I mentioned recently that I was starting to kinda think Paula Deen was getting a raw deal. This brought a lot of e-mails from folks urging me to read this article that proved she wasn't or that article that proved she was. I'm afraid I can't generate the interest to click, read and formulate a firm view in this matter. I also can't bring myself to read enough about the George Zimmerman trial to have a suggestion of what should or will happen.
My sense of the latter when it occurred was that Trayvon Martin was this innocent kid and Zimmerman was this trigger-happy vigilante who was too eager to presume a black guy was up to no good and to force a physical confrontation. I'm not sure how much of that I got from the facts and how much came from reading online defenses of Zimmerman by folks who clearly had some racial distrust and maybe fantasies of being confronted on the street some day by dark-skinned hoodlums and blowing them away. Maybe that's not valid but I just don't have the energy to read all about this one and align my emotions with one side.
I find that lately, my distrust of most news reporting makes me wonder how much we really know about these matters. Back when I was way too interested in O.J. Simpson trials, I read a lot of articles and books that would have left me with false info 'n' impressions had I not read a lot more. My sense of the Zimmerman trial is that I couldn't or shouldn't read one or two articles about it and formulate a viewpoint; that I need to read a lot and compare and contrast and mull for my view to have much validity. And I don't think I want to commit that much time or interest.
Not that it's unimportant. It's probably a very important trial whose outcome will matter a lot to this country. But it is unimportant that I, as one individual, have a strongly-held opinion about it. I'm not on the jury.
As I read news on the web and watch CNN or MSNBC or Fox, I see people who are constantly urging me, directly or indirectly, to take sides on every matter. Some of them desperately want me to take their side but they all want me to care about every single thing they report on. And I can't. I just can't.