Prophet Joe Puts A Pretty Face To The Virginia Tech Tragedy: Austin Cloyd

One of my very first beloved readers and blog buddies, Prophet Joe at Rodeo of the Mind, has put a face on this senseless violence for us. Please visit his site and learn about a real human with a real name that you can specifically pray for. "Thoughts and prayers" are nice, but we backslid Baptists like to pray for real folks with specific names. Makes us feel useful in a time like this.

His link about sweet AUSTIN CLOYD will help you do that.

It has already helped me.

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And may I say, please let this be a textbook illustration of why turning your cable off forever may be the best medicine for the gnawing, nameless angst that you are feeling over this and every other ill the Mass Media will force feed you if you allow them to.

I am a Conservative. I am a Christian. And I am quite certain that Television is the single biggest predator eating the Conservative Christian heart right out of America.

Television tells us we are materially unsatisfied, emotionally unfulfilled, and physically inadequate every hour of every day. And we allow this to happen because we are too lazy and scared of our own personal reality to flick a switch and suffer without its electronic anesthesia.

Anything I need to know, I can filter myself through my computer and a few local radio stations that will notify me of real emergent local situations, (flash floods, tornadoes, nukes...) Beyond that, I choose not to poison my spirit with commercially packaged Infotainment that seeks only to whip me into a lather all day then, come Prime Time, whisk me into an unreal "reality" show to soothe my artificially frazzled nerves.

I found a real person to pray for through my network of like minded souls, right here. I didn't need Greta on FOX News to weep and wail and tell me what to feel. I feel real and abiding compassion for the families who will be scarred for life. To ogle their pain on television would only cheapen it.

And since I have consciously refused the prescription for what to feel and when to feel it, greedily consumed by the garden variety Cable News Junkie, I can muster all kinds of real and thoughtful empathy for the family of AUSTIN CLOYD, though I will never know them.

I can do this with clarity because I choose to retain my humanity by unplugging from the groupthink of cable television in all its forms. Yes, even the tasty drug of "24".

My real life minutes count for more than wasted hours watching television.

Do yours?

Comments

[ProphetJoe]

Well said, Janie, well said.

Thanks for... being you!

[Sniper One]

24 Jumped the Shark... I can't watch it any more...

[JANE SAYS: Yeah, but did you LOG IT at www.jumptheshark.com ? Won't count till you LOG it , dude.

And good on ya...saves me $50 a month I can spend on sex toys. Because without cable, the HH and I have MANY MORE HOURS OF RECREATIONAL opportunities... ;) ]

[Chuck]

Great post Jane. Yeah, I'm so sick of the 24/7 news channels broadcasting...well....24/7. What has happened is tragic(thanks for putting a face to this tragedy)but the television and internet are so consumed with this story it makes my head hurt. I was going to post some thoughts about the incident on my blog but I couldn't bring myself to do it, just because there is already so much out there right now. Maybe next week.

[JANE SAYS: Well, you can be sure the story will still be full steam then too. ::sigh::.]