my soul is sick with
every report, wrong, outrage
with which earth is filled
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick with every day’s report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
Adapted from The Task and Other Poems: The Timepiece Book II, by William Cowper (CASSELL & COMPANY, LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE – 1899).
I guess it is the same old question of wars and rumors of wars.
If I ignore the rumors, do the wars go away?
If I ignore the news, does the news go away?
The news and news reporting and the endless commentating is like the work of traffic engineers.
Traffic engineers can’t fix traffic, but they can spread it out over a greater area.
I stole that line from Bill Bryson.
Back in the day, the World and National News was a 15 minute show.
Now it’s a never ending endless story.
If you remember that terrible kids song, the song that never ends, the news cycle never ends and leaves me brain dumb and stupefied.
Does that make the news any less important?
What is the definition of important news?
When I wake up, all I want to know about is my morning drive.
And that want has stayed they same whether I am in a small city in Michigan, a major metropolis like Atlanta or the low country of South Carolina.
And I know that any news about traffic that I get on the news is news too old to be of any use to me.
I am reminded of a story from history back when young Theodore Roosevelt (when do you mention Theodore Roosevelt without the preface ‘young’ … but then he was 41 when he became President and as John Hay, the Secretary of State said, “Theodore, you have made a fine start in life and we have high hopes for you … when you grow up), when he was 36, he was President of the New York City Police Commission.
In charge of the Police and responsible for crime management, Commissioner Roosevelt found himself in the middle of a crime wave with the 12 or so New City Daily Newspapers suddenly being filled with the reports of crimes, big and small, all over the city.
Commissioner Roosevelt checked and found there was no increase in Police activity, but there was an increase in crime … reporting.
He called in the newspaper reporters.
They admitted that under pressure from their editors to step up crime reporting, the reporters had figured out that the shift reports by the Police were left out in the open at the Sergeant’s Desk in Police Precincts all over the city.
The reporters could read these reports and have access to the facts of any and all crimes throughout the city and the reporters reported them.
Commissioner Roosevelt ordered the shift reports be locked up and the crime wave came to a stop.
If I stop watching the news will it all go away?
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick with every day’s report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
No Haiku For You 