Everyone's got an opinion...so why not me?

I do my best to avoid "the news"...I don't have cable TV. I don't have satellite TV. I don't get the newspaper, and commercial radio is ridiculous. I don't even have an antenna for local TV channels. These days, American news is depressing, misleading, time-consuming and most of all - NOT REALLY NEWS.

Friends and family have often asked how I plan on surviving without keeping a close eye on "the news". My answer - it's EASY. Easier, in fact, than when you concern yourself with "the news". Keeping on top of "the news" only serves a few purposes, none of which I see as being crucial to my survival. After all, when the US government decides to raise the terrorist threat level but doesn't provide any details as to why, does this help me in some way? NO. What am I supposed to do? Avoid flying on an airplane, or avoid going out in public, or hide in some fifties fall-out shelter?

It is my humble opinion that the items being served up as news by commercial media are actually nothing more than advertising ploys designed to serve some underlying purpose. Am I a conspiracy theorist? Sure - why not? You can find a conspiracy in just about anything if you look hard enough (and if you're crazy enough). Maybe the government controls the media these days...maybe they don't.

I do glimpse newsbits here and there from the INTERNET, the *last* free medium we have in this country. I get to decide where I want my news to come from, and when I want to hear about it. Annoying ads and popups don't bother me thanks to Mozilla Firefox and the "remove this object" plugin. But will the Internet be free for much longer? We all know that with the proposed "Internet 2", the US Government and its corporate puppeteers are trying to make up for the fact that they let the Internet (1) grow out of their control. If Internet 2 doesn't work, there's always tiered internet access. Big business and the government controls every other form of media, so why not the net?

All in all, this leads me up to my whole point for starting this blog. If commercial media gets to decide what is "news" and what isn't, and appropriately injects their own opinion into it at random, why shouldn't I? While I am at it, perhaps I should throw in the occasional advertisement from Google's Adense or sites like PayPerPost.com. After all, no task is worth undertaking unless you can make money off of it somehow - America taught me that! ;-)

I hearby dub this blog "The Occasional Editorialist"...

...my own little media empire, hiding out in net form.
RSS feeds never sounded so sweet.

At least I have the integrity to call it what it is - an editorial.