I don't pay attention to the news, other than for about 5 minutes when we eat dinner in front of the telly or if I see it when I'm out to dinner in a bar-restaurant. Sometimes I'll follow an event, like the hurricane, and watch the other news when they break for that. Sometimes I'll see or hear of something here, or elsewhere online and go look it up.

I don't think it's being a bad citizen or anything. I do research my local people before I vote and get an "impression" of how I like the various national ones; I did listen to the President's speech and my DH listens to others and the debates and things; he's more interested than I am so I can always find out the grosser things going on.

I think there's plenty to do as an individual; buy locally, etc. and that's pretty much what I care about. I'm for the armed forces in the various war zones but my father was military and I came of age during the Vietnam War, etc. so I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the details of whatever wars. The TV "news" these days has too many "talking heads" all with their own spin/objectives and I'm not too interested in more opinions, I want to know what is actually "going on." I don't need the details for that.