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#100DaysOfHopper Day 86-87

Day 86: How much does it hurt people to read, listen or watch things that don't want to hear? Honestly, I've been fixated on the news lately. Gaza, Ferguson, Ebola, Immigration, Rick Perry, James Foley, Pete Frates, etc. The thing is, even though at times it can be a little time consuming, I take the time to read as many angles of each story. Sure, I could do what 99% of the country does and tune into the pretty girl on Fox or the crazy gun hating people on MSNBC or the chronically inaccurate CNN or maybe even the better late than never local news, but the reality is, they are all skewed. So why not check sources who are on the ground? Sure they don't always have a $4000 suit on and gel in their hair, but they are a hell of a lot more accurate.

Let's take weather for instance. We all tune in to the big name, big teeth stars of the news and we watch and listen and even plan our days on men and women, getting paid millions, to be correct 40% of the time. Meanwhile we ignore the local guys, who are always going against the trends and actually updating everything constantly. In case you didn't know, weather happens at hours that are not 9AM, 6PM and 11PM. I get such a kick out of people who say "wow, snow in October....who saw this coming?" I don't know, who? Oh that's right, your local weatherman.

My point is, every morning, noon or night, whenever I happen to check the news, I like to get as many perspectives as I can. Unlike a large majority of my friends, I don't read sixteen posts saying one thing, then turn on FOX to hear what I wanted to hear. Just kidding, they don't read sixteen posts. My point is, that if you are going to use Facebook to fancy yourself as a news source, be sure you have the right information and simply the one that parallels your political, religious and lifestyle beliefs. If you think I'm preaching, let me just ask you one simple question.

If you knew your child had a chance to take one class and get 50% of the information needed to be a success or take two classes and get 100% for that success, what would you want for them? #100DaysOfHopper

 Day 87: There is absolutely nothing good going on in the world. At least that is how it seems. I have been really depressed about the events I've read about in every corner of this world. I just don't think enough of us care out there. I'm not picking on the person who posted the original post, because he's doing his thing and it's more than admirable, but it made me think. I'm friends with nearly 600 people on Facebook. There are horrible things happening everywhere, but especially in this country right now, yet a post about a mistreated dog had 150 comments.

Here's the thing that truly got me about the comments. They were all telling someone else to help, how to do it, where to go and who to call. Aside from the OP, none of these comments seemed to offer any assistance, offer to pay for taking the dog off the owners hands or to assist the OP in possibly taking the animal. We're all experts on what everyone else should do, in every aspect of their lives, but we can't once do anything we say for ourselves, especially when it's a selfless act. All these people whose "hearts broke" and were allegedly crying at their computers, all shut up when asked to actually do something. Kudos for the OP for calling those people out.

I hate being an ostrich, my head in the sand to the world, but I might truly need to embrace that cliche tomorrow. My sanity is at stake. I'm not asking everyone to take the outside world as seriously as I do. For most of you this is a vacation time or you're taking care of more important things on the homefront, but maybe take a second to be thankful beyond all belief for just how good so many of us have it when it comes to our safety. #100DaysOfHopper

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