So Much News

We babysat grandsons at our house, beginning last Saturday through yesterday. Ephraim is 6 and Ezra is 3. They seemed to have a good time. Grandpa and Grandma seemed to have a good time. On Tuesday Lynda had them pick up a lot of the toys they had out, which was a good thing. That made Wednesday morning easier to get ready to go. We drove to Tulsa; their mommy drove there from Oklahoma City, where we made the transfer at a Wendy's restaurant. Great-grandma made the drive with us. That capped off five enjoyable days. I took vacation days Monday and Wednesday, and had lots of fun with the boys.

Before bringing the boys to northwest Arkansas, Lynda had been a week in Oklahoma City to help the kids out with things. She had the three grandchildren alone for about 54 hours. So for her this was a ten day stretch with the kids. Last night, as soon as we were back at the house, she turned on the television to get some news. Later, just before bed, she said she needed a good night's sleep and then tackle her work hard tomorrow.

As the news reports came on, we were surprised at some of the things that had occurred. The Bergdahl story had been much in the news before the kids were here, so I knew something of it, but she hadn't got much of that in Oklahoma City. New information had come available in the days the kids were here, such as his journal or other writings, but we didn't turn on the news so didn't know about it. There were stories of Hillary Clinton, or the Veterans Administration scandal, of Eric Kantor being defeated in a primary (though we did get that news on Tuesday, it having preempted everything else during the brief time we had the television on), of children illegally streaming across our southern border, of the government doing nothing about any of it and stonewalling in providing information, and other news of seemingly equal importance.

Here we were, enjoying the grandkids, oblivious to a world that was raging with controversy. Ezra and I, at his bedtime, were blissfully playing roll-over blanket, then praying, unaware of all this important stuff going on. The radio played the easy listening music as background noise for him, giving us three minutes of headlines, including a 24 hour weather report, at the top of each hour. Clearly we were sinking into ignorance of world events.

My grandmother used to say, "Ignorance is bliss; it's folly to be wise," which I always thought was a tongue-in-cheek saying. During the days of grandkids we were tired at the end of the day. The evening after the grandkids were gone we were wiser, but also angrier because of what we knew.

I'm not saying I preferred the ignorance to being informed. Being hit with so much news at once was the problem, not the news itself. But I can sure see how a large amount of the US population and electorate knows next to nothing about our current events, the issues of the day, and whether their government is doing a good job or now. It's no wonder we continue to make a host of questionable choices with our elected officials.