I figured out how to get peace of mind (aside from being really busy running a green company and not having time for nonsense) - I quit listening to talk radio!
A friend of mine called up and said that he was feeling pretty good about his business but every time he listened to a certain national TV channel, he said it made him depressed. I told him the solution was easy: quit tuning it in! Viola! No more stress or depression! lol.
I found talk radio to be like an "echo chamber" where people mirror each other’s ideas -- but no one looks beyond the rim for some "outside the box" thinking. Too much of the time it only presents one side - like being in a courtroom where only one side presents testimony then the judge/jury declares it isn't interested in hearing the other side's case and makes a ruling.
Somehow that doesn't seem truly balanced and American to me. I think it is time for a return of the "fairness doctrine" so that people get to hear both sides of an issue on these programs instead of only one.
For example, I had dinner with some conservative British friends last weekend, who just became American citizens. They would have voted for George Bush if they could have voted, yet they said the British health system "took the stress out" of wondering if you would get health care or not.
Maybe we should be listening to people like them instead of shouting at each other --and getting nowhere -- in the echo chamber. We might actually learn something and come up with a better system.
So I left talk radio and signed up for satellite radio, which has reduced my blood pressure considerably. Now I listen to CSPAN (for live testimony at hearings) and BBC radio to get a different reality of what is going on. CNN and Fox news are still available if I want it.
It's time for people to break out of their echo chambers and get information from more than the usual suspects. It's the only way to get the facts for an intelligent solution to the issues of the day. It's the American thing to do...
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
How to Get Peace of Mind - Turn off Talk Radio
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5 comments:
I have to agree with you: talk radio is an echo chamber and a self-validation repose, not a place of serious debate or exchange of ideas. Believe it or not, about the best talk show out there was hosted by Jerry Springer -- he actually was, get this, respectful to people who disagreed with him and didn't pompously proclaim his wisdom and intelligence continuously. No surprise he last very long.
Thanks. Yep, I am equally disgusted with the far left like Michael Moore cozying up to Hugo Chavez and the far right Rush Limbag endorsing "you lie" moron Congress idiots. The middle is the balance between the nut cases.
Since people have the option to turn off talk radio or switch to a channel that gives an alternative view, why would we need the Fairness Doctrine? Don't we already HAVE both sides of the issue presented to us via different channels and stations? Just a thought.
Not really. A friend of mine said it best: he just listens to the same group of conservative stations, so he never gets outside the box. It's the same on the far left: Michael Moore cavorting with Huge Chavez is as disgusting as Rush Limbaugh defending bad behavior in Congress by Mr. Wilson. But if that is all you listen to, you end up with a narrow view of the real world.
My friend and I were recently discussing about how involved with technology our daily lives have become. Reading this post makes me think back to that debate we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.
I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside... I just hope that as memory gets less expensive, the possibility of uploading our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's a fantasy that I daydream about all the time.
(Posted on Nintendo DS running [url=http://quizilla.teennick.com/stories/16129580/does-the-r4-or-r4i-work-with-the-new-ds]R4 SDHC[/url] DS ccPost)
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