No News Is Good News
Dateline Saipan (CMNI) - When one is working at a job that requires one’s presence (or near proximity) seven days a week, 24 hours a day, chances for extensive adventuring are slim at best. I generally try to keep to a simple philosophy: Do as little as possible as seldom as possible, and always remember that a nap is NEVER a bad idea.
It is a philosophy that has taken me far…with a little help from the airlines.
When residing on a ship not run by Carnival Cruise Lines, you are pretty much expected to create your own recreation. There are no perky activities directors to try and fix you up with a shuffleboard partner or coax you into a conga line, and there is no entertainment that is so bad it would have trouble landing a gig on a double-bill with $4.95 all-you-can-eat Mexican Racing Cow prime rib in a limited-stakes casino in South Dakota. So I try to count my blessings.
I read a lot. I am on my fifth book and I have been out here just a tidge over two weeks. I am fortunate that the ship is loaded with books for the hardy mariner to peruse and enjoy, and Pamela sends the occasional shipment when the well begins to run dry. There is also a substantial library of DVDs. I am not a huge modern movie buff – I much prefer Bogart and Bacall to Brad and Angelina – but I’m sure I could find something to my liking, if I thought it worth my while to even look. That is the difference between books and DVDs: you can spend a considerable amount of time choosing either, but chances are pretty good that the book will last longer than a 2-hour movie. It’s all about the return on the investment of my time, and books win out every time.
But when my eyes are tired and I am not yet ready to read myself to sleep, there is always the television. On the ship, we have a choice of channels from the Armed Forces Network (AFN): AFN Prime, AFN News, and AFN Sports.
It seems that every time I turn on AFN Prime, they are showing either “MTV Total Request Live” or “Deal or No Deal.” I am a fan of neither. I am too old for MTV – whatever happened to Nina Blackwood anyway? I thought she was hot, though by now she is probably collecting Social Security and padding around the bungalow in a housecoat and looking for her teeth – and “Deal or No Deal” is just another reason for me to dislike Howie Mandel. I didn’t even like him when he had hair. Compared to him, even Carrot Top seems thought-provoking.
Then there is AFN Sports, which shows the occasional game between 37 airings of the same edition of “Sportscenter.” I used to think the idea of a 24-hour sports channel as being the closest thing possible to heaven on earth, but I soon discovered that one can only watch so many basketball highlights in between Arena Football and college baseball games, neither of which can match the sprouting of a lawn or the drying of paint for entertainment value.
Why would anyone want to watch college baseball anyway? If those guys were any good they would be taking steroids and making big bucks in the majors instead of wasting their time in colleges and learning stuff, the losers.
So, that usually leaves the News channel. As you all know, it is a presidential election year, and I am as big a fan of intelligent political discourse as anybody. The problem is, I can’t find any.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Fox, CNN, MSNBC, the Big Three, whatever. It’s all the same: The idiot host, the idiot liberal and the idiot conservative. They trash each other, talk over each other and it doesn’t really matter what they are saying anyway because it’s all spin.
When the yelling and screaming finally comes to an end, everybody is still angry, nothing is agreed upon and all that is left is a big mess. Heck, if I want to watch that, I’ll go back to Wisconsin and spend Thanksgiving with my family. At least I’ll get a good meal out of it.
Even staid Public Television serves up “The McLaughlin Group,” which is such a waste of airtime that I won’t contribute anything during PBS’ pledge drives unless they can guarantee me – in writing – that none of the money I give them will end up in John McLaughlin’s pocket. They’ve never called me back.
Is it too much to ask for a serious discussion of issues that doesn’t degenerate into an episode of “Jerry Springer”? Nobody seems to think so anymore. If it bleeds, it leads, and if it doesn’t yell it doesn’t sell. So-called “television news” has been reduced to a bunch of loudmouths and spin doctors who make the “Hee-Haw” gang look like a think tank. That whirring sound you hear is Edward R. Murrow spinning in his grave.
Maybe I need to go read something. Maybe we all do.
Leave a Reply