I hate clowns. They don’t frighten me as much as annoy me. So when the latest viral fad to sweep the nation – creepy clowns possibly doing harm to us! – I was not amused. Clowns are fine for little kid birthday parties, and that’s about it. Now, with the publicity generated by these supposed sightings of clowns abducting kids and clowns lurking around your home at night and clowns making bomb threats, we’re seeing copy cats that have some in a slight freak out mode.
As you can read HERE and HERE, these fabricated stories are just another internet hoax. Yesterday, we had the Washington Gifted School in Peoria forced to call the police after an alleged bomb threat in which nothing was found, thankfully. And Eureka College cancelled their evening classes for the same reason. Again, nothing was found.
I think as Americans trust traditional news sources less and receive their “news” from nontraditional, non-sourced websites and blogs and one-sided TV and radio programs, we’re getting more prone to worrying that the sky is falling. I’m trying my best not to inject my political views – and I’ve got ’em for sure – into this commentary, but the politically nasty and divisive fission is playing a role in this, IMO.
When you receive nothing but worrisome, bad news from your TV, radio, social media and internet information/entertainment sources, you’re bound to think the world is a terrible place and about to end! It’s not. And if it did, what good is worrying and blaming doing you, except making you and those you’re around miserable? Regardless of which unpopular Presidential candidate wins – and we’ve got to tolerate this for another month – things aren’t going to change much. There’ll still be the gulf-sized divide between the political left and right that will produce Congressional gridlock.
So, for your and my general mental health, give your overtaxed brain and emotions a break. You already know whom you’re voting for, and you and I aren’t going to change someone else’s opinion. Give up on your 24-hour TV news network that is baiting you, making mountains out of molehills, telling you it’s ALL the OTHER GUY’S FAULT. Take a break from the radio news/talk celebration of hate and block your Facebook friends and neighbors who wallow in anger with each post.
Try listening to this station or having fun with someone out of your home, for instance, rather than wait by the idiot box (my dad’s phrase) for the next terrible catastrophe to hit the perpetual, need-something-to-hyperventilate-about news machine. Rather than send faraway strangers your thoughts and prayers, send ’em to you and yours, work on bettering your patch of the planet. The world ain’t changing regardless of who wins the election or whether you miss the latest slanderous allegation about Trump or Clinton, so you might as well lighten up… and stop believing the boogey man / clown / government is coming to get you! Now enjoy my vision of what all clowns should be (below).
Doc Watson
