Political Pablum -- Do Not Eat

In 1931, the Mead Johnson Company marketed Pablum -- a product which represented a new era in nutrition for babies. It provided children with dietary Vitamin D, an important element which helped to prevent rickets, a disease which weakens bone.

Pablum (made of wheat, corn meal, bone meal and brewer's yeast among other ingredients) was easy to digest and didn't trouble the baby's tummy. It was an important development at a time when infant malnutrition was a major issue in industrialized nations.

In 2016, it might be prudent to educate the public about a new type of rickets that is now rampant in the United States. This one is not causing skeletal weakness but instead a mental one. Simply put, the shortened attention span of the American public is a true crisis in an election cycle which requires that people really give their all to the current process.

These days, grown adults are consuming what I'm going to christen "Political Pablum" at an alarming rate via assorted media entities. I'm not blaming the internet -- I'm a firm believer that it is an incredible tool. I am however blaming the people who consume the Political Pablum without realizing that it is being fed to them the same way Pablum cereal is put in the mouths of babies.

Political Pablum is a simple carbohydrate of sorts, easily digestible information that does not require much analysis to consume. Worse, people are eating it in droves and feeding it to each other because it's easy to pass along. Some of the websites where this Political Pablum is being generated have absolutely no connection to news, no overseers, no editors to make sure there is some semblance of truth to a statement.

I'm generating Political Pablum right here. That said, I'm an intelligent person with a journalism and communications background and know full well that this is a blog in which I express my opinion for no other reason than my own enjoyment. Hey, it's what we writers do.

But I'm going to beg and plead that when you consume any type of Political Pablum, including what I write here, that you take a little time to chew things over before you swallow any of it. Nutrition is an important thing, most notably the nutrition of your brain and thoughts.

Amen, and pass me another spoonful?