Plain ole class

My waning interest in radio and regular television is something that I guess I should applaud, but yesterday as I drove to my sister's house an hour away I realized it kind of makes me sad.

I almost always listen to the radio when I am alone in the car.  I love FM radio, but where I used to hear programs about all sorts of diverse subjects now I mostly just hear the same news hashed and rehashed over and over and over. 

News is important, but it is not necessary to beat it to death and dissect it a million times over. There is usually very little most of us can do to change that news in the moment and this kind of coverage tends to blow things out of proportion -- or make us numb to its real importance.

I assume it is the safe topic and therefore maybe the cheapest one to choose, but I remember when talk radio was filled with diversity.

There must be intelligent conversation that includes ideas about literature, or music, or art, or science, or anything other than political breast beating and calls allowing people to blow off their anger and frustration.

Life is about so much more than the extreme, the insane, and the crazy.

In a world that values money and power and histrionics more and more, we are losing track of all the things that used to be called culture, or classical, or just plain intriguing.

That is a shift in thinking that moves us closer to being simple reactors and when we move too far, the thinking stops. 

Think about that.