Blood Pressure Arising

It looked like I picked a bad day to have my blood pressure checked.  Everything about the morning was frustrating me.  I was running behind, and I couldn't find the paperwork that would show that I had basic blood tests done in March.  I thought that might mean I had to take them again, and you may not be aware of this, but they charge money for that sort of thing.

Regardless of my frustration, I had to go.  My medicine "subscription" was about to run out, and they would not renew it if I didn't come in.

So there I was, waiting in the office.  I was called back and I thought it was to go in, but they wanted a copay.  Copay?  Alison had told me a number of times that we had HRA (flex credits that paid for stuff like this), and that I should not make a copay.  The receptionist did not believe me.  I called Alison and she told me again that we do not copay.  Unfortunately, the one insurance card I had did not show that, so...win to the medical clinic

Then I noticed strange noises coming from the TV.  It was the bleatings of  Fox  & Friends, especially the whiny, anti-intellectual tones of .Steve Doocy.  Why?  Why? Why out of all the channels on Earth does it have to be that one?

Then I am put in a patient room to wait for the doctor.  There is reading material!  Front and center in the magazine rack is...GUNS.  I try to joke with the nurse who is about to take my blood pressure, but she will have none of it.  That's okay.  They have a hard job, but it certainly doesn't help me relax.

Needless to say, my blood pressure reading was not good.  The diastolic (bottom number) was as high as I'd ever seen it.

I told the nurse practitioner who came into to see me that I was particularly agitated that morning.  He asked if it was anything they had done.  I told him no, but that playing Fox News in the waiting room didn't help, that it was a highly offensive channel to some.  He countered that it may be, but some people were offended by CNN as well.

Really?  CNN?  That bland corporate mush, designed to be played as background noise at airports?  That's offensive?

All three major news channels are corporate owned entities.  They are going to tailor their news according to those interests.  The idea that on of them is a left wing balance to Fox News is preposterous.  CNN is owned by Time-Warner, MSNBC by Comcast.  They're not going to focus on news that challenges the corporate view of the world.  For example, there is little discussion of net neutrality, as continued free and equal access to the internet is not in the interest of these large media conglomerates, who want determine speed and access based on who has the money to control it.

MSNBC used to have a center left bias, but that was before the Comcast takeover.  They have been losing an amazing number of liberal hosts and commentators, with only three left with evening shows.  And none of those support Bernie Sanders.  They're more concentrated on the Corporate Democrats.

Fox News is primarily owned by one individual, Rupert Murdoch.  He is free to tinge his corporatism with his own idiosyncrasies and biases.  They made the decision, back in the nineties, to fill a need for a "conservative voice" in the media world.  He had the very conservative political operative, Roger Aisles, to run it.

Since then, they have been at the forefront of the nastiness and extremism that have so damaged our culture.  They make no pretense in the way they skew the news to make liberals look bad, and to confirm all the worst prejudices of their viewership.

They, in large part, are why the President cannot get the cooperation and compromises needed to move the country forward.  On their channel, the President is a monster and any compromise with him is tantamount to surrender and treason. On their channel, poor people are lazy, Muslims are evil and so is their religion, trickle down works, half the country are selfish takers, climate change is a hoax, Benghazi was worse than 9/11 and 9/11 was Bill Clinton's responsibility (Bush kept us "safe"), there is a war on Christmas, Obama is a Kenyan, and men wearing dresses are lurking in the women's restroom.

I could go on and on, but either you see it or you don't.  They have been responsible for playing to the worst fears of conservative America.  And what happens when you constantly do that? Well, I'll tell you one of things that happens -

Donald Trump

Like Victor Frankenstein, you first take pride in your creation, and then you look with a gasp at the genuine monster you have brought into the world and gasp, "My God!  What have I done?"

I don't think in the vast majority of cases it the patrons, clients or patients of the business that is anchoring the TV on that channel.  I think it is the owners, managers and entrepreneurs that are doing it.  They are communicating their own political biases to those that come into their businesses.  And they believe where they live is so monolithic in it's conservatism that will no one will object.

Well, they're wrong.  I object.  And I believe I am not alone.

Please, pick another channel.  It's raising my blood pressure.

And more importantly, I think it's raising the blood pressure of the whole country.

So, please.  Stop it.  Just stop it.

Try the channel suitable for airports.  Or the Weather Channel.  Or HGTV.  

Anything but that fountain of hate, bile and venom.