch much TV and generally glance at the newspaper with disgust. Fear mongering seems to be status quo, doesn't it.

    Have you read the War Prayer by Mark Twain? He mandated that it could only be published after his death because only dead men can tell the truth...

    ReplyDelete
  5. LydiaJanuary 11, 2009 at 12:50 AM

    Love the way you wove your commentary, the James quote, and the photos in this post. Thanks, too, for the links.

    Two ways of handling tough news each relating to birds: ostrich and chicken (little). At least chicken little's reactionary ways have a slight chance of being a service to others....

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJanuary 11, 2009 at 3:58 PM

    I agree with him and I have done it. 10 years ago I gave up TV because it ruled my world. I also gave up reading the news because it always depressed me and made me feel hopeless. I am a much happier person having given news up. I always know about the really important things that happen from the web, so I help where and when I can, but I mostly tend to my own heart and world and thereby I believe I affect the rest of the world positively.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Hey, thanks for your thoughts and your time:>)

Popular posts from this blog

10 Things I Love That Start With the Letter E

-
Image
Game imported from Sweet Annie at Blissful Bohemian . Name ten things you love that begin with a specific letter. In my case, the letter E. So here goes: 1. Well, first of all there's elephants . Who doesn't love those cute little faces?? And what's not to love? Elephants are actually a lot like humans. They laugh and cry. They grieve over their dead. They play games with each other and have fantastic memories so they can even remember the rules and not go to bed mad. 2. Then there's Engelbert Humperdinck, who I don't actually love and his singing's just on this side of okay, but I do love his name. 3. I luuuuuuv eggs , deviled. Nothing fancy, just classic. Best Basic Deviled Eggs 6 eggs, hard cooked and peeled 1/4 cup mayonnaise 1 teaspoon yellow mustard 3/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar pinch of salt (optional) fresh ground black pepper (optional) smoked paprika (optional) Cut eggs in half. Arrange egg whites cut side up on a serving plate and put the yolks ...
Read more

The Poet Goes to Indiana by Mary Oliver

-
Image
I'll tell you a half-dozen things that happened to me in Indiana when I went that far west to teach. You tell me if it was worth it. I lived in the country with my dog— part of the bargain of coming. And there was a pond with fish from, I think, China. I felt them sometimes against my feet. Also, they crept out of the pond, along its edges, to eat the grass. I'm not lying. And I saw coyotes, two of them, at dawn, running over the seemingly unenclosed fields. And once a deer, but a buck, thick-necked, leaped into the road just-oh, I mean just, in front of my car— and we both made it home safe. And once the blacksmith came to care for the four horses, or the three horses that belonged to the owner of the house, and I bargained with him, if I could catch the fourth, he, too, would have hooves trimmed for the Indiana winter, and apples did it, and a rope over the neck did it, so I won something wonderful; and there was, one morning, an owl flying, oh pale angel, into the hay loft o...
Read more

A Year with EB White

-
Image
"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."----- from Charlotte's Web I am a soul always drawn and fascinated by the idea of " A Year of...". A Year of Rumi. A Year of Calvin and Hobbes. A year cooking with Julia Child. A project that provides guidance for the year and a ruler we can measure inward growth in the course of our circle around the sun. One year, after an early marriage and an unsurprising--except to me--early divorce, I came across a book by Sue Hubbell titled A Country Year. I didn't plan for it to take a year to read, but it did. I only read it at night before I went t...
Read more