March 27, 2008
06:15 am
This is why I’m irritable in the morning
When my clock radio turns on at 6:20am, there is invariably a story about the Iraq war or the Middle East on "Morning Edition." At the bottom of the hour, the news begins and it usually starts off with a story about Iraq or the Middle East. After the news, there's often a story about the Iraq war or the Middle East, followed by a story about a soldier or an ordinary person who has been touched by the Iraq war or the Middle East. After a break for traffic reports, it's time for a story about people losing their homes after taking out usurious loans, then some long-winded "perspective" from a whiner and a boring story about something uniquely Californian, an in-depth look at the root structure of an endangered plant or some such thing.
The whole time I am laying in bed listening to this getting more and more depressed, there is a single bird chirping outside my window. He seems to have taken up permanent residence outside my bedroom, and his chirp is monotonous and insistent; sounding like the annoying, incessant chirp of a smoke detector with a low battery.
This is the world in which I wake up every morning: the constant low-level hum of a region at war far away that does nothing to us back home but annoy; financial disaster; birds that don't seem to understand that you don't get enough sleep, what with the waking up 4 times a night.
As I lay there I often wonder... is this how people become disengaged from civics, estranged from politics, uninterested in their government? I'm becoming one of those people. I had thought it was because of the sunny weather and blue skies conspiring to give me other things to do; now I realize that I am bombarded by it day and night to such an extent that I tune it out.
Hopelessness, inability to change what it happening. That'll be what gets written in the history books about this era in our history.
When my clock radio turns on at 6:20am, there is invariably a story about the Iraq war or the Middle East on "Morning Edition." At the bottom of the hour, the news begins and it usually starts off with a story about Iraq or the Middle East. After the news, there's often a story about the Iraq war or the Middle East, followed by a story about a soldier or an ordinary person who has been touched by the Iraq war or the Middle East. After a break for traffic reports, it's time for a story about people losing their homes after taking out usurious loans, then some long-winded "perspective" from a whiner and a boring story about something uniquely Californian, an in-depth look at the root structure of an endangered plant or some such thing.
The whole time I am laying in bed listening to this getting more and more depressed, there is a single bird chirping outside my window. He seems to have taken up permanent residence outside my bedroom, and his chirp is monotonous and insistent; sounding like the annoying, incessant chirp of a smoke detector with a low battery.
This is the world in which I wake up every morning: the constant low-level hum of a region at war far away that does nothing to us back home but annoy; financial disaster; birds that don't seem to understand that you don't get enough sleep, what with the waking up 4 times a night.
As I lay there I often wonder... is this how people become disengaged from civics, estranged from politics, uninterested in their government? I'm becoming one of those people. I had thought it was because of the sunny weather and blue skies conspiring to give me other things to do; now I realize that I am bombarded by it day and night to such an extent that I tune it out.
Hopelessness, inability to change what it happening. That'll be what gets written in the history books about this era in our history.
You could wake up to music insead....
Posted by The Amazing Kirk a Go-Go on 03/27 at 01:14 PM
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