RATINGS AND RANTINGS

I'm not a big fan of Katie Couric, except the time she took Sarah Palin to task (although I wanted her to push much, much harder).  
So, today when I read her mea culpa about airing a diatribe about the dangers of the HPV vaccine on a recent episode of her TV program, I felt both pleased (thanks for the apology) and disgusted (what were you thinking in the first place?!)

Her show, an afternoon talk-fest much like all the rest, is on at "prime time" for daytime TV watchers.  Sexist as it sounds, that audience is mostly women.  I think there are more guys home during the day than there used to be, but my guess is they are not tuned in to Katie.

Katie said she regrets not presenting a more balanced view and admitted that her own daughters have received the vaccine.  But in my mind the damage was done.  All the afternoon viewers already watched a grieving mother blame the vaccine for her daughter's death; another blame it for her daughter's ongoing, intractable health challenges.  How many took these emotional stories, designed to scare, to heart?  Where was the science?  Where were the stories of lives saved?

What was up, surely, is it must have been ratings month.  I noticed a strong uptick, as always, in advertising for local news broadcast "Undercover Stories" as the month of November unfolded.  I don't really follow the TV industry and their seasonal push for ratings too much, but I know there are still monitors and measures by which advertisers decide which shows to throw money behind.  And traditionally November is a "ratings" month.

So all the salacious stories are trotted out:  child prostitution, identify theft, secret lives of Happy Hooker wives; bullying unto death,  airbag asphyxiation, cell phones causing brain cancer…all of it.  Apparently the very worst of humanity's foibles, and all of our worst fears, are fodder for ratings.

The thing is, even when I turn off the tube, I'm still bombarded by fear and destruction.  Facebook, a place where I find much that is fun and good, a place where I stay in touch and exchange good wishes and condolences and clever repartee with my friends,  is also a forum for some for near constant barrages of "doom and gloom".  I'm very, very tired of finding posts of warning about all sundry of personal, political, and global maladies.  I KNOW IT!  I KNOW EVERYTHING SUCKS!  Like most people I am doing what I can, when I can, how I can, to make my little bitty corner of this big awful world better.  That's my response, offered with some defensiveness, I know.  But damn it, if I wanted to feel guilty all the time I'd go back to being a Lutheran.  (Sorry to all the nice Christians I know.  But really, there is that thing about us all being sinners that's a little hard to feel good about.)

But I guess I am guilty too of posting on my own pet issues.  My "thing" is gun control and I occasionally post about that.  My "thing" is being a liberal Democrat outraged at times by the craziness that is the Tea Party.  But do I really think I am changing any minds with my posts?  No, I'm just preaching to the choir, and folks, so are you.  This choir member would like to take a time out.

Yes, I'm feeling grumpy today and it's not fun, really, in this season of merry and bright.  I just wanna know, can we please take a break from scaring, berating, and shaming?  Can we just stop hating the Right or the Left or The Man or whoever is the 'bad guy' du jour?  I would like that.

At least, that's the view from here….