This Just In....

Watching the news is always a perplexing experience for me.

I like to keep informed, but it's such a bleak picture some days. It seems like every story involves death in some form or another, and as much as I understand that people do die, it's the ones that make the news that amaze me.

There are two types of death that make the news (around here) on a nightly basis:

• Fearful deaths - These are the car-bombings, house fires, train wreaks, murders...etc. The deaths that make you feel squeamish just imaging that it was you instead. (Like the thought of death isn't squeamish enough.
  
• WTF deaths: These are the ones where you go "What the F#%* were they thinking?". The people who drive their motorbikes into the side of a mountain at 120km/h, who rock climb at night without proper safety equipment, who think "out of bounds" at ski resorts means anyone but them. These deaths are ones that you can't imagine happening to you, because you like to think you'd never do something that stupid.

There are the odd deaths that fall somewhere in between these two categories - they are the ones that usually come right at the start of the news, because they'll grab your attention.

I think that I'll start watching something other than the news - give my mind a break. It's tough to absorb all that death night in and night out. I'm thinking Cartoon Network - at least there's no real death on that station. I've heard of a Coyote being crushed and then thrown off a cliff...and surviving.

Now that's newsworthy.



Later.