NUDE News: A New Perspective on the News

Someone has to do something, and it’s incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. Jerry Garcia, the grateful dead

The Americans are not doing well. Nearly two-thirds are overweight, out of shape, and overmedicated. Most rely too heavily on doctors, prescriptions, experts, and preachers. People are too little resistant to nonsense and superstition, but too resistant to science, reason, responsibility and the beautiful art of living well. In short, things are out of control and someone has to do something. What is there to do? For whom?

Well, the last part is easy, it can be just unbelievably pathetic but the late great guitarist of the dignified death he was right – we have to be us. But what? What is there to do?

Well, there is no instant or short-term cure-all, no one-size-fits-all solution, no radical solution to the endless problems of attitude and behavior that led to the solutions we find ourselves in. But I have some reform ideas, and this essay is about one of them.

I suggest a change in the way we receive our news. A reform in this area could be useful in making more people realize that their health and many other things depend on them. My idea is this: Give people NAKED news.

No, I don’t mean NUDE as nude, like the dumb naked Russians reading sports scores and the like on slimy internet shows, acting like Katie Couric or Barbara Walters or someone talented without wearing anything, an obvious ploy to catch and weak-minded. males to tune. This is exploitative, disgusting and yet another example of women taking advantage of naive and innocent boys. However, it is not at all the nature of my call for NUDE news.

NUDE is an acronym for news you deserve every day. the focus of news you deserve every day it depends on the content, not the appearance.

NUDE news would feature stories about people, places and things, changes and issues that connect with the reality of Americans who are not living or aging well. Of course, not all news would fit into this connection, but time would be reserved if my idea were implemented for news related to people struggling with being too heavy, out of shape, and overmedicating. It’s a big crisis: The media must not ignore America’s crippling dependencies. Citizens deserve NAKED news — every day.

While not every news story needs to address reforms for an unhealthy population (i.e. REAL, fact-based wellness skills associated with secular, rational, positive outcomes), I’d certainly like to hear some of it on most broadcasts. . It could be called something like, NUDE News Now: Breaking News You Deserve Today. Such programming would be refreshing and greatly appreciated by converts, scholars of REAL wellness. The latter would be nice and good for stations that want to add viewers, but the bigger consequence would come from boosts to the health and sanity of the TV audience.

In his book, The assault to the reason, Former Vice President Al Gore identified two types of pollution: that of our planet and that of our politics and culture. A New York Times critic called Mr. Gore’s two-pronged approach, an obsession with the toxicity of the atmosphere and the toxicity of the public sphere. Well, I think Mr. Gore and others should also focus on (or obsess over) the pollution and toxicity of the worst lifestyles, namely the fact that Americans are too heavy, out of shape, and overweight. too medicated.

But until they do, I will. That’s why I’m calling for NUDE news.

REAL wellness values ​​are not the norm, as most will readily acknowledge. The reality is that daily news reports are geared towards bad news, problems, not wellness inspiring solutions. A NUDE perspective would modify that situation: such newscasts would include reflections on how things could be, from a healthier and more sane point of view.

Of course, some shows are exceptional and offer unique versions of NUDE news. Saturday night live The Rachel Maddow Show Y Stephen Colbert, for instance. These programs provide daily wellness insights. They all provide invaluable qualities of well-being: they are true gold mines of doubt, skepticism, reason, ethical knowledge and, of course, humor. Imagine how desirable it would be if such wellness perspectives were represented in network news programming. In addition to the educational value, more people would be better informed, more skeptical and wiser about the world around them and what they could do for themselves and others to be healthier. and happy.

This is an example of how NUDE reports might work. An organization called Epocrates conducted a survey of 580 doctors in 2007. A summary report of the findings revealed that doctors consider obesity, chronic disease, and smoking to be the top three public health problems in the US.

That is normal news. If this were NAKED news, I would follow a comment that introduced a REAL wellness perspective that defied limited data analysis, the 580-physician approach. The doctors may have meant well, but they were short-sighted: they missed the three main problems, namely:

1. The absence of a culture that makes everyone aware of and supportive of positive wellness choices that lead to habits that prevent obesity, reduce the risk of chronic disease, and make smoking an almost unthinkable form of self-destruction.

2. The presence of educational systems that teach what, not how to think; Y

3. Poor leadership, particularly from politicians who fail to enact effective and efficient policies.

As for the third point, the charge here is that politicians serve the taxpayers poorly by funding miserable programs that are wasteful and have adverse consequences. Therefore, many programs do much more harm than good. Think of national security, the war on drugs, the drug industry subsidy, abstinence-only sex education, faith-based public funding, the misappropriation scandal called assignments and, horror of horrors, the continued insanity of our seemingly endless involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There you go A spoonful of NUDE news.