Prioritizing the News

Let's see if I have all the local events of the past 12 hours:

1. The horrendous winds have closed major thoroughfares again, knocking 18-wheelers onto their sides in the process
2. A wild fire is burning in the mountains above the valley
3. A power outage has about 2000 homes still in the dark
4. An earthquake banged its way into the evening hour, short, but a 4.2 located by the Salton Sea, which is already dying

God's leaving little clues that things are not going well with Mother Earth.

And, the foreclosures are at an all-time high; the servers aren't making the tips they made a year ago, so they can't meet their expenses; the affluent local contractors aren't all licensed, with 32 of them arrested in a sting this week; and the victim of a gang shooting climbed over the wall into a neighbor's yard to die. No, no one saw or heard anything.

Lip gloss appears to be causing lip cancer and everyday noises are far more dangerous to our hearing than originally thought. The medical industry is in a panic because as the number of senior citizens bulges into the system, the numbers of life-threatening diseases is also increasing.

The economy is slowing down, but wasn't it time for it to do so? People have become accustomed to spending way beyond their means without regard to how the bills would be paid if/when reality interfered with idealism. Half-million dollar homes purchased on a $50k salary, with a $50k vehicle or two in the drive, highlighted with an annual two-week resort vacation and a designer lifestyle added up to potential financial disaster for the family that feels entitled to live the way they want, rather than the way they can afford.

The LA cops are gearing up for violent May Day celebrations: they have completed recent retraining in appropriate crowd control. I wonder if anyone has retrained the crowds in appropriate crowd behavior, especially those protestors who wrap their faces with coverings so they cannot be identified ala Iran and Iraq.

But, let's go to the top of the priority list in news events: Paula Abdul became confused when the producers reorganized the elimination show and she thought that after one song, two had already been performed, so, using her notes, addressed both performances. Earth-shaking and totally noteworthy, which is why it's been the lead story on the morning news.

Oh, and by the way, it's flooding in Maine, displacing hundreds of residents, and a bus accident may have killed a student on the way to school this morning in Kentucky. But what about that Paula Abdul? What is up with that?