Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain
I’ve mentioned before that I don’t watch news shows. In 1974 I found myself yelling - rather loudly - at a 19 inch black and white TV with Richard Nixon on the screen. A little while later, rather ashamed of raising my blood pressure and having the neighbors knocking on the door to make sure everything was alright, I decided that the TV show had done exactly what it was designed to do; manipulate me into being upset about something, reacting poorly and repeating the cycle endlessly as they moved on the next day to another crisis. The crises never seem to last more than a few days until they’re forgotten, replaced by others, or maybe several more, usually followed by opinions on what or who caused the latest brouhaha and how we should react and, of course, several opinions as to what a terrible crisis this event is. No solution is ever applied and the outrage is rapidly followed with another incident in rather short order. In a rare moment of personal clarity, I saw a progress