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Been watching the news lately? Have you found that some of the stories on the one hand are completely frivolous and on the other hand disturbing? Well I certainly have and it makes me wonder where we are going as a species. Granted news reports on a slow day can take on the feel of a sitcom in the pointless stories that they report, but sometimes they also point to the carelessness of human beings in this day and age.
The words frivolous and disturbing go hand in hand when watching the news. In fact it could be an apt description on any given evening when watching your local news. They might not be descriptive enough to describe the new highs, or lows as it may be, reached during this last week.
On the frivolous end we have the restaurant in New York City that is offering an omelet for $1,000. That’s right, I didn’t mistakenly add two extra zeros on there, that’s an omelet for one thousand dollars. Personally, unless they give me a bar of gold instead of toast with that omelet, there would be no way I could resist laughing in the faces of first the waiter and then the chef.
Considering the amount of press this culinary nonsense has received you probably have already heard about the ingredients, but for those of you who missed it here it is: eggs, lobster, and ten ounces of caviar. While I can swing with the lobster and eggs the caviar just sounds gross even at $65.00 an ounce.
As it is, even when caviar is served in a normal fashion, on a cracker or toast with a hard-boiled egg and lemon, it is not something you can eat a lot of. Mixing it with hot scrambled eggs and sautéed lobster makes me feel ill just thinking about it regardless of the cost. If it still sounds like something you would like to try, but the price is a little too steep, the restaurant offers a less expensive version that has only one ounce of caviar for $100.00. What a steal!
While we don’t live in New York, you may be planning a vacation there this summer. If so, this omelet update may be useful information. I am not planning a trip to New York, so this information is a waste of my time. I would like to know why, for three days running, this omelet story was given more coverage than the rising gas prices that are choking us with every mile we drive? To me it is the very definition of frivolous.
Now to the disturbing news. Lately we humans, in particular those that live in the foothills, are being regularly visited and sometimes attacked by mountain lions or cougars. For some reason they have become so high profile that every time one appears it’s as though The Blob has been sighted.
It is probably due to the unfortunate death of a cyclist earlier this year and all of the press coverage it garnered, but it is not as though these animals have been brought into the area, they were here before we were. This week, in an example to what happens to all indigenous life forms that we come across and find undesirable, was demonstrated once again.
A cougar was spotted a couple of times earlier in the week. On Monday it was spotted lying in a tree in the middle of a community and the police were called. Why the humane society wasn’t called as well I don’t know but in all the news reports they were nowhere to be seen.
When the police arrived they discovered that they didn’t bring along any tranquilizer darts. I don’t know what these clowns were thinking but going after wildlife without tranquilizer darts is like going to play baseball without the ball and bats. So instead of waiting for someone to show up with some tranquilizer darts, they made due with what they had, assault rifles.
It wasn’t as though the animal was posing any threat, other than its presence and had it made a move or tried to attack somebody I would have been the first to pull the trigger, but it didn’t. But I guess they were late for a date or needed to make it over to the donut shop before all the jelly donuts were gone. In a cold calculated move they blew away the animal as it lay peacefully on the same limb it had been on when they arrived. Well I guess that will teach that cat and any others who were watching to stay out of trees.
Cell phones have become a necessity in today’s world. Like I said a couple of weeks ago, I believe that there would be mass suicides should the satellites that provide the service collide and cease to work. While they might be the greatest things since sliced bread, just like anything there is a down side.
For years now the state has debated over and over again about whether or not it should be illegal to use a cell phone when driving a car. It has gone on far too long and after what happened this week, as shown on the news, we can’t afford to wait any longer.
A group of four teens standing outside of their car that had run out of gas were injured this week when a driver who was trying to retrieve a text message from his cell phone struck them where they stood. I don’t know what the message was and why it was so important for him to retrieve it while driving but it couldn’t have been more important than the well being of the four teens that he hit.
We all know how dangerous drivers are while using a cell phone, how hazardous they become. I use the word hazard in referring to people who know how to drive in the first place. Take away that ability and they become more dangerous than the drunkest of drivers and should be removed from the roads like a cancerous cyst. If the news organizations out there want to report on something useful report on that.
I hope that we can soon put these stories where they belong. If I want to hear about the latest omelet I will tune into the Food Channel and if I want to know about the latest atrocities against animals I will tune into the Animal Planet.
As for the cell phone violators I hope to see them on Court TV in the very near future.
The Shrub Speaks: Because if the economies of the world come back, we might be in a tight again, in which case we're going to be wondering where was the energy policy that the President was arguing for back in the year 2001. (Speaking about himself.) Orlando, Florida, Dec. 4, 2001
B.D.’s Response: O.K. Dubya, we’re wondering now!
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