Cross-posted from a longer post at Blither, Blather, Bloviate

I have been nicknamed "Auntie Goose" (a la Mother Goose) by my lead at work because I take on the problems of the world. I get so worked up over everything that it leads to depression and anxiety. So I have changed the way I gather my news. I only listen to NPR in Car (that's not new) but I no longer listen to Democracy Now podcasts because they were so alarmist I truly felt the sky was going to fall any second. And, I have joined the millions who watch The Daily Show because I find it truly refreshing to see Jon Stewart cringing behind his desk at the same things that make me cringe. It does give me a feeling of not being in this alone. Stewart making fun of the things that just disgust me helps me lighten up and laugh about it.

And how can you not laugh when Samuel L. Jackson is on simply to deliver what is sure to be the only good line from "Snakes on Planes." "Who put the motherf888in' snakes on the motherf888in' plane?"

And once I figured out that Colbert Report was an act, it became a fixture on the TiVo.

Stewart and Colbert report the fake news that isn't all that fake with a more human and in-depth touch.

Aside from NPR, the real news fix comes from Countdown with Keith Olbermann. 5 stories, in-depth, 5 days a week. Sometimes they are truly silly stories; like the time they faked audio from Suri Cruise 2 days in a row, or the Worst Person/s in the World which usually includes either Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter"geist" or Bill O'Reilly.

It is the combination of real news and irreverence that keeps me from taking everything so seriously. (Countdown's coverage of the arrest of a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey case was deep and sensitive, including a lot of interviews with people who have been involved with the case since this 6-year-old girl was found dead in her parents' basement almost 10 years ago.)

I used to read The Huffington Post several times a day but became more and more alarmed at what often passed for news and the misrepresentation of the real news story in their headlines. Now I go once a day, scan the stories and read the comments which can often be very amusing.