Yesterday my college age son and I ate where the always pervasive TV was showing the "news". My husband and I do not watch television at all. We pulled the plug about three years ago and have not missed the box a bit.

Watching CNN reinforced the wisdom of that decision. The Iraqis got ambushed patrolling Haifa Street, a nasty part of Baghdad. They asked for US reinforcements. The battle was a win for the Iraqis, (note Reuters' use of the term "people" versus "terrorists" in the first paragraph). You would not have known that watching CNN at noon yesterday. Sure, what they reported were "facts". It's just that their selection of facts was distorted. Remember, this is the same network whose president, Eason Jordan, after resigning from CNN, admitted his Baghdad people refused to report monumental atrocities committed by Saddam and his regime. Yes, he had reason but why does the news report negatives for the US but not others?

I have friends who, by their own admission, are "addicted to CNN". The network showed nothing positive anywhere about anything while we were eating lunch. This constant barrage of negativity has to be detrimental to the human psyche (and has to affect digestion). No wonder Americans think everything is bad.