If you’re like me, you are probably a bit ignorant of the political and economic troubles in other countries. It stems from the fact that we have it pretty good here in the U.S.A. We have drive-thrus, clean drinking water, government bailouts. Life is [relatively] good here and many of us hardly take the time to enlighten ourself with current events. No I’m not talking about getting your news and latest hollywood gossip from TMZ.com. I’m talking the BIG picture. World news. Seriously though, we complain about traffic on the highway and flights being delayed, yet there are people in third-world countries dying of hunger.

Basically we need to shut fu*k up.

If you’re not like me then you probably have strong ties outside of the country. Perhaps you were born and raised outside of the US and still have family living overseas. You’re an immigrant and certain global affairs affect you directly because you’ve lived it before or you know people living it now.

I am totally guilty of not paying attention to news in other countries- which is totally a bad thing. Issues oversears can have a huge impact on our lives here in the US. As if I haven’t admitted enough of my ignorance, I constantly try to convince myself to broaden my world view by tuning into international news. The only problem is, when I happen to do this, it’s kinda like tuning into a movie half way through. The movie also happens to be really complex, with lots of characters, and a very deep plot. It’s also originally in a different language and the subtitles have undergone a decent-at-best translation. World issues are never simple and this problem quickly turns me off.

Just yesterday I made my browser’s homepage the nytimes world section. If I read the headlines at the very least, I can somewhat keep up.

So, what tips do you have for staying current? Favorite news sites? RSS Feeds? Books?