a citizen of America and the world to an extent owes it to themselves and to their government to be informed on what you dismiss as "current events."

I said I read Google news, and I know what's going on with Syria, Japan, the Eurozone, etc. I would consider those pretty major things, and like I said, those are pretty hard to miss. I'm talking about the petty stuff that I mentioned that I don't care to read or spend time digging through a new site for. Ten minutes on a news site tells me about the major things that are important. If I care to know more, I can find and research more in-depth articles about the subject elsewhere. I guess what I meant was I'm not a "news junky" in the sense that I go through article after article about the same subject or sit on news sites all day, or engage in online discussions about it (try to avoid anyway).

So perhaps I worded it wrong. I definitely know what's going on in the world, but I guess, like the article said, "I can't influence those things, and those things have no effect on me". People do need to know what's going on, but I think some people become to obsessed and worked up about it.