What’s wrong with burying your head in the sand? (OR: My own bailout plan)

Business Week

I’m done.  I’m out.  It’s over.  I can’t take another millisecond of coverage about Wall Street.  The fact is that most of the time I don’t understand a bit about what’s going on, and the brief flashes of understanding that I do have make me feel like I’m Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone.  I’m either frightfully ignorant of what’s happening or deathly afraid of it.  Either way, I’m done caring about it.

From this moment forward I’m going to stop checking CNBC five or six times a day.  I’m going to change the channel whenever the talking heads on the news networks start chattering about the economy.  When I watch TV, I’m going to stick to sports and entertainment programming.  That’s right, I’m going to douse myself in willful ignorance and hope that the problem goes away.  Today, I am an American.

You might be readying your commenting fingers right now to tell me what a moron I am.  Well, I won’t argue that I’m a moron when it comes to most things, but on this issue, I think I have the right attitude.   Let me ask you: what’s so bad about burying your head in the sand?

TV wants you to care about things.  You caring about things is how they make their money.  If you care about what happens next in Lost, you’ll tune in from week to week and money will be made.  The news departments are no different.  They take stories and make you care about them not so much because they deserve your attention but because that attention is profitable.  

But wait a minute, isn’t the crumbling economy worth worrying about?  Isn’t the fact that we’re quickly reaching the point where Cormack McCarthy’s The Road won’t be read as entertainment, but as a practical guide for navigating the next few years something we should be aware of?  How could the American dream taking a left turn into one of those Tony Soprano nightmares not be worthy of our attention?

Because I can’t do anything about it except worry, that’s why.  And all TV does is add to that worry so that I keep tuning in every night to see what I should be worried about next.  This might make them money, but all it does for me is help along my ulcer.  I’m sick of lining their pockets with what’s left of my stomach lining.

Seriously, every time I turn on Jim Cramer, I half expect him to start screaming, “Put it all into canned foods and guns!  It’s every man for himself!  I’m out of here!” before he jumps through his studio window, leaving a cartoon outline behind.  That’s a disturbing feeling to have every night of the week.

I care what happens to this country, but I’m also realistic as to my ability to affect it.  I’m a blogger and a screenwriter and a stand-up comic.  I don’t expect to be called to Obama’s economic advisor round-table for my thoughts on whether the bailout is good or bad.  Maybe if he forms a “What should we do about the ongoing Dane Cook problem” committee my thoughts will be valuable, but other than that, I’m useless.

So if knowing about the problem doesn’t help the problem and if that knowledge only makes me worried sick, then why the hell should I care about it?  Right: I shouldn’t.

If anybody has a reason why I’m wrong, I’d love to hear it in the comments.

Clacked by Jay Black
on Sep 22, 2008 @ 18:05 EST5EDT