This Independence Day makes me nostalgic for bygone days when every large gathering did not erupt into angry polarized discussions of the state of the country. The news media keeps us in a constantly inflamed state of being, each day creating issues out of non-issues, in order to justify their own existence.
At the Coronado Community Center, where I work out most mornings, there are two large televisions in the front of the gym. One is always tuned to Fox, and the other usually CNN. Though Fox is more overtly inflammatory, CNN is not far behind.
It's not just cable television, with shrieking Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly, but the "network news" outlets as well. Recently CBS's Katie Couric covered a story which asserted that Obama's "background sparked rumors that he had studied at a radical madrassa, or Quranic school" without ever noting that the rumors were false .
