JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I take taxis everyday, and I’ve been wondering: What is the net effect on the drivers’ and passengers’ mental health of constant unabated exposure to radio content, including

a. News of the day, 95% of it bad, the other 4% horrific
b. Angry commentators fulminating about the news of the day, with the inevitable conclusion that nothing ever changes in this country
c. Callers relating their sad encounters with official corruption, venality and ineptitude, leading to the inevitable conclusion that everyone is “gago”
d. Bad pop and worse bossa nova
e. Unfunny jokes and tag lines delivered by announcers who seem to think that screaming makes everything funnier
f. Maudlin, hysterical drama serials about desperate, unhappy, desperately unhappy people with no hope
g. The needy making appeals for help to the general public because they have no one else to turn to
h. Do they still have that AM show where the relatives of OFWs can call their provider in a foreign country and ask why their remittance hasn’t arrived or is late or is not enough to cover their needs especially since someone in the family is pregnant again?

I don’t believe in the true-good-beautiful best-foot-forward approach and pretending everything is peachy when it’s not, but shouldn’t there be a limit to the amount of horror and torment that we passively absorb from the airwaves? What about some perspective? Programmers will argue that the public deserves to hear the truth, but I’m beginning to suspect a campaign to make us run amuck.