Nothing to Watch. Nothing to Read...

     I'm not going to argue with you about this nor will I bother to defend myself.  Maybe this just happens to certain individuals when they get old--like the characters in The Last Angry Man or Network.  I'm giving up my subscription to the Times, stopping all contributions to stuff like WBAI or PBS.  If I can use a cheap antenna, I will drop my subscription to Spectrum Cable, (which took over from Time Warner), a legally licensed crime syndicate that collects $184 a month for terrible service.  Spectrum used to provide access to RT, the Russian outlet from which one could occasionally get access to world events unfiltered by the NSA, but after the Mueller investigation began, Spectrum must have gotten the call and dropped RT.  (Oddly, for a while they also dropped access to NHK, the Japanese outlet, but then either had second thoughts or were told by the manufacturers of consent that, though like most foreign news organizations NHK had news and human interest stories far superior to the junk on U.S. outlets, since it rarely displayed any taste for battle with the USIA, it could resume showing us how to make paper cranes and appreciate the finer points of Noh theater.)
       The net result of all this is that, as I have feared for some time would eventually occur, there really isn't anywhere one can access information about what is actually happening either here in the U.S. or around the world.  Of course, some who are reading this are probably asking themselves, "Does this guy really expect to learn anything from electronic media?"  Well, yeah, that would be nice.  I love television. I love its potential for immediacy--CNN putting its viewers virtually in the streets of Moscow as tanks clanked along toward the Congress in 1993 or RT's RAW allowing you to feel part of the Yellow Jacket demonstrations in the streets of Paris just a short time ago.  Or you could hear at least a handful of individuals with the courage to speak truth to power.  Once, even PBS gave opportunities for expression to a wide spectrum of political opinion. but, of course, that's no longer allowed.  (As Mitt Romney was heard to mutter during his 2012 presidential campaign, "We may have to get rid of Big Bird."  PBS in its original configuration was just too dangerous for post-Reagan America.)  And even if one gives up all hope for televised news, what about reading for a change?  Right.  Like all those left wing journals--Monthly Review or the World Socialist Web Site.  Have you looked at those recently?  Great stuff if you want to read the ongoing debate between followers of Trotsky and Stalin.
      So...I'm not sure where I will turn now.  Maybe it's for the best.  I'll be forced to get a bit more inventive in my quest for truth.  Kicking my way through food channels, "tutti a tavola a mangiare!", transgender superheros taking on injustice, the drugged hordes, wires emanating from their ears, eyes glazed over as they scale pencil skyscrapers, reaching for the stars.