Reactions:News of the Day
Real News, Strange World
The News of the Day section contains real world news items and micro-commentary, updated whenever I get around to it.
5-May-05
UK Teacher who fired airgun at youths freed from jail
UK teacher threatened outside her home by teens fires air-gun at their feet; she is then jailed.
Reactions:
1) UK main-stream attitudes towards guns and violence look insane from the outside. A middle aged woman is subjected to threats and intimidation by healthy young men. The young men vandalize her property. The woman's attempt to defend her property and herself lands her in jail for six months.
2) She didn't even shoot the thugs. She just fired warning shots with an air pistol. This is enough for a jail term?
3) If I ever want to become a thug, I should do so in the UK.
Parson burns down own church, warns parishoners not to talk to police.
Reactions:
1) Being a religious professional in no way means that you're not mentally ill, a jerk, a thug or a criminal. Many of the religious professionals I've known over the years have fallen into one or more of those categories.
2) If someone asks you not to talk to the police, this is a good sign that you should talk to the police.
3) Most of us seek moral authority figures to help us through life, but as adults there comes a time when we've got to ask what exactly qualifies someone as a moral authority in the first place. It takes more than a dark suit and a talent for public speaking.
4-May-05
Texas House bans 'suggestive' cheerleading
Reactions:
1) Did the hearings require the cheerleaders to perform for state legislators?
2) Well, that's a way to get your face on the local news.
3) High-school sports half time performances are responsible for STDs and Teen Pregnancies? So it's not that satanic Rock&Roll Music?
4) I predict at least one Hollywood movie based on this, plus two movies of the week.
5) I never watched school sports. Maybe I was missing something.
The FCC is apparently ignoring environmental laws.
Reactions:
1) Does this surprise anyone?
2) How many people in the FCC are just bored, unhappy dead-enders hoping that the next change of the political winds won't blow them away? In that situation, maybe this comes as a small but welcome break in the tedium?
3) Of course, they're only birds. How many people will care?
4) FCC news is more fun when it involves naked people on TV.