News Fast

So as I mentioned I have returned from a fascinating trip to the Philippines, to adopt a little girl. Manila is an amazing city; amazingly different from Minneapolis or any other American town, for that matter. Because so many Filipinos speak English, Americans like myself who have no Tagalog (not to mention my high school French -- c'est un spectacle tragique!) can actually get by on just English and enjoy good vibes, eats, sights.
But I'm not here to run a travel review of a whole country, I'm here to say that the trip gave me the chance to do something really great that I should do more often: a news fast. I don't know where I first got the idea but it's lovely; you take a week off from the newspaper and the TV news and the online new sites, and then a week later you can start again. Like an information detox. There were no New York Times or Minneapolis Startribunes there in Manila, and the Philippine headlines were all about national government scandals which made no sense to me. This made it really easy to ignore the news while I was there.
So I did.
Here's the best part, and it always works out this way: when your fast is over and you check the news after a week of ignorance, things are EXACTLY THE SAME as they were when the fast started! Don't believe me? Try it yourself. It feels very good. (Don't tell the Strib that I told you to do it, though.)
I'm back on my news addiction but as always after a news fast I find myself less anxious and heated up about it. It's good to get that reminder that things just don't change that quickly. What are the media selling us, anxiety? Why are we buying it?