My normal weekday morning routine consists of getting up at 6, letting the dogs out while I dispense their food, and then sit down for about ten minutes to skim my newsfeed before Ben's first alarm goes off, signaling that it's time for me to get in the shower. After I'm showered and dressed, I make my breakfast and then return to the news feed for the next half hour or so while I'm eating before I head off to work.
I wasn't much of a news junkie prior to moving to San Francisco in the 80s. It was there that I developed the habit of reading The San Francisco Chronicle during lunch, concentrating on the local news because I wanted to learn as much about my newly adopted city as possible (and of course, to see the daily Bloom County).
Of course, with 9/11, I—like the rest of the country—was glued to my television every waking moment as the story unfolded. As I recall, it was around this same time that I started reading more news online, and ended up with a list of sites I visited every morning to get my daily fix. It wasn't until I met Ben many years later that I learned about News Readers (R.I.P. Google Reader) and I was able to consolidate everything into one convenient package.
Just as the internet diversified, so have my online interests, prompting me to sort my feeds into various groups: Audio Equipment, Blogs, Politics, Tech, Picture Blogs, and of course Menz.
This morning upon my initial perusal of the Politics group and as I read the headlines, I thought, "Nope. Not today Satan. Not today," and immediately marked all as read. I don't need my entire day colored by news of hateful people doing hateful things.
Don't get me wrong; I adore Joe.My.God. and Towleroad. But frankly, if it weren't for them I probably would never have heard of people and organizations like Brian Fisher, Todd Starnes, Mat Staver, "One Million" Moms, The Alliance for Defending Freedom, or the rest of the circus sideshow of right wing lunatics salivating over the thought of imposing a christian theocracy upon these still (the last time I looked) secular United States—because frankly those individuals and groups aren't as important as they think they are.
So today my plan is just to keep knocking down the Politics folder as read without actually reading anything in it every time something appears and see if it improves my overall mood any…
I stopped following the two specific sites you mentioned long ago for the same reason, but also because the snarky, mean and just hateful comments from readers was also crushing any hopes I had that people could rise above the idiocy. Facebook is starting to have the same weight for me in that I just can't believe that people are so incredibly stupid. While I definitely care about the upcoming elections, the social media shit show surrounding the topic has soured me on the whole process and I do like you do and just mark all read.