Most Western people are anaesthetized by TV. Fed on a constant diet of news programs and drama, Westerners are treated to fare that gives them to believe that every part of the world other than their own backyard is suffering constantly, and living in substandard, fearful conditions. For example, when those living outside New York saw airplanes strike and burn the two World Trade Towers, it looked like something they’d seen in films many times before. The good/bad news is that the whole material world is inescapably one of “janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi,” a world of “birth, death, old age, and disease” (from the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, 13.9)