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ENLARGE
ALMOST CLEVER
Rick Seley
The world is a serious place and, while I'm not a particularly serious guy, I am an adult and I understand that serious matters must be dealt with.
We're in the middle of the greatest economic crisis of our lifetime, our troops are still in Iraq with even more headed to Afghanistan, Iran has announced that it intends to open another dozen or so nuclear facilities, one out of every 99.1 Americans is currently incarcerated and we're already three-fourths of the way through the NFL season.
We've got some serious problems, people.
Heck, the world economy has gotten so bad that even Dubai is buried in debt. Yup, I'm talking about the same city in the UAE that was so rich they were building condos on man-made islands and making indoor snow skiing resorts just a few years ago. These days, if they want to pay an American engineer to design a HD satellite TV for their private jet, they have to get a payday loan from the Chinese just like the rest of us. Times are rough, but that's not what's really bothering me.
What's bothering me is that most of us are paying attention to the wrong stuff. I turned on the news yesterday and watched as an anchorman, a marriage counselor and a lawyer spent an hour talking about the wife of a professional golfer who may or may not have used a golf club to rescue her husband from a huge SUV after he may or may not have crashed it in their own driveway.
While these morons babbled endlessly about things that might or might not have happened in a gated community full of rich people in Florida, that little ticker tape that runs across the bottom of the screen was saying things like “Iran to build several new nuclear facilities,” “President to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan,” ”Pirates capture a giant oil tanker headed for the US,”the kind of stuff you might expect the anchorman to be telling us.
Instead, this Bozo droned on and on about the potential impact the accident that did or did not happen might have on the future of professional golf.
Then there was breaking news from the White House where it was reported that a couple may or may not have crashed a party the night before. There were even unconfirmed reports that the uninvited couple had a photo-op with Joe Biden (in case you get your information from the network news, Joe Biden is our vice president).
Seriously, this is breaking news? I've got some news for you, I don't care who Joe Biden hangs out at a White House party, I don't know anybody who cares who Joe Biden gets his picture taken with and it would seem that even the Secret Service isn't overly concerned with Biden groupies who may or may not have snuck into a social event at the White House.
There are 30,000 more of our best and brightest being sent into harm's way, bankers are giving each other bonuses with our bailout money and some teenagers with AK-47s are playing pirate with a tanker full of oil that was headed to my local gas station; I'm no journalist but I think that's news.
I'm a humor columnist, so ridiculous nonsense is my stock in trade; it kind of chaps my hide when “real” journalists try to pass it off as “real” news.
Here's the thing: How are we supposed to keep the morons that we've elected to be our leaders focused on the real issues of the day if all we get on the news is hours of commentary on Adam Lambert French kissing a dude on some lame music award show?
Politicians can't be trusted to decide what's important on their own; they're politicians! They've got us stuck in a land war in Asia (inconceivable!) and losing boatloads of oil to freakin' pirates ... these guys must be watching to see what happens to the golfer because the pirates slipped our oil right past them.
It's not tough to find the real news; I found most of this stuff when I Googled “pirate” trying to find a costume for a New Year's party. Imagine what a real grown-up actually looking for news might find and, if information is power, I think the real grown-ups should read all they can ... at least until the game comes on.
Rick Seley, a Fallon humorist columnist, takes his news seriously.
We're in the middle of the greatest economic crisis of our lifetime, our troops are still in Iraq with even more headed to Afghanistan, Iran has announced that it intends to open another dozen or so nuclear facilities, one out of every 99.1 Americans is currently incarcerated and we're already three-fourths of the way through the NFL season.
We've got some serious problems, people.
Heck, the world economy has gotten so bad that even Dubai is buried in debt. Yup, I'm talking about the same city in the UAE that was so rich they were building condos on man-made islands and making indoor snow skiing resorts just a few years ago. These days, if they want to pay an American engineer to design a HD satellite TV for their private jet, they have to get a payday loan from the Chinese just like the rest of us. Times are rough, but that's not what's really bothering me.
What's bothering me is that most of us are paying attention to the wrong stuff. I turned on the news yesterday and watched as an anchorman, a marriage counselor and a lawyer spent an hour talking about the wife of a professional golfer who may or may not have used a golf club to rescue her husband from a huge SUV after he may or may not have crashed it in their own driveway.
While these morons babbled endlessly about things that might or might not have happened in a gated community full of rich people in Florida, that little ticker tape that runs across the bottom of the screen was saying things like “Iran to build several new nuclear facilities,” “President to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan,” ”Pirates capture a giant oil tanker headed for the US,”the kind of stuff you might expect the anchorman to be telling us.
Instead, this Bozo droned on and on about the potential impact the accident that did or did not happen might have on the future of professional golf.
Then there was breaking news from the White House where it was reported that a couple may or may not have crashed a party the night before. There were even unconfirmed reports that the uninvited couple had a photo-op with Joe Biden (in case you get your information from the network news, Joe Biden is our vice president).
Seriously, this is breaking news? I've got some news for you, I don't care who Joe Biden hangs out at a White House party, I don't know anybody who cares who Joe Biden gets his picture taken with and it would seem that even the Secret Service isn't overly concerned with Biden groupies who may or may not have snuck into a social event at the White House.
There are 30,000 more of our best and brightest being sent into harm's way, bankers are giving each other bonuses with our bailout money and some teenagers with AK-47s are playing pirate with a tanker full of oil that was headed to my local gas station; I'm no journalist but I think that's news.
I'm a humor columnist, so ridiculous nonsense is my stock in trade; it kind of chaps my hide when “real” journalists try to pass it off as “real” news.
Here's the thing: How are we supposed to keep the morons that we've elected to be our leaders focused on the real issues of the day if all we get on the news is hours of commentary on Adam Lambert French kissing a dude on some lame music award show?
Politicians can't be trusted to decide what's important on their own; they're politicians! They've got us stuck in a land war in Asia (inconceivable!) and losing boatloads of oil to freakin' pirates ... these guys must be watching to see what happens to the golfer because the pirates slipped our oil right past them.
It's not tough to find the real news; I found most of this stuff when I Googled “pirate” trying to find a costume for a New Year's party. Imagine what a real grown-up actually looking for news might find and, if information is power, I think the real grown-ups should read all they can ... at least until the game comes on.
Rick Seley, a Fallon humorist columnist, takes his news seriously.
