Last month, I took an extended break from two entities that for months had proved corrosive and toxic to my well-being: the New York City winter and cable news. I took a sabbatical from darkness, heading west for sunshine, Mom and an impromptu film festival.
Goodbye to the gray of Manhattan and the white noise of political squabbles. Hello to the cerulean skies of the Sonoran Desert and the (mostly) black and white of Turner Classic Movies. Farewell to Jake Tapper and Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow. A hearty welcome to Robert Mitchum and Cary Grant and Janet Leigh.
In the past year, I, like so many of you, have spent an inordinate amount of hours ingesting the bad carbs of cable news. A steady diet of CNN and Fox News and MSNBC had carved out a giant pit in my stomach-and my soul. How many times can one watch Maddow open a show with a slowly building bombshell that, upon detonation, leaves nothing more than a puff of smoke? When you find that you have spent more hours in a given month talking back to CNN's Jeffrey Lord than you have communicating with all of your relatives, it may be time for a change.