Home   >   News   >   Current Affairs   >   A ‘Comment’ on the Nation

A ‘Comment’ on the Nation

By on March 18, 2012

Tonight I returned from a long trip by car that took me back and forth across four states. I decided, since I was alone, to turn on the radio. As I passed from state to state, I made a conscious effort to listen to someone talking rather than ‘oldies’ to keep me alert. There was not much other choice: some guy selling something to cure autism, arthritis and Alzheimer’s with patent diet, some guy in Texas who had just been “saved.”

I was not looking for a lesson about this country or myself as I drove the 10 hours and back, but I got one. Most of the talking was politically motivated. On the trip home I heard a very good moderator field questions about gardens and growing. I learned that chickweed is a ‘winter annual’ and probably the most nutritious green growing around us as well as  a pest. I also heard a very reasonable guy talking about mutual funds. This is not the time to invests in GinnyMae. 

The news headlines would broke in for a minute or two. The weather. Sports scores. Something about Afghanistan. An odd story about someone in Los Angeles. Then back to comment.

As I passed from state to state the slant on the comment changed. I heard several hours of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity for an hour, then Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz. All of it, however sincerely intended, was propaganda aimed at the faithful. Each side also got off potshots about the other broadcasters like it was a contest. There were other commentators around as well, if you flipped the dial. One person I never heard of kept calling the President a ‘hemorrhoid,’ asking his assistant for another word he could use that meant hemorrhoid. After while, it all becomes too much.

No wonder the country is so polarized, when all you get when you seek out the news of the day or some kind of information is political opinion and propaganda. I miss the times when announcers felt they had to make a pretense of impartiality. Usually they came close enough. Is there no one else who feels “just tell me the facts, and I will form my own opinion?”  Do we have to have politics as sports? Do we have to have the news as cheerleading? Do we have to have all this name-calling?

Give me chickweed any day.

Tom Godfrey

About Tom Godfrey

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

HTML tags are not allowed.