DISCONNECT FROM THE ROARING BLATHER!

Sooooo.... I thin the time has come to disconnect. Totally disconnect. For a long time our friends Rush Limbaugh and Fox Network have railed against the “drive by media” and that was of course and is of course bull shit. Self serving for them to give their audience someone to hate and blame. But now... in this economy... the media over all is a problem. Whether it is FOX, the Wall Street Journal, Cable News of any type, the evening news or even (gasp) NPR, these guys (and gals) are making me crazy. It is really the 24 hour news cycle that is making me and everyone else crazy.

Watching the market drop on your 64 inch flat screen (only 117 more monthly payments) or listening on your HD Radio (1000 dollar donation to NPR) or reading the Wall Street Journal (sadly the only daily still worth reading every day) there is just too much over saturation of blathering behemoths, bemoaning the beleaguered (thus end the alliteration) economy. They have nothing to say. We know the markets are going down... a lot. We know that no one has any answers. We understand as Republicans or former Republicans that the government has no answers. We know things are getting worse... much worse... every day....every hour...every minute...every second. There is no good news...ever...and we are all doomer...doomed, doomed. And it is all Obama’s fault (one month in office later) or the Democratic Congress (two years into their tenure) or the Republican opposition (annoyingly consistent), or the bankers, or the auto executives...or the unions... or the___________ fill in the blank for the whipping boy of the minute.

This is of course bull shit. Our economy is in trouble. It is well deserved trouble. the blame falls on every institution and sadly each of us and our families and our insatiable appetite for stuff. And the answer will not be in the government, or stimulus, or China, or the next bubble. The answer is going to come from us too. But not while we allow ourselves to be totally freaked out (and I cannot help from being totally freaked out) by saturation, 24 hour news cycle media. So it is time to disconnect.
For me that means

I am reading the Post Dispatch. There is no news in it.
I am listening to music in the car again.
I am keeping the radio off at work and (gasp) working.
I am not watching Obama’s speech to Congress tonight.
I am watching old movies rather then the news.

And this approach is working.

Other then one thing. It is ALL people talk about. Every conversation quickly comes to comments like:

“Can you believe how bad it is”.
“I have never seen anything like this”.
“My 401 (k) is now a 201 (k)”.
“Can you believe how bad it is”.
“My grandpa says it is JUST LIKE the great depression”.
“My wife will not sleep with me wince all our money is gone”.
“I lost my job”.
“I am losing my house”.
“Can you believe how bad it is?”

These conversations are relentlessly depressing. It seems like there is no way to avoid them so for my Diner review reading audience I am suggesting that you memorize some of these conversation changers in order to continue disconnecting and maintain your personal sanity I humbly submit the following conversation changers:

1. It is Spring, most of us live in St. Louis but it is time to start talking about the Cardinals. With pitchers and catchers reporting the time has come to ask your conversation mate: “Do you think the Cardinals will have any good left handed relief this year?”

2. If that does not work, since we are trying to be polite, lets ask about the family. “How old are your kids again”, “those are hard years”, “do you know who the father is?”, and when then reviewing pictures of the baby...”are you worried about the shape of it’s head?” is always a guaranteed conversation changer.... or stopper. Sometimes though they will then start to talk about how hard losing the house is on the family so....try the following?

3. Stare at any visible mole and say, “have you checked that out? Looks like it might be malignant”.

4. “Has that rash cleared up?”

5. “Are you losing weight?”

6. “If your so stressed out perhaps you should come to my Masque”.

7. “Did I ever tell you that I killed a man in Mexico?”

8. “Do you think Blagojovich is getting a raw deal? I do.”

9. “Do really think all those ball players used steroids?”

10. And if your really desperate:  “If you could drill a hole from the North Pole to the South Pole, and it was big enough to drop a stone through, would the stone go all the way through and out the other side and keep going? Or would it just go to the centre and stop? Or would it go half way through and bounce backwards and forwards and keep going backwards and forwards forever and ever?”
The last one is sure fire.

So unplug, disconnect and start your own economic recovery and when people insist on discussing the economy... print these questions out and keep them handy... use them.