This Week in the News 3/13/11

              I've managed to continue my nearly six week saga of bliss (i.e. ignorance) by continuing to skip past the news networks on my television and proceed directly to Comedy Central to watch Tosh.0 or to, "The Bad Girls Club Channel" (I don't know what channel it is, but it's saved into my remote under, "<3"). The other day I was feeling pretty adventurous so I turned on the Atlanta evening news to hear about a few murders and a day care that was (allegedly, mind you) dumping it's trash into an empty lot next door! After thirty minutes of nonsense, I realized that my life would have been much more intrinsically enhanced by watching web videos of people hurting themselves in new and creative ways. That actually makes me feel good for humanity - at least these people are hurting themselves, not others, and there's always a chance they'll die, or at least be crippled beyond the ability to reproduce (speaking of which, if we could develop an injection that makes you sterile for 7 years would it be moral to hand out as a punishment to people? Ooh! Controversy!).

             Some news is unavoidable though, and so I know that at least three things happened in the wider world during this past week.

amiriteguys??

One - this Wisconsin Union vs. Governor epic battle rages on in the most boring of ways possible. This is a news story that really isn't sexy enough to take up too many headlines, and is just confusing enough that no one who isn't involved feels all that strongly about it, except for those on the extreme left and the extreme right (and by extreme I mean on the edge of sanity, not just the fringe, because it seems like a hell of a lot of those on the right are on the extreme right). It's one of those issues that is like abortion or gun control, where one isn't allowed to be sane and parse the difference, saying, "Okay yeah, you have a point, but so do these people, so why don't we put a few restrictions in place?" without being shouted down by both sides who claim that to give even the smallest bit of ground means that soon the rights of every single man, woman, and child, will be trampled upon and is that what you really want? Huh? Is it?! Conservatives have a long standing tradition of being against everything that we call progress and then, after having it forced upon them, the next generation agrees with it and says, "Well of course no one is saying black people shouldn't have equal rights! We're saying gays shouldn't!" Mark my words, the next generation of conservatives will be saying, "Of course the fags should have equal rights! Everyone knows that!" One generation ago conservatives loved unions, but now unions have outlived their usefulness and have to go. I lean towards the left on many issues, but really, after being deeply involved in politics throughout the two-year campaign leading up to the last Presidential election, I think I'm burned out on it for another 10 years. The fact is, until there is some violence up in Wisconsin, I ain't paying attention.

Two - The NFL Players Association decertifies.  I saw this headline on Friday evening while sitting at the bar in packed Mexican restaurant out of town. The sound was turned off so I didn't really know what it meant and - since my laptop isn't working and I don't watch the news at home, I still don't really know what it means. All I do know is that I better get my football this year. I'm sure the owners are both right and wrong, and that the players are both right and wrong (I tend to side with the players, from what I've read)  but I don't care either way because I know one group that is definitely in the right - the fans. We have made the NFL the most popular sports league in the nation, the Super Bowl the most watched event in television, and their profits are greater than they ever have been in the history of sports. I don't care how they work it out, but their responsibility is to get it worked out in time to give us a great season of football. We've done our part - we've dedicated our time, attention, and a large part of our disposable income to their product, their responsibility to us is to get this all worked out...or else. What? I ain't scared, I'll take em all on! We'll see how strong they are without their pads and helmets! More importantly, however, is the fact that the Mexican bar had a bottle of tequila shaped like (and the actual size of) a rifle, from which one of the Mexicans (who was barely taller than the bottle) was pouring shots. That's newsworthy, my friends.

Three - there was an earthquake in Japan  A TSUNAMI COULD HAVE ALMOST HIT HAWAII!!!                 
           By now you have no doubt heard about the incredibly large earthquake that struck in Japan (too bad it didn't happen in China, because they could have just jumped into the hole and ended up in America! HARHARHAR)  in the wee hours of Friday morning, killing an estimated 1,300 - 1,700 people, and, even more excitingly, causing two nuclear reactors to nearly melt down. I say excitingly because that's what I want to talk about here - our perverse obsession with tragedy. Whenever a tragedy strikes people want to know one thing - how they can in some way connect themselves to it. If someone has been to Japan and you start talking about this earthquake, trust me, they'll tell you, "It's hard to believe that three years ago I was in a town that was almost affected by this earthquake!" I understand that if you had a loved one in the towers on 9/11 (which was almost ten years ago, I just realized) then the tragedy affects you more than it does me, but that's not what I'm talking about. People want to seem connected to the tragedy in some way. It's the same thing when someone dies in high school - suddenly everyone has a story about the one time they talked to him/her, and how much it meant to them.

"Sorry Hawaii!"

         On the radio at 4:30 a.m. on Friday morning what I heard mostly was that a tsunami was racing across the ocean with it sights set on Hawaii and California, bring naught but devastation and destruction in it's wake. Why was this the lead in the story? Because it was American radio, and what really matters is how the earthquake will effect America. I immediately said to myself, "Ain't nothin gonna happen," and, as usual, I was right. This isn't my narcissistic, "I'm-always-right" BS (which I am) but rather this is a simple mathematical equation that can help you Always Be Right in such situations as well. See, we have a 24 hour news cycle that, in order to justify it's own existence, must constantly be reporting something newsworthy. This stretches the boundaries of what is considered newsworthy and often dives right off of the edge into hysteria, in order to generate viewers. I don't know what the actual percentage is, but I would estimate that at least 95% of the time a news story will overestimate when it comes to tragedy. Therefore, whenever a prediction is made about how many deaths, or how much damage, treat this as the line in a sports bet, and always take the under, never the over. A tsunami will hit Hawaii? The swine flue will kill tons of people? Mad cow disease will make beef inedible? More people are dying in the Twin Towers than died in all of Vietnam? A storm could leave us all without power for a week? The BP oil spill will render the Gulf beaches unusable for 20 years? The Y2K bug? A news station is never going to underplay a story, because there's nothing in that for them.
             Now, according to the law of percentages you will occasionally be wrong, but that's okay. No one is going to take the time, during an unprecedented tragedy, to say, "Hey, didn't Andrew say he didn't think that entire island would sink into the ocean?" And remember folks, that is what is most important when it comes to a tragedy - being right.

       This week features the debut of two new weekly columns!  Stay tuned to be underwhelmed! Also comment, or send us messages, telling us how horrible we are so we can post them all and angrily defend ourselves.