Snow and Inactivity

There's a lot of snow on the ground right now. I know this because I looked outside and there's a lot of snow on the ground. It wasn't there last night. In case I missed this, every major newspaper or website has this on its front page. I'm not sure I get why this is worth reporting. Aren't journalists paid to report on things the rest of us don't know? CNN.com has the winter storm ahead of "Octuplet Mom Holding Out for Reality Show?" and "Mom with Two Wombs Gets Pregnant Twice" on it's breaking news section. I think there was a story about a leader of some nation getting assassinated as well. At least two of those stories are really interesting and worth a click. I wonder if the authors of those stories just stare from behind their laptop screens at the guy who wrote about the snow with utter contempt.

As an aside, I was going to shovel some snow today. I don't have to at all, but I was craving some vigorous activity that would leave me feeling as though I depended on myself for my own survival. I wanted to feel like Teddy Roosevelt did after he killed half of Africa's animals or like Daniel Boone after he built his own log cabin all by himself. As I was gearing up to go outside I saw a snow plow go down our sidewalk and in 30 seconds did I was planning on doing for two hours. So now you're getting a second blog.

Anyway, back to the reporting of obvious news, I started thinking about this one a little bit. Perhaps there are too many journalists out there and perhaps we are a little too crazed for "breaking news." I probably check three to four news web sites anywhere from four to five times a day. That's up to 20 times a day I look for news. Granted, I have very little to do, but I did this when I was working while I was avoiding things I did have to do. So this isn't a new occurrence for me and I don't think I am alone here. In fact if you're reading this it's probably a sign that you're running out of web pages to read yourself. But why do I think I am really going to be affected by any of this? With the exception of 9/11, I can't think of a single news story that really impacted my life. And without sounding too callous, 9/11 really didn't affect me aside from causing longer wait times at airports (and a visceral suspicion of every middle easterner I saw from 2001-2005...I have since calmed down a bit).

Maybe what I should take away from this is that people need more things to do during the day to avoid work. Or maybe the fact that I am now writing about others writing about snow means I really need to get out of the house.

Happy Monday America, only four more days-

FU