Even if you didn’t read the paper, you are likely aware that today is election day.

The television and radio megaphones have been blaring their “special election coverage” for weeks. Pundits have opined, maps of blue and red have been drawn and redrawn. Given all the noise surrounding this event, you can be forgiven for wishing to stick your head in the sand and waiting for it all to pass you by. There really is a higher level of obnoxiousness and smuggery to this one. And it’s only a midterm election.

The funny thing, when you think about it, is this is what we wanted. The people, and by that I mean us, are engaged in the political process as never before. Partly that’s because our entertainers have thrust it in front of us, making it nearly impossible to ignore. Stewart and Colbert, Maher and Hannity, Olberman and O’Reilly. Politics is there in prime time, and we watch and root for our side with the dedication of football fans. We’ve come a long way from the political torpor of the eighties and nineties, when we watched sitcoms and cop dramas instead of punditry and fake news. Now we’re up every evening getting our latest dose of the truth from whomever we tend to agree with. Now we’re politically aware, if not politically active.

This is your brain. Stop poking it with sticks.

Of course, when I say “we,” I really mean “you.” I don’t watch TV, although I do sometimes watch other people watching TV. Watching actual TV makes my skin crawl. This is for a number of reasons, including:

1) It moves too fast. The images, sounds, and the emotional reactions that are evoked by these, exhaust me. It’s not that I can’t keep up, it’s just that I prefer to try to maintain some clarity in the pool of my mind, and watching TV is like swirling a stick in that pool, and stirring up mud.

2) It’s too obviously manipulative. Whatever passes for news programming on TV these days (I occasionally catch some of this at the gym) is so nakedly partisan and biased, that it makes me want to scream. When I see a moderator on a so-called news show, a moderator, not the pundits she’s interviewing, ask a leading question like, “But isn’t Obamacare responsible for the outrageous increases in health care costs we’re seeing?” I have to turn away and grit my teeth and try to clear the agitated waters of my mind-pool.

3) It’s lazy. Despite all the apparent motion, the arguments and the flashy flying graphics, TV, and especially TV news, is just plain lazy. They can’t be bothered to put together a story with any intelligence. There is no research, there is no background information. There is only the camera and what it sees now, and often what it sees is the artificial spectacle of a manufactured debate between a two people who happen to disagree. Television takes no responsibility for its own content.

So, I’m left with the paper. Newspaper writers and editors spend time trying to understand the subjects they cover. They present a story with background information. And the experience of reading a story is different than watching one on TV. In reading, I reach out and pull information from the page. In TV, the information is pushed at me. That’s my problem with TV. It’s too damn pushy.

All of this is my roundabout way of saying that I don’t believe any of the predictions about today’s election outcomes. Pundits and oddsmakers have tried to assess the likely results, but they are all fallible. The only truth is us. When I block out the babble and look at this election from a position of mental clarity I realize that no one can tell me who to vote for, and that no one can really know in advance who is going to win. I’m not going to be discouraged by the noise. I’m going to vote today because from the still, clear waters of my mind I know that it matters. Today, it’s the only thing that matters at all.

The EPA salutes the Navy

Norfolk Naval Station is officially a Superfund site, a government designation for a list of locations that suffer from significant contamination from hazardous waste. But after 27 years and $100 million, the Naval Station is nearing the time when it can drop that designation. At an event near one of the cleanup sites on Monday, Bob Perciasepe, Deputy Administrator of the EPA, certified that the Navy had completed all required construction for the cleanup. After a couple more years of mitigation efforts, the base will be ready to come off the list. “Capt. Mary M. Jackson, commanding officer of Norfolk Naval Station, said the experience has made the Navy more sensitive to environmental issues and has changed how the base does business.” Bravo.

Airliner hits bird

The first sentence of this article is “A US Airways flight had to turn around and head back to Norfolk International Airport Monday morning after a bird struck on of its engines.” Really? The bird struck the plane? Wasn’t it more likely the other way around? “All that was left of the bird was some blood.” I rest my case.

Bottle bombs at Mt. Trashmore

You’ve probably heard something about this story, as it is the kind of scary but pointless news that television likes to cover. Two kids tried to blow up the crowd at a rally for Scott Rigell. Luckily, no one was hurt. The Rigell campaign seems to think that the attack was not politically motivated. Whatever you say, guys.

Kerry Dougherty says you should vote

I agree.