Longtime News Junkie

From the time I learned to read, I have always followed the news, in the local weekly newspaper and the daily "newspaper Iowa depends upon". (I learned words and read about things my parents probably would have preferred I not know at my tender age - some of which gave me information I did not know how to process.)
When I was ten years old, television came into our home, not replacing the newspapers, but adding another source to feed my inquisitiveness about the world. With the changing times, newspapers have gone by the wayside, even watching the news on TV has taken a back seat. Now, I get up in the morning, sign on to the internet and read all the news I want, world, national, local and via social media.
One change having news at my fingertips engendered in me was an expectation almost every morning, wondering as I signed on, "What new appalling news headline will show up today? Another mass shooting? Or terrorist attack somewhere in the world?"
So, two years ago today, I was not surprised to see the headline: "Two police officers ambushed and killed." "Now, where?" I wondered and was literally shocked to open the story and read it was right here in Iowa.
I tried to write a blog post about my feelings that day - something along the lines of 'not here, not in our Iowa nice, safe, state', but could not get my feelings of horror and sadness expressed the way I wanted to.

Picture credit KCCI TV, Des Moines

So today, on the second anniversary of the senseless slayings of Des Moines police Sgt. Anthony Beminio, a veteran of the department, and Urbandale rookie police Officer Justin Martin, I'm trying and failing again.

There have been too many, so many, mass casualties shootings, attacks, in the past two years it is impossible to even count them. What kind of world are we living in?

Six days later, still feeling the shock and sadness over Iowa's tragedy, I felt the world turn in another looming, more unbelievably direful, direction. Our country had chosen a new president - a misogynistic hate monger whose campaign tactics had already deepened the divide among citizens and opened the doors to even more openly hostile confrontations.

I don't want to say I've become inured to the everyday violences, but I have grown desensitized to them. They seem to be our new norm. Every generation has feared for the futures of its children and grandchildren. I am no different. I don't see how our country can come together for the good of all its people. I don't see how the world can continue much longer without another major war. I hope I'm wrong, just as the generations ahead of me were wrong. Perhaps some UFO's will land and show us the way to another liveable planet. Perhaps the promised messiah will appear to save not just the Jewish nation, but all of us. Perhaps the common man people will rise up and turn our world around in time.

One thing I am fairly certain of is that I won't be here to see what happens. And being the news junkie I am, that is something I'm gonna hate missing.