{"id":11786,"date":"2014-08-23T09:20:33","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T13:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=11786"},"modified":"2014-08-23T20:02:48","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T00:02:48","slug":"no-news-like-nerd-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/08\/23\/no-news-like-nerd-news\/","title":{"rendered":"No news like nerd news"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CarlSaganStamp\"<\/a>I have been a news junky in my time, trying to keep current on every story and every development everywhere. But there comes a time when one piece of news finally trickles in, the news just isn’t really very new. And at a time when so many disturbing stories come from so many directions–local, national, international–that can be demoralizing.<\/p>\n

But how could it be otherwise? For the news to become really new, human character, both individual and collective, would have to be transformed. Until that hypothetical day, nations will continue to do the kinds of things they have always done, as will politicians and the police and the criminals and the deranged, and the kind and generous, too. Attention seekers will seek attention, the secretive will lurk in shadows, and the curious will try to take note of everything. The details can be rearranged, and are on a daily basis, but the stories themselves?–old stories.<\/p>\n

Which is one reason I have become such a hopeless science nerd. While the laws of nature are even more unchanging than human nature, human curiosity and insights are always uncovering things that, while not new to creation, are news to me. I read the National Science Foundation’s e-newsletter, and EarthSkyNews. If there is a National Geographic in the dentist’s waiting room, I’d be happy to wait hours for my check-up. If I still put pin-up posters on my walls, they’d be papered with Einstein and Kepler and Newton, along with Bill Nye and Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.<\/p>\n

So I have heard and read much this week about the kidnapping, and about Ferguson and Gaza and ISIS, and political news from Albany and from Washington. But the things that have really given me new information are a view of the aurora from the space station, photos taken during the “Blue Hour” just after sundown, or stories like “Zombie ant fungus kills its hosts on doorstep of ant colony” or “Researchers find life beneath half a mile of Antarctic ice.”<\/p>\n

I’m not exactly sure what to do with this kind of new information, but then I often feel the same way about news of current events, politics and war. All I know is that I am happier to have these stories kicking around in my head than to have the old, old stories of fresh strife, disaster, deceit, oppression and villainy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been a news junky in my time, trying to keep current on every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6128],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11786"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11793,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11786\/revisions\/11793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}