Listening to the news? Again?!

I am a News junkie. I love the News so much that I Google Read and Twitter Feed five dozen News sources every day. I love the News so much that I stream NPR or Air America all day while I'm working. I love the News so much that I DVR the Sotomayor hearings. I love the News so much that when I'm cut off from it I get body aches and shivers.

I love the News so much that I want to take it out behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

I'm what you might call an "active participant" in getting the News. I don't just hear it or read it, and then go about my merry business. No, I have to respond to it, in the form of comments, message board posts or occasional tirades at the television. So, in the interest of my own personal well-being and improving the quality of life of those around me, here are five news stories I never, ever want to hear about again.

1) Michael Jackson's death

What. a. clusterfuck. When Jackson died, I read his AP obituary and that was it, but I have still managed to get inundated with information about his kids and the mother of his kids and his dad and his family, and OH MY GOD, he had a crazy life, let the man rest already.

2) Sarah Palin

I don't hate Sarah Palin. I am, frankly, terrified of Sarah Palin. Or, rather, I am terrified of what she represents: the idea that a person shouldn't be educated beyond her faith; that the most important governing document of the United States of America isn't the Constitution, but the Christian Bible; that it's completely OK to enflame the ill-informed passions of a bunch of gun-totin' xenophobes and former KKK members.

Sarah Palin may look like a clown from where you're sitting, but the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains are just outside my office window, and there are people driving around here who have scratched out the "McCain" on their '08 bumper stickers and simply left the word "Palin."


toothpastefordinner.com

3) Any News that requires accompanying paparazzi photography

Half the problem with the world lies in the fact that we permit photographers to stalk celebrities. Not just that we permit it, but that we encourage it. Like, we have some right to know what an actress wears to the grocery store or what's in a musician's garbage. Do you know what happens when societies start celebrating athletes and actors over professors and authors? Maybe you could ask them. Oh, wait -- no you can't. BECAUSE THOSE SOCIETIES DON'T EXIST ANYMORE.

4) Any News that comes out of Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilley's mouths



5) News that uses words like "Anti-Family" to mean "Gay" or "Pro-Death" to mean "Wants to keep abortion legal." Or, on the flip side, "Anti-Choice" to mean "Has moral qualms about abortion."

See, because that's not News. That's just being an inflammatory asshole.

(Five dollars to the first person who correctly guesses the title quote.)