I Don't Know What This Says About Me
As I've been getting a better handle on my generalized anxiety disorder over time, I've found that I've needed to become more and more discriminating about my sources of news and opinion about current events, particularly in the area of politics and government affairs, if I want to lower my risk of experiencing further episodes of emotional dysregulation.
First, I had to cut out the neo-pentecostal religious fruitbats. That was like a schizophrenic deciding to stop dropping the brown acid. Now, I ration little bits of the Dark Christianity community on LJ and the TalkToAction website to myself, and it seems to keep the monsters tagged and bagged without me having to work up too much of a sweat in the process.
Second, I had to cut out the right-wing authoritarian talk radio; starting with Rush Limbaugh, and eventually with the whole AM/FM radio spectrum. Can't do it. I let the Media Matters people tell me what their latest brain damage is now. Yes, I still need to know, but I just can't bear facing it directly anymore without paying an unacceptable price for it.
Next, I had to shut off all the 24-hr cable news channels. No, not just the FauxNewsChannel. I had to ban them all. However, until recently, I had not found a good substitute for the kernels of useful information buried under all the steaming piles of horseshit they routinely purvey. For a long time, I'd get it from scouring a bunch of blogs in my "Moonbat" bookmark category, e.g. Digby, FiredogLake, etc., but these sources— while they don't trigger the anxiety so much— they do require more work to read than I want.
I have now found the ultimate replacement for the 24-hr cable news channels. I have been testing it for several weeks now, and it never fails to disappoint: the TalkingPointsMemo TPMtv channel, especially the Day In 100 Seconds episodes. I love them. They're like the little vomit flavored jelly beans in the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. They taste just enough like having somebody else's vomit in your mouth that you can pretend like it's the real thing, but hey— it's a jelly bean. How bad can it really be?
If you're one of those people who still watches the 24-hr cable news channels at times because you think they will help you figure out for yourself what the beltway insider village-of-the-damned consensus happens to be this particular political instant, and you're not willing to cede control of that analysis to some self-selected "media critic" yet, then I strongly encourage you to watch the TPMtv channel instead. You'll feel just as filthy, and you'll be every bit as well-informed, but it will only take 100 seconds a day. That's a huge win, if you ask me.
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