CAN'T LOOK CAN'T LISTEN

Bright and early, with a plumbing problem looming (water running non-stop in my green bathroom toilet), contact lens refusing to connect with my eye, hot water in the Melita filter over-flowing while I'm fussing with the lens, the TV blares about MILITIAS.

For days, I haven't been able to watch Keith Oberman or Rachel Maddow truthfully raving and ranting about shouters, furious citizens drowning out Congressmen and women, and horrible racial slandering -- spurts of it flaring up everywhere.

Of course I keep up with the news, but I'm stumbling around, bewildered, frightened, not sure what's real, what's really happening and what the media is exaggerating, bombarding me with, in order to keep me riveted to the news -- between their money-making ads.

... participles "ands" and em-dashes ... I'm writing long rambling sentences -- I'm worried, scared about the town hall shouters, and now Militias.

I heard someone say IT'S UN-AMERICAN.

IT IS! Americans talk to each other; we understand the fears, the inbred prejudice and accept opinions that are different from ours. Gee -- I talk and listen and nod and make friends with strangers, and continue stilted, awkward conversations so that I'm telling them -- I don't agree with you but hey, we have a lot in common.

I'm looking for a way to say okay, all right, the country is adjusting to our black president who is trying to fix things most of us want fixed. But today I'm shouting -- please, please don't encourage the Militias by paying serious attention to their madness! Bring on the cartoons, Saturday Night Live jokes. Laughing at them might cheerfully dilute the poison.