Gone to the Dogs

I haven't had one of my rants about the state of news media lately. I've decided to change that. Why, you well may ask? Because of what I saw yesterday.

Yesterday I got up and turned on a local news channel to get a look at the weather for the day. While the weather was running on the side bar, a pair of newscasters was going over the lead news story. And what was that story? Why, Obama's new dog, of course! That's right, a dog was the main story.

This has to be one of the most extreme pieces of anti news I have ever seen. What is Obama's dog to Canada, that we need be told of it? It would not be news to us if he bought a pack of dogs. I wonder what the dog is to America that they need to be told of it. What an absolute- not relative, but absolute- waste of time. If there had been an angle to the news story, say, that Obama's long search for a family pet was really a cover for him to receive financial gifts and incentives from breeders to take one of their dogs and boost sales, that may have been news worthy of consideration on one of the back pages. But no. A man bought a dog and that is the lead story.

The two newscasters spoke about the dog at some length. "Look," said the female. "here's a picture of Obama running with the dog! Did Bush ever run with a dog? Did he even have a dog?" The male newscaster informed her that, yes indeed, Bush had a dog. 'But did he run with it?" asked the woman. The man did not know.

Now the question is, why did they bring up Bush? Bush's time is over. His reign his history, his present actions are irrelevant. He is not news. They only brought him up as a punchline. Now personally, I didn't care much for Bush, and had little interest in him, but listening to these guys disrespect him got me irritated for two reasons: 1. they are purveyors of information who are woefully uninformed. They are therefore incompetent and should be unemployed. If they had followed that tsunami of useless information in the last American election- which was their job, after all- they may have noticed the various pieces done on president's health. And somewhere in there they may have seen the pieces done on Bush's health, and they would have learned that Bush was very dedicated to physical fitness and has an at rest heart rate of 44. This is a rate worthy of an Olympic level elite athlete. So yes, idiot, he runs with his dog. 2. THESE CLOWNS JUST MADE ME DEFEND BUSH! I AM WRITING IN CAPITALS TO EXPRESS MY DISPLEASURE AND I WILL PUT IN LOTS OF EXCLAMATION MARKS TO INDICATE THAT I AM SHOUTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was there nothing else going on? No. Canadian Soldier number 117, a woman by the name of Karine Blais had just been killed. There is a young girl missing in Woodstock, and appears to have been abducted. These did not get as much time as the dog did. Nor does our own dead maggot eyed Prime Minister. Our Prime Minister, by the way, along with the last several Prime Ministers, has been involved in a long process of consolidating power in his own position and to unelected mandarins, in ways that are unprecedented and possibly unconstitutional. He and the others before him have rendered parliament- where the power is supposed to reside- irrelevant and impotent. this has been going on for years. And where is it in the news? Nowhere. But Obama got a nice dog. Perhaps our Prime Minister should buy a dog and get some air time. But then he would be getting air time for the wrong reasons. Dog's are cute. Dogs are cuddly. In some parts of the world they make a great stew. But that is not news. Trying to make them so is nothing but a waste of time.