Too Much Information?

This could be dangerous for an "issue" junkie such as myself. The wife signed us up for dish TV so I have gone from two and a half stations to one hundred ,overnight, and my head is exploding.

How did 60 Minutes do it? They must have read my last post and quickly produced a piece on the new "hyper-workers". Leslie Stahl interviewed a bunch of yuppies working 60- 80 hours a week, talking on two cell phones at once during their hour commute in to work, sleeping with their blackberries and putting tv screens in their showers so they could watch business news. When one company decided to lighten things up and let their people work at home they found they actually worked MORE hours. Slaves who have so internalized the whip that the boss can go sailing and the workers will sweat blood voluntarily. Beautiful.

Then we saw a piece on returned Iraqi veterans being interviewed about their wounds, amputations, maiming, blinding, ptsd etc.. Much of the same internalized discipline and obedience, circular reasoning, defensive posturing that one would expect. (as a survival mechanism I suppose) Still clinging to that gossamer thread of justification (defending freedom) I expect they will hit that brutal wall of realization that so many Vietnam vets plowed into: We Were Chumped! Then shit gets ugly.

Another segment covered some mega-church in Texas that was a converted 20 million dollar sports stadium, packed full with the faithful. Some young preacher served easy listening Christianity- lite (the Kenny G of religion) and then passed the buckets (forget the little plates) around for cash. It was all New Agey "God wants you to be rich" and keep smiling through the rain. The connections to the other shows are painfully obvious and, to make one final linkage, we saw Eric Prince defend his own private Christian army against the soft balls lobbed at him by some cute Brit.

To combat this trend towards outright mutilation, self-mutilation, and voluntary lobotomization we are going to try to get a community radio station put together. There is a small window open to get a rare low- power FM spot on the bandwidth. The non-commercial range (89-112) is already clogged with 25 Christian broadcasters, mostly Calvary Radio, and the area desperately cries out for some radical and reason-oriented programming. It will tale lots of time and money but what the hell else do I have to do? ( hint: work, fish, travel, organize,agitate)

Meanwhile, we are in the middle of one of the most incredible falls in the history of the universe. I have to go steelheading, the reflection of the gold trees on the river at sunrise will help me on my journey. That tug on the end of the line wouldn't hurt either.