No News Is... Maybe Not Good

I've never really been interested in the news. But I'm beginning to feel rather ashamed of my apathy and ignorance.

When I was in China in 2004, a student asked me what I thought of Kerry. I had to ask him to repeat his question, not because I didn't understand the words he spoke but because I had no background information to connnect his words to in my mind. And that is how I learned who was running against Bush in the presidential election. (Don't worry, I didn't vote. Although that is perhaps disconcerting in and of itself and might become the topic of a future post...)

In China, I had the excuse of being far from home where it was difficult to access information about current events. It was also decidedly convenient NOT to have an opinion at times in order to avoid debates about sensitive subjects. But really, I just didn't care. Since I've been back in the States, I still haven't made it a priority to keep up-to-date on the goings-on of the world, or even my own country or city. I don't get the newspaper, I don't have cable or even an antenna to watch local channels on TV, and I don't visit news sites online. In fact, the only news source I currently follow is a handy email sent to me weekly from ZGBriefs, which highlights news stories from China. Yet I remain completely ignorant of the myriad newsworthy events occuring daily in the U.S. and throughout the rest of the world.

Why? Well, it's hard for me to care about things that don't affect me directly. But I'm beginning to think that perhaps my perception of "what affects me" is a little skewed. I mean, it's easy to see how knowing the weather forecast is useful, but maybe, just maybe, politics and wars and international relations and economic trends affect me more than I realize. So how do I cure this apathy?