troubling addiction

I have a problem. I think I need to quit.

I've been listening to conservative talk radio.

Every time I turn it on, I feel my blood pressure escalate. It isn't that the people speaking have different ideas than me- that I can deal with. In fact, there are occasional ideas I agree with. Its the system of spouting baseless opinion, sometimes straight out lies, as if they are facts. If Tom DeLay says Obama is a Marxist, well then, that's all the proof that's required, it must be true! Its a wonder my ears haven't blown off my head yet listening to this crap.

It started out of innocent curiosity. I think it is important to be well informed, and sometimes folks come up with notions so preposterous that my shock doesn't evaporate in time to respond quickly. Occasionally I wonder if there is news that I’m missing exposing myself to purely self selected media sources. I had the notion that if I was familiar with the ideas circulating, I could do my own research as necessary to get informed, develop opinions, and shorten my response time. The problem is that no facts are presented. And how does one counter straight out lies, when people believe them? Ideas come crawling out of the muck and are perpetuated until they bleed over into mainstream media. They gain the validity of ideas that are born out of fact, and are treated with the same measure of possibility.

Eventually the pressure builds until I need to turn off the radio, turn on some good rock music, and let guitars and growly bass worm their way into my stomach and replace the rage there with something more easily dissipated.