Read a history of the year 1919, 1942, or 1968, and tell me that there is a news overload now. Oh shoot, that would just put more information to process on everyone’s plate. But it would also give them this thing called context. Most “news” out there is utter BS that has nothing to do with our individual lives, and will be completely forgotten within a year except by those directly affected by it. People are just disseminating most of this information to sell advertising or push a political agenda.

Very early in the pandemic I was visiting a friend in Virginia, and found them listening intently to a speech about the coronavirus by Governor Andrew Cuomo of NY on CNN News Radio. “What does Governor Northam have to say about all of this?” I asked her, worried about getting the hell out of there and back home. She was used to getting all of her news from CNN and didn’t understand what I was talking about. That she needed to be getting her information about the pandemic from local news sources in Virginia about what the state and local governments were doing hadn’t occurred to her. How many others are like that? These are also the people who know all of the ins and outs about President Trump’s trangressions, but have no idea who their city council member, state house representative, or US Congressperson is. They are not really being informed by the national news as much as they are being entertained by it, and consequently manipulated by it.