When we speak about the good old days, many times we have a beautifully airbrushed (that was Photoshop’s precursor) view of things. Mom baked cookies and Dad was at work all day and read the newspaper in the evening. Life was wonderful, at least in our memories.
There might be a grain of truth to that memory. In my childhood, we got the newspaper in the evening. My parents watched the 6:00 PM news (15 minutes national and 15 minutes local, interrupted by commercials). Some of it was fairly shocking, such as the body counts of US Soldiers in Vietnam, right before the basketball scores. However, no matter how painful, it was over quickly.
Today, we have the news all day long–24/7/365. It’s no more horrible, but it’s in your face, all the time.
IN
YOUR
FACE
ALL
THE
TIME.
I know the song says that “these are the good old days,” but that was written before cable news came along.
I’m trying to ration myself to a modicum of news. And just to be a prick, I’m eliminating all the commercials.
sfnowak 