IMPLODE OR EXPLODE : IS IT ME OR IS IT THE WORLD?

I'm trying to remember how it is that I got addicted to reading DAILY MAIL UK. It's been a while now since I started reading it.  It might have been about the time I was having withdrawal from the end of Art Bell's second or  third incarnation, his long awaited but brief MIDNIGHT IN THE DESERT show. I believe it had to do with trying to read around EDWARD SNOWDEN and JULIAN ASSANGE. These men and those like them are important to the question we need to ask, and that is the role of journalists and journalism in society, in a time of fake news (sorry to say there really is a lot of it) and skepticism. Though sometimes DAILY MAIL UK gets it wrong, more often they get it right and their news breaks across the ocean first, meaning that by the time you get up to listen to KFI and the obnoxiously funny BILL HANDLE well, you will already know what news they are going to be mentioning on the radio as you sit in traffic on the freeway because it sounds to be right out of DAILY MAIL UK!  You know that because you checked when you got up to pee at 3 am.

Currently I barely read about Snowden, who I actually feel has had his Andy Warhol Fifteen Minutes of fame over and over again and will live out his life in Russia. He raised his finger in that ayatollah kind of way and I thought, this is not good!  I suspect Assange and WikiLeaks is going to be story for a long long time, unless he dies, and I think he might.  He's being made an example of. Got to give Snowden credit for years of faithfulness to his pole dancing exhibitionist girlfriend; there's someone for everyone? 

I don't feel so bad about the way I have to hit the DAILY MAIL UK site at least twice a day - sometimes more - sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night - yesterday every hour - when I hear that it's the second most read news media site in the world. 

I don't know what media site is supposed to be number one. I kind of hope The New York Times. I read the San Jose Mercury News... I read The Guardian... I read Vanity Fair.

I currently make dog poo bags from the LA TIMES though yes, it does have some good coverage.  I hear it's printed with soy based ink and I'm just so eco. I have respect for journalist Steve Lopez there, who I feel sure already has his private island estate in heaven being built by the angels.

LINK HERE TO A JOURNALIST I RESPECT STEVE LOPEZ  He will not quit writing about our housing and homeless crisis.

So, about DAILY MAIL UK; I know some of you are disappointed in me for this, but I'm not alone in making my way past the Kardashians, who I knew nothing about when I started reading it, and so many other desperate-for-attention women showing off their bodies in swim suits, if you can identify these strained patches of fabric as such, who take pouty selfies of themselves using mirrors to look down their own pants, to some terrific coverage of what we used to call HARD NEWS, such as the hideous Jeffery Epstein Sex Trafficking scandal. And the Miley Cyrus scandal, a trivial bisexual fling of a scandal which, when it comes right down to it, has not an iota of impact compared to what the now dead sex addict Epstein's scandal will.

I really CAN be LITERARY and also be into POP CULTURE.

DAILY MAIL UK also promises daily coverage of VIOLENCE, from gross pimple popper videos to mass shootings, mothers who put babies they just gave birth to in dumpsters and people who put their dogs in freezers, innocent people wrongly convicted and criminals running free, boating and helicopter accidents, riots in front of movie theaters and more seriously in Hong Kong, wackos gone crazy and crazies gone wacko, every form of violence.  

I'M OVEREXPOSED TO VIOLENCE.  
I don't want to be ill informed or ignorant.  
I want to understand. 
I feel stress.
I am anxious.
I feel overloaded.
It feels hopeless.

WE NEED HELP.  

Can the Republicans find ANYONE to run against TRUMP?  Can the Democrats who refused to eat some form of Pig in IOWA or who actually do not have a realistic PLAN for how this Reparations thing will work (I suggest national DNA tests) please step out of the race for the Presidency. 

Go Bernie Go!

Sometimes I feel like imploding or exploding.

You might too.

Just don't do it all over my blog.


C 2019  Christine Trzyna  All Rights Reserved.  Internet and International Rights Included. 

EDWARD SNOWDEN READS RUSSIAN LIT AND HISTORY

THE GUARDIAN : EDWARD SNOWDEN READS RUSSIAN LIT AND HISTORY  link

EXCERPT: ..."The American had little to do besides surf the Internet and read. Kucherena (his lawyer Ct) said he selected a number of classic books to help Snowden understand the mentality of the Russian people: Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, a collection of stories by Anton Chekhov, and writings by the historian Nikolai Karamzin. Snowden quickly finished Crime and Punishment. After reading selections from Karamzin, a 19th-century writer who penned the first comprehensive history of the Russian state, he asked for the author's complete works. Kucherena also gave Snowden an alphabet book to help him to start learning Russian."

*****

I took a Russian Literature (works surrounding the Russian Revolution) in college. My college did not offer any Polish or Slavic Literature courses at the time.  Ever since seeing the movie Reds, and also reading around Isadora Duncan, I've been interested in those times and the people of those times.  Pre-Revolution, the Russian Government sponsored artists, poets, writers, dancers, and other creative people so that they could concentrate on their work and be supported without experiencing severe deprivation.  Isadora Duncan's memoir explains the conditions in which her students lived, for she was an American ex-pat in Europe when she received sponsorship by the Russian government for her school.

The article linked to finally explains more about Edward Snowden's circumstances and lifestyle while in the airport, which, though repetitive reportage attempted to cover it, was a mystery. As I suspected he was never in a motel or hotel but in the innards of the airport. As those of you who are following the story from all angles as I am may know, there were and are conflicting reports on what's next for the man who has been granted a year to live in Russia.

I've talked to many people I've met while just living my life, people from a multitude of backgrounds, about this whole situation.  Though I've heard a variety of opinions (my World War II Vet senior friend yelled "Execute Him!") I haven't fully formed my own opinion quite yet.

JOURNALISTS AGAINST JOURNALISTS?

video expired.  Taken down December 2024

Have been reading around Edward Snowden since the first reportage in newspapers, on the Internet, and in YouTube videos, I chose this video which expresses some of the concerns I have about the effect of both the NSA / U.S. Government monitoring electronic communications of everyone who uses cell phones and/or computers as well as the legal issues involved from all angles.

Having studied Journalism in college at a time when anyone with any ambition wanted to be the one who got the most important news out to the public, at a time when hard news, not soft, was important, it concerns me that a journalist who wrote about Snowden and the information he wanted to leak would be considered criminal for doing so.  Let us not confuse Journalist who are doing their jobs and the people and events they cover.  A news EZditor also has a great role in determining what will be printed and thus influence history by choosing what to print or not, but a good editor is on the side of the Journalist. A  Journalist relies upon and reports to the Editor.

Was it Edward Snowdens intent to shut down Journalism, Newspapers, and the Media?

Just the opposite.