Lots of people are pissed off about the Kennedys getting so much attention. What's driving you nuts?

-- Anonymous, July 26, 1999

Answers

I get more riled up about stories like the ones I was reading around Independence Day, about how ignorant so many kids and adults are about US history, among other things. I don't get riled up about the *stories* exactly, but I get pissed about how ignorant most people seem to be about history, government, politics, current events, etc.

What riles me up even more is when people are *proud* of how ignorant they are - like people who are proud that they never read newspapers or non-fiction books, never watch any news on TV, don't seek out information on current events from even mainstream sources, much less go any deeper than that, don't vote, ad nauseum.

It doesn't bother me at all that the Kennedy story has gotten a lot of coverage - it's expected, it's a sad, dramatic story, most people would want to know what happened and to take a little trip down memory lane into the whole 70 year saga, but we all do have control of how much of that we watch or read.

All people have to do who don't want to watch that much coverage of one story is turn the blasted TV off, turn the page of the newspaper, pick up a different kind of magazine, or maybe even read a book, or go do *whatever*.

The media sells most what most people want most - and most people seem to want most is to be distracted and entertained, not educated or enlightened. Which is why we see so much celebrity gossip and tabloid crap and "police blotter" type news and "infotainment" and so little of anything of substance.

Judy

http://www.judywatt.com

-- Anonymous, July 26, 1999

Not much right now actually. Formerly all of the accusations flying about everything from computer games and the 'net to movies and film being responsible for Columbine had me fairly riled.

But for the most part, I ignore the news completely. Especially the domestic news. I keep an eye on international doings, but so many domestic news stories are well ...crap, and not really NEWS, that I don't see much of a point in keeping up with it.

I neither watch the news on TV or read it in the paper, since we had to cancel our subscription to the Sunday Washington Post. The ever-growing pile of newspapers in the hallway, waiting to be recycled that prevented anyone from getting in and out of the apartment without risk to life and limb, made it rather impractical to keep it.

I skim the international headlines on my.yahoo.com daily and ping the AP wires when the fancy strikes to get my news in as "pure" a form as possible in this media-crazed day and age.

Oh yeah, and on days when I get home early enough, Sabs and I watch the French newscast from A2 on the international station. Gives you an entirely different perspective, lemme tell ya, when the news stories are covering everything from mainland Europe to Africa, the Middle East and China. And, can you imagine? A whole segment given over to culture and the arts! Wow.

Don't see that too often on the local Virginia/DC newscasts.

Pah. See, the media gets me riled. All by its lonesome, never mind what they're actually reporting on.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 1999

We cancelled our paper and we stopped watching the news. I get all my news and weather from Yahoo now, with an occasional glance at the local news in the Sacramento Bee.

I just get too pissed off. At the stories themselves, at the idiots on the local news programs, at the letters to the editor ... you name it.

I missed all of the Kennedy coverage, except on Yahoo. I miss everything unless it's covered on Yahoo. Life is better because of this.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 1999

I'm not pissed that the Kennedys are getting so much attention, per se. It's the way it is being done that is pissing me off. I can't tell you how many times my local news (and the national news, come to that) have referred to the people on that plane as John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife, and her sister. Hello? The women had names.

It has always sickened me the way the press descends when there is a tragedy. Grieving is hard enough. People shouldn't be forced to do it in public.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 1999

We haven't hooked up our TV to cable which means we don't watch it. We're actually enjoying this. The Kennedy coverage pissed me off in so many ways. On the weekend they preempted things like the US Open, so we wouldn't have been able to watch things we wanted to see. Then there was all this "There still isn't any real news but we're standing here in front of the Kennedy Compound reporting" type non-news. Although I'm the right age to be moved by JFK Jr's death, I wasn't, beyond the momentary "Gee, that's sad" feeling whenever I read about a young person's death.

I get my news from NPR and the San Francisco Chronicle, two extremes of quality and trash. I no longer have an hour drive to work and back and feel like i'm not as informed as I was when it was just me and Bob Edwards on the road.

Now that things have died down, there aren't any news stories that are riling me up. The Staynor murders are interesting, can't get enough of that story. Call me a ghoul...

-- Anonymous, July 28, 1999

I suppose I'm pissed at all the anti-gun news stories (and positive, glowing stories about the latest batches of anti-gun legislation) in the wake of Columbine--though that particular excuse just seems to be accelerating a trend that was already occurring. Some of you reading this will be thinking that I'm some sort of crazed gun nut. And, well, you'd be right. But as a result of the Columbine shootings, several things have come under attack: Guns, loud and ugly music, and drive-in movies. Now, it just so happens that those three things are my personal equivalents of Mom, baseball and apple pie, and some of the primary sources of enjoyment in my life. And to add insult to injury, other concepts undergoing similar attack include computer games, roleplaying games and dressing like a freak, which are also things I enjoy. So I guess that these news stories are riling me up because they pretty much make me feel like Public Enemy #1. And maybe I will be someday. But, in the meantime, it just riles me up.

-- Anonymous, July 29, 1999

Whee!! It's Jetrock! You know, don't you, that I think of you as my gun nut friend? But I mean that in a good way.

Are you guys still in the neighborhood?

-- Anonymous, July 29, 1999

Yeah, we're still in the neighborhood, same place. We were talking about house-buying after we got hitched this March, but it kind of fell through. And hey, I don't mind being called a gun nut. A vegetarian, environmentalist, progressive, queer-positive, non-Christian gun nut who works with the homeless, but a gun nut nonetheless.

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999