View from the cop: Crime & punishment
View from the Cop is moving to a new site on Wordpress. Blogger Steve Rose of the Sandy Springs Police Department gives his take on crime, offers safety tips and give his weekly picks from the police blotter. Follow Steve Rose to the new blog site.
AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > July > 28
Monday, July 28, 2008
Where’s the good “breaking news”?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How did we ever manage to call ourselves informed before all this news that we now receive via anything? Satellites, beaming thousands of “jigowatts” through hyperspace can take us anywhere in a moment’s time.
Great! Now we can be paranoid 24/7 instead of 6 and 11.
With so much news, what are we doing with it? Do we need to know all of the news? Like anything else, if you give someone so much of something that they hit the saturation point, they won’t get quite as excited over it, quite as often.
Here’s another problem. It used to be when you saw “Breaking News,” it meant something very serious like an earthquake, Tsunami, or the new Zamboni previews.
Now, thanks to 24-hour news, “Breaking News” is everywhere, all the time. Used to be when I saw the “Breaking News” across the screen, I got that bad feeling in my stomach signaling that either something really, really bad had happened or my trip to “Miguel’s House of the Spicy Burrito” was about to come back on me.
In 1979, “Breaking News” was the Iranian hostage crisis. In 2008, it’s about a 73-year old Dutch man who unwittingly cultivated marijuana plants among his begonias. Here was the “Breaking News”:
Amsterdam cops found the marijuana in the man’s doorstep begonia plants but didn’t get too upset because the man was in his “advanced” years.
The man, who answered the door in his tie-dye AARP shirt, said he was very surprised. “I thought that the plants were my beloved begonias. Honest.”
Cops later found several burnt begonia joints which they originally deemed “suspicious” however once the man explained their medicinal benefit, being their aphrodisiac effect, they seemed satisfied he was on the level.
The man said he was minding his own business, making begonia brownies, munching on some Doritos, and watching a Three Stooges video when the cops came a knockin’. Reporters later questioned cops about the man’s claim about the “medicinal aphrodisiac” effect of begonias.
A police spokesman responded: “Dude, its Amsterdam. Besides, we called his doctor and told him to notify us if he calls in four hours so we can confirm his story.”
Breaking news needs to be breaking news that will stop us in our tracks. The competition for news is getting out of control. We get enough bad news during the day. We don’t need more bad news delivered as “Breaking News.”
How about “Good Breaking News?” How about the tearful story about the 5-year old boy who left the day care center in Denton Texas? That started out as bad news. They found him at Hooters. That’s equates to good news. That kid’s five and he gets it—you know, great wings, breaded and all.
How about the all-green police vehicle in the UK? It goes 30 mph. (Oh yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you?)
How about the NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell who says aliens are real and NASA knows it! Or the courts in New Zealand who finally had enough of weird parents naming their kids weird names. They officially made 9-year-old “Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii” a ward of the court and had her renamed something with much less syllables.
New Zealand Registration officials blocked some other names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, said Judge Rob Mirfitt. But others were allowed, including Number 16 Bus Shelter, Moon Unit, and Dweezeil, he said.
I guess the moral of the story is it’s probably a good habit not to get too excited over “Breaking News” unless you know it has something to do with murder, death, grief, and sorrow. Bad news will come soon enough and remember, you don’t need technology to tell you that something really, really bad is going to happen. Just keep an eye on your pets.
Animals know when bad things area about to happen before we do. If your poodle is backed into a corner, smoking a cigarette and doing shots of Cuervo—well, better turn on the TV.
