Be Smart or Dumb. Your Choice.

There's an article in the Washington Post today about how to get smart. Actually it's about how not to be fooled by TV and radio talking heads. The point is that those talking head hosts are not journalists. They don't research the information they spout. What they do is to argue in favor of one ideology or the other. That way, they don't have to research a statement to make sure it's true and accurate. They don't study journalism, the are out of work politicians or lawyers who are ineffective in the courtroom, or just simple-minded folk with large vocal cords. For lots of people it's hard to know which are actually journalists telling you what's truly happening and which are telling you what the party line is today. My guess is, that if you stopped watching FOX News and MSNBC and got your news from almost anywhere else, you'd be better informed. Now I say that as someone who does watch MSNBC often and has watched FOX News occasionally. But as to getting smarter, even the entertainment on TV has been driven down to be of interest to a much lower mentality than the actual population. By far. The unfortunate thing is that the longer you watch this rot, the more often you watch this rot, the lower your mentality drops. That's because your intellect needs exercise. People need to exert an effort to understand even entertainment to stay sharp. Based on the programming and the profits of the networks and the lower intellect, I'd say we're losing that battle. It seems like the networks and the politicians have colluded to dumb down the people. Victory is within their grasp.