"American wins hotdog eating contest" WTF?! Back to no news for me

The eye cancer thing made me laugh.    Yeah, that's how it does feel actually, like an assault when I see these headlines.

See in the past I've tried giving up the media, but motivated by other reasons.  Here's an excerpt of what I wrote about one of my recent attempts (I'm reprinting in order to save time and energy on re-typing it all):
___

"It seems silly but the final straw for me was the big gasp! shocking! “scandal” that Paul McCartney’s soon to be ex, Heather, posed for “explicit sex photos!” in a “hardcore German sex book!”....like, ten years before she ever met Paul, back when she was a model. They’re holding her up to the light, with a big TSK TSK! Shame shame! You’re so scandalous, you should feel embarrassed and shameful!

I read that with all its implications and my head whirled back, like HUH?? Wait a minute…...let me get this straight here…....on the one hand the media is force feeding us SEX SEX SEX at every turn…..presenting it as titalating and tantalizing, even sexing up 12 and 13 year olds and using sex to sell everything from shampoo to alcohol. On the other hand, they turn around and attempt to shamefully crucify those embroiled in what THEY deem to be “sex scandals!” and tell us that it’s embarassing and shameful.

Talk about mixed signals. What an understatement. So yeah, that didn’t sit too well with me last night, at all. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the media, I’m tired of the way “the powers that be” (TPTB) have used it for decades to program people, and do so by using “conflict conditioning” – telling the public that something (in this case sex) is good, then slapping people’s hands, saying it’s evil. "
___

So that was my motivation for one of my times.  Other times it's been the over saturation of celebs in general, people that aren't even interesting or worthwhile being forced on the public 24/7.  Or as an acquaintance of Tom and I said to me in an email - there hasn't been a week where he hasn't seen Britney, Justin or Christina on a magazine cover over the past 7 years.  For me, I've written about it in this way:  (again, saves time in re-typing and reconstructing!):

___
"The same goes for Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson, the Olsen twins. They’re always there, every time you turn around. And I had to ask…..why is that? What’s going on here? It’s the same with a certain blonde socialite (and her “best friend” side kick as well…) whom I won’t even dignify here by mentioning their names, but I think we all know who I’m talking about. There’s no escaping their visages. Why? I only semi-jokingly complained on a message board forum about two years ago that the blonde’s mug being on every other magazine cover and all over the internet to the point of no escaping it was a “psy-ops experiment” on the population. (Even at my favorite weather website, www.wunderground.com, they had an ad that featured her face. I wanted to see if it was going to snow, and instead I got hit with another image of her.) I really do believe there’s an ulterior motive going on here by those at the top and in the know wielding the power over the programmed masses. Anybody with even a smidgeon of understanding about the techniques of brainwashing has to recognize this. Brainwashing 101. You park somebody down and bombard them with repeating audio and visual, until they walk away convinced of something they wouldn’t have accepted before. Would the mass public “accept” these people as their entertainment distraction gods and goddesses, becoming obsessed with following their lives, if they weren’t bombarded with non-stop images everywhere they turn convincing them to do so? I think not. If you didn’t know any better, you might think that there are only 20 actors/actresses/singers total in the business. Who is determining who gets to be “it” ? And why is there an “it” system in the first place? It’s a system where some invisible force tells the sheep herd, “Okay, everybody obsess about these ten people now!” Then the circus music cues and the herd stampedes off in the direction they’re pointed to. Psy-ops experiment, indeed."
___

So my recent motivation is because the media has gotten to the point of such complete ridiculousness, and it's QUITE obvious it's not going to be changing.   Things were bad at the time I wrote the above excerpts, but it's gotten that much worse in a relatively short time span.  They've really amped things up to the point where it's getting worse by the month, not year.   The month.  And we have to look at that and ask why.  What in the hell is going on that they have to bombard the public with these celeb images and news stories at every turn, to where there's no escaping it if you have internet and live in an urban/suburban area?   Something's up.  And I want out! 

Yup, it's all related, and is about removing oneself from "the system" as much as possible.  I have ebay and Amazon accounts like you mentioned, but I use them rarely.  I have PayPal too.    If one is concerned about having their cc # and bank info. on file with these companies then it's probably not a good idea to sign up.  But if one already is signed up it's probably too late, so at that point it's all in how you use it that matters.  There are people with some serious addiction issues throwing away their money and lives by shopping on e-bay for instance all the time (just read a letter in some advise column a couple of weeks ago about some woman's husband who's probably spent over $100K on e-bay, always assuring that he'll re-sell his prize catches for profit, but has yet to ever do so, so it's really a shopping addiction, filling a psychological void, etc.)   But both of these companies provide instant access to what may be much needed materials for people.  So, it depends on how it's used.  But, I can also totally support the idea of throwing it all away because yeah, it is a Matrix company, everything's electronic, it's all debit and credit and bank info., it's one more way to be plugged into a computer and the 'net and it does encourage one to spend $$$$$ that they otherwise wouldn't be spending.  So whatever feels right for us as individuals.