I’m starting to understand why people stop watching the news. Five killed and 48 injured at a Christmas parade when a crazed man drives his SUV through it. Groups of dozens to a hundred of organized looters invading department stores and high end boutiques, armed with crowbars and stealing everything they can carry out to waiting get away cars.
I haven’t liked Christmas for decades, actions like this make me want the whole thing to just be over.
8
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.The result of the commercialization of Christianity. Many years ago, my whole family agreed to stop exchanging gifts…for all occasions. I think our get-togethers were much calmer after that.
KateOahu
Level 8
Nov 23, 2021
1
I tried that so many times over the years! It never worked because we all knew the others would cheat and get something, then ne who didn’t would look like a cheapskate! 
I finally just started donating money to charities in their name, trying to pick ones I thought they would support. This year, Christmas will be quiet. My sister passed a couple months ago, mom is in a nursing home. My son celebrates mostly at his house. It will be a perfect Christmas. Last year, due to COVID lockdown was pretty much the same. Fine with me.
I watch the news because I want to be informed, but the news such as what you're describing sure makes me strive to avoid crowds of any kind.
I'm so glad I have no desire to attend any crowded gatherings of any kind. Whatever media the violent bad actors are reading, watching, or listening to is infecting their brains, and that is what needs to stop. Apparently it's hard for average citizens to tell the difference between helpful information and destructive mind control.
Wish people prone to engage in this violent behavior would cut down on whatever media they are consuming, but news about it likely just feeds their propensity toward similar horrors they see in the news.
Not sure how to educate adults about this bigger picture. Hopefully school kids are learning some kind of critical thinking skills. (I know, wishful thinking!)
Julie808
Level 8
Nov 23, 2021
3
Sadly, in both of these cases they sprung from domestic disputes. And the guy that killed his two daughters was an ex Baltimore cop. The one who ran through the parade had just left a knife fight with his wife and had run over her with the same car about a week before. Not only are the courts broken, but the mental health treatment system is not working as well.
News media tries to drive you just like everyone else wants to sell you an app or something. Everything today is about ratings and pushing your buttons to get them. Throw in money and greed and there is the complete cycle. I work and come home. I avoid crazy people and seldom go anywhere except to buy food. Not fond of holidays and the world is now totally nuts.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Nov 22, 2021
4
Actually, I heard that the guy who mowed into the parade in Wisconsin was fleeing the cops in a high speed chase, after they began firing shots at him, and chased him into the parade route area, which, altho still the fault of the fleeing suspect, was a boneheaded, irresponsible move by the cops to continue the pursuit recklessly with the risk to civilians, since they probably had the car's plate number and could have tracked him down. You can bet your ass that the city and county authorities who decided to continue the pursuit of this guy will get sued and lose big time to the families of the victims of the SUV driver.
TomMcGiverin
Level 8
Nov 22, 2021
2
I don't think it's the "news" that's going bad. But rather, our so-called "civilized" society is coming unglued. More and more people are becoming haters. It just FEELS like the Trump years started a downhill slide that continues even with him out of the White House.
mischl
Level 8
Nov 22, 2021
6
Oh, this garbage started LONG before 45 showed up. It started before that con man started grifting back in Queens.
His existence just made it all so much worse.
@KKGator, @Gwendolyn2018 Significant milestones in degradation might be:
- Canceling the Fairness Doctrine
- Rise of Rush Limbaugh and shock jocks
- Rise of Newt Gingrich
- Rise of Fox News
- Rise of Russian and other foreign disinformation in social media.
@KKGator I also think the news media knows what drives people to listen and read and watch them. Innuendo and sensationalism brings peoples eyes and ears. Plus I think a lot of people get rather addicted to it sadly.
@Gwendolyn2018 that is a lot of the issue, just the shear amount of information. Many things that thirty years ago would have just been a local news items now becomes “Breaking News” nationally, sensationalized and accompanied by multiple videos and sports like anchor interpretations to sensationalize it even further. The National NBC, CBS and ABC news spend more time telling you the exciting things you are going to see later in the half hour broadcast at the beginning and again before and after each commercial, than they do actually describing and investigating the actual news. Drives me nuts! And the 24/7 news channels will start reporting and guessing about anything that shows up on their desk just to fill up the time. We are flooded with bad news, hyped to make it seem like the world is going to hell on roller skates, when they are really isolated incidents taking place in communities all across this huge country.
Like the recent news about the guy driving through the parade, which on the news followed the story of the guy who kidnapped his own kids (girls 7 and 9) and was on the run for a few days, then wound up shooting the girls, his girlfriend and himself when the cops were closing in on him. Two horrible events, but separated by thousands of miles and many states. But when lumped together just makes it feel like it was all in your backyard. Which is depressing.
@Redheadedgammy Hey! That sounds just like fox "news".
@KKGator Fox, OAN, etc. are the worst at pushing the Innuendo and Sensationalism!
@Barnie2years "The National NBC, CBS and ABC news spend more time telling you the exciting things you are going to see later in the half hour broadcast at the beginning and again before and after each commercial, than they do actually describing and investigating the actual news. Drives me nuts!"
SAME HERE. What they seem to be saying is: " this is a total waste of time. Watch us waste even more of your time "
@twill a half hour broadcast actually has probably less than ten minutes of actual news, the rest being fill and commercials. And generally everything they cover has been done as well if not better by the two or three hours of local news broadcasting. So really it is a waste of time.
For me, it's the incessant playing of christmas carols, the worst being "Li'l Drummer Boy". Ugh... The traffic sucks too. The whole fuckin' thing sucks. War on Christmas? - - I wish.
racocn8
Level 9
Nov 22, 2021
8
New Rule: I do NOT listen to xmas music. I'm already reprogramming the buttons on my car radio. They started playing that shit right after Halloween, and get nuts when I hear it.
@mischl When I’m in the car I’ve put on a good CD and listen to a lot of my favorites instead of the radio. That helps. 
I with you on that. I think I'm a bit happier the less I read/hear the news. And Xmas is my least favorite time of the year. The songs are awful, the decor often garish and cheesy, and the barrage of sales and advertisements in worship of consumerism is unsettling.
Charles1971
Level 7
Nov 22, 2021
7
Figured this shit a long time ago.
I am included in them. I have not watched local, state news for 20 years. Haven't had cable for 22 years. I take a look at just headlines on BBC once a day. Hardly go deeper into any unless something is of personal interest to me. I do selective reading online outside news. Also don't watch tv, sports, concerts, don't celebrate any holidays incl non-religious. I truly feel liberated.
St-Sinner
Level 9
Nov 22, 2021
6
I am with you 100%.
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