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632nd Friday Blog Roundup

Linus and I have been having a good time curling up on the sofa and reading the Washington Post.  He likes to face the iPad screen as if he is reading, too.  He’s just a really smart pig.

Reading the Washington Post is the way I’m going to quiet down the noise online.  I decided this week that I am only going to get my news from five sources: Washington Post, New York Times (less so, since I only have a certain number of free articles per month), NPR, BBC, and CNN (more news than commentator opinion).

If something is actually news, it will show up in one of those five sources above.  Not every story will hit all five spaces, but important information will hit one of those five spaces.  And if it doesn’t appear in any of those five spaces, I’m going to mark it down as somewhere between not true and too soon to tell.

The rest of my time online, I’m reading personal stories or emotional reactions to the news.  In other words, I’m reading your blogs.  I don’t mind reading about current events in a space where I already connect with the writer; in fact, I enjoy that.  But the constant barrage of opinion pieces of Medium and Huffington Post, not to mention the countless memes and tweets, have me burned out.  As I said earlier this week, it’s like one, on-going scream.  And I need things to be a little quieter if I want to think.

Where are you getting your news?

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

  • None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

In Search of Motherhood has a post about making a hard choice.  She turns down an academic position despite wanting it badly due to how much it will take her away from her kids: “But it is so incredibly frustrating.  I am forced to choose between a satisfying professional life and dedicating time to my children.  It shouldn’t have to be this way.”  It shouldn’t, and that’s a fight worth having: making the workplace a healthy part of a life vs. the workplace overshadowing a life.  Everyone needs a work-life balance, whether parenting or not.

Riding the IVF Roller Coaster has a post about immigration that contains an important reminder getting lost in the global conversation: “I think that people forget that people don’t want to NEED to leave home. They were proud not of what it had become but of its heart. They were proud of their language; my friend tried taught me some Vietnamese because I was interested. They were proud of their food and shared it with me. They had a large flag in the dining room. They also felt an obligation to the country that took them in.”  It is hard enough to leave what you know.  It is harder still to feel unwelcome where you land.

Lastly, Pages, Stages, and Rages has a post about how Broadway songs are keeping her sane.  She admits: “I then thought of what I used to do when I was uncomfortable and I thought of Man of La Mancha. Got the CD and listened to it. And today, today, it is helping me go on. Helping me say that I can follow the quest. No matter how hopeless, no matter how far.”  I love this, from one musical theater geek to another.

The roundup to the Roundup: Where I’m getting my news.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 27th and February 3rd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

7 comments

1 dubliner in deutschland { 02.03.17 at 9:49 am }

I get a lot of news through things other people have liked or shared on facebook, plus I also follow some newspaper sites. And then on youtube I watch various talk shows which also comment on the news.
This week I enjoyed talesofa30yroldnothing talking about the annoying “you’re next, don’t give up!” comments: https://talesofa30yroldnothing.com/2017/02/02/youre-next/
And I found acalmpersistence’s perspective about what it’s like on the other side interesting: https://acalmpersistence.org/2017/02/01/value/

2 BnB { 02.03.17 at 1:04 pm }

My list is the same as yours, with the exception that I replace CNN with The Atlantic, even though I’ve had a crush on Anderson Cooper for almost 25 years. And (while I am slightly embarrassed to even admit this), Teen Vogue has had some recent, well-researched, hard hitting pieces, though I think this is the exception not the rule for this publication.

3 loribeth { 02.03.17 at 3:25 pm }

Oh, I am a total news junkie, always have been since I was a kid. When I was in journalism school, they had stacks of both the local city paper and The Globe & Mail waiting for us in the classroom every morning & we were expected to read at least one if not both of them, because there would be regular pop quizzes on current events. I got used to having two papers and we had both the G&M and the Toronto Star, as well as the Sunday New York Times, home delivered for years, until we moved into the condo. (In fact, I had a free subscription to the National Post for a while as well, but dh put his foot down when it was time to pay, lol. Not to mention he hated how heavy it was to lug the recycling bin out to the curb every week…!) I do miss getting a physical paper, but I try to keep up with the news online. I have an online subscription to the Globe & Mail and have the Star, NYT, Washington Post and The Guardian in my FB news feed, among others. I also have news apps on my phone for the G&M, NYT & WaPo. BIL gets the weekend Toronto Star & passes it along to me when they’re done with it, which I appreciate. 🙂 We also watch the CBC News Network & CNN a lot during the day (daytime TV is a wasteland…!).

4 em { 02.03.17 at 5:45 pm }

Your post from yesterday was important to me:
https://www.stirrup-queens.com/2017/02/everyday-issues/

5 Sushigirl { 02.03.17 at 6:38 pm }

I read you when I was ttc. I had a bit of a break after having my son, ttc again, had a miscarriage and looked up all the blogs that kept me going during the bad old days…

I’m absolutely delighted you’re still blogging. I’m horrified your country, which has so for long led the free world, has a president who is both tremendously awful and tremendously powerful. Keep fighting, sisters…

6 em { 02.04.17 at 10:26 pm }

Hi BNB: I’m so with you on Teen Vogue. Teen Vogue has a new editor and she has made these articles the rule and not the exception. They continually beat some of the major pubs to the punch. She’s smart & fierce & hires smart & fierce writers. Her name is Elaine Welteroth. I’m old & impressed.

7 Justine { 02.06.17 at 10:48 pm }

WaPo has been great lately. I also read the Times, but I follow too many links on Facebook that lead everywhere. Even the liberal sites are erring on the side of too many capital letters. One long scream is a good way of putting it … no wonder I can’t make my head quiet.

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
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