Saturday, April 30, 2005

Self Loathing

I visit the Drudge Report at least once a day. I can’t help it. I'm sick, I tell you, SICK!

Again with my “breaking news” addiction. I cannot even make it to the fun steps in the 12 step program. Step Nine is my favorite step: the tracking down and apologizing for hurting people while in the ravages of addiction. This gives one a great excuse to look up people who thought they’ve put you out of their lives forever. When you show up with apologies, these folks are nearly obligated to forgive you – even though it’s all about your needs and likely they couldn’t give a rat’s ass for you or your stupid choices. Choices… like being an addict is a choice. Who would choose the life of Drudgery? I’ll skip back from my second tangent to the first tangent with this simple warning: you cannot use Step Nine as an defense against breaking a restraining order. Enough about that.

Back to the main point: news addiction is a frustrating mess. And why o why do I look at a site with a conservative (or at least a liberal-bashing) bias? Ditto FoxNews.

I'm not a total leftist but I certainly lean away from the current Republican agenda. While I have nothing against religion per se, I am frightened that the next civil war in this country will be between the Evangelical Christians and everyone else. I don’t see the Republican party goose-stepping down Pennsylvania Avenue but I certainly can imagine Ann Coulter whispering in the ear of a frustrated artist “Psst – Adolf, these liberals are the cause of all of your woes. They must be stopped at all costs. Perhaps they need to be taken to retreats where they are forced to concentrate on the evils of liberalism – we’ll call them Concentration Camps!”

And yet I find myself drawn toward looking at the websites which she advocates, and not only to keep an eye on the enemy.

Say what you will about the Republicans screwing with our civil rights, letting big companies poison our air and water, and waging war under tenuous pretenses at best; they have a much more efficient machine than the Democrats. They have much more charismatic leaders. To simplify: they give a good speech and they make the trains run on time.

If the Pope can have been a Nazi Youth because it was impossible for him to avoid such things, then I must admit to viewing Drudge, Fox, Coulter, O’Reilly, and the rest of the gang because I simply cannot avoid them. God help me. God help us all.