I guess it’s a slow news day. Our hyper-abundant media conglomerates with their armies of pundits and hosts of commentators don’t have enough to do. Hordes of reporters mill about aimlessly, confused and disoriented with nothing to report. So they keep repeating whatever tidbits come their way. The tidbits inflate and take on a spurious air of importance. But there’s nothing much going on today. Nothing worth reading, watching, or hearing. I know because I tried reading, watching, and hearing.
My suggestion for a more civilized world: on slow news days, let’s have “I Love Lucy” reruns instead of the evening news on the major networks. CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS: all of them can run Lucy. Or if they’re worried about being repetitious, then perhaps they can rotate amongst reruns of Lucy, Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett, and The Ed Sullivan Show. Give Diane Sawyer and Jim Lehrer and whosis and whatsis and whatshisname and whatsherface the day off. No news today, kiddies: go home, go home, go home. Ralph? How ‘bout running the one where Chuckles the Clown bites it?
Otherwise we wind up with the non-news news that was plastered all over everywhere today.
A race-car driver dies in a fiery crash. Let’s see here: the guy spends his time in an ultra-hot-rodded car, zooming around a cement speedway just inches away from other ultra-hot-rodded cars, all of them zooming and zipping and streaking. Life expectancy is understandably low for such guys, kind of like professional cobra wrestlers. So it really wasn’t a question of if he was going to go blooie into a zillion smoking little bits, but just when. Now we know the answer. It was yesterday.
Groups of youngsters who are upset with everybody about everything (kids tend to be like that) are camping out in public places, sticking out their collective tongues and bitching about anything that they think anybody will listen to them bitch about. They’re upset about animal testing. They’re upset about the gap between rich and poor. They’re upset about financial industry salaries. They’re upset about global warming. They’re upset about being upset. Come to think about it, though, only some of them are upset. The rest just know a good party when they see one. “Gotta go see the dogfight!!” my dad used to chortle as my sister went rushing off with her friends to see the latest and greatest. Gotta go see the dogfight. Right now that consists of hanging around on sidewalks and plazas, being a nuisance. My suggestion to those kids: go back to the mall where you belong.
The usual background radiation of ugly crimes continues unabated, of course. Human beings certainly do have a lock on acting like total shits. Saints aren’t in all that short supply, actually, but it’s the shits who make the news headlines. Especially on a slow news day.
Daily life consists of mostly routine stuff, interlarded with genuine pleasures and just as genuine frustrations. Very little of it is worth reporting. A few times a month there’s something big, something that all of us might actually need to know.
Otherwise? Hey Ralph, let’s have the Vitameatavegamin episode next.