No news is good news

August 10, 2006 - 8:07 PM by Sarah

Savta Dotty (“Grandma Dotty”) of Tel Aviv shares her confusion over how to process news reports out of Lebanon:

One of my favorite songs from a musical is “Dont Nobody Bring Me No Bad News” from The Wiz. It represents my own personal bubble-philosophy of keeping going through thick and thin, although not to the point of complete, utter, and total self-delusion and self-involvement. Unless I can do something about the badness, which includes sympathetic listening when a friend or relative is having personal problemss and needs to talk about them, I try to focus my energies on keeping out of trouble. That may seem like a puny goal, but you dont know me – it really is a fulltime job!

So when my country is in the midst of a war, my whole coping mechanism needs readjustment. You already know what I’m doing about it: packing my emergency kit and drinking Hezbollitas, but is there any way for me to come up with an informed opinion (uninformed opinions being available already-made in the mainstream media and most political blogs)? Even with my “Was You Dere Charlie?” approach, Im not going to Lebanon myself to see whats going on there and even if I did, how could I possibly interpret what I saw? With so much disinformation, mixed messages, its really hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Even trained journalists are failing me.

All of this induced such a helpless feeling that I caved and started listening to the Israel Broadcasting News English edition, because at least it is short. A small dose of depressing news – funeral announcements of our soldiers, delivered by a sad and tired-sounding reader – followed by several hours of busywork is the order of my day.

First I think Ill listen to some other songs from The Wiz.

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