Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Our Little News

I've told many people that one of the biggest differences in my new living location and the last one is the NEWS.

After 33 years in Milwaukee, as most of you know, I moved to wee New Podunk, Missouri, where everyone waves, the honking is sparse, the pickups are BIG, and the local news is ... funky.

Today's news poll: "Have you ever passed out from the heat?" No, but I'm about to. That answer was not an option, however. (Click on the title of this blog to vote. You know you want to.)

The same news segments run for days around here ....... DAYS. As a former news junkie, this redundancy makes my eyes twirl in opposite directions. One of the top news stories for an entire week regarded a man who wanted to complain to the City Council in a nearby smaller town. Only problem was, he became vociferous AFTER the hearings had been closed. His opinion was that he had the right to speak his thoughts to the Council whenever. The Council denied him because the hearings were over.

This seems simple to me ...... doesn't it to you? Yet somehow this man kept himself in the news for an entire week as he attempted to speak about an issue which had been decided and closed. Just in case anyone is drawing a parallel to the Skylight Opera Theatre here ........ be assured that there is no parallel. The Skylight never intended to open their decision to any type of openly thoughtful discussion, or even give warning of their impending disastrous actions. (My non-Milwaukee friends will not understand this, but I feel a BLOG coming on about this non-humanitarian situation caused by leadership's lack of foresight at the SOT.)

But I digress. Back to the local news .... again ..... and again. One of my favorite repeat news stories from a couple years ago now concerned a county across the river from us. There was one bar in the county that featured topless dancing. Some county residents wanted to shut down this bar (I said this is Podunk, right?).

Let me tell you ....... this was BIG news ......... BIG! I recall telling Ricardo, one of my Milwacky buddies, about this dire situation. His response: "But where will you work?" Cracked me up for weeks.

I guess slow news is worth something.

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