Of course I occasionally nibble on news junk food as well. Sunday mornings are sometimes spiced with the hot 'n spicy pork rinds of Face the Nation or Meet The Press. Lastly, for that sometimes-necessary adrenaline rush, nothing beats the bitter taste of a quick sample of Pat Robertson's 700 Club News Report or Rush Limbaugh. Of course, such a news-rich intellectual diet easily could lead to a mind flabbily filled with factoids. Therefore I engage in that regular mental exercise program known as trend watching.
Trend watching is the treadmill of thinking aerobics.
It's an endless search for the simpler answers to complex cultural and political change that percolates glacially down the societal mountain. Some people call those simpler answers insights. Others write them down. They're called columnists. A really good trend watching workout involves not merely keeping up with the myriad of current events but mentally sorting them out and filing them away with similar previous reports.