Next On The News: You're All Gonna Die

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems the news media has a way of introducing scary new “discoveries” lurking about our daily lives that are ready to leap out and murder us and our children on a daily basis. I wonder sometimes if they have a random-worry generator that pairs something terrifying with something totally innocuous as in the Dr. Oz story shown here, discussing arsenic in store-bought apple juice. What’s next? Anthrax in cell phones? - the Ebola virus in crayons? - necrotizing fasciitis in toilet paper (now that would be terrifying)? The bad thing is I actually have to take it somewhat serious so as not to accidentally murder my children.

I know they do it simply for ratings, readership and viewership; (hell, I’ve been known to try and attract readers with off-the-wall post titles), but how long does it continue before people start tuning out and treating reputable news outlets as if they were the National Enquirer?

If anything, just tone it down a bit (the angry rant guy says), not everything has to be so dramatic. It’s not good if I feel I must take Xanax before the five o’clock news just so I can make it through the full hour without building a doomsday bunker while sobbing inconsolably. Between the veritable zoo of flues that threaten to end the world and lead in everything from toys to food, I feel it’s my duty as a parent to put my kids in plastic bubble bio-spheres. Thankfully I’m entirely too lazy to do all that and end up just telling them to walk-off whatever it is they have as I tell them, “Back in my day we thanked God for making our parents allow their children to eat the lead bearing paint that lined our walls. It provided sustenance…and we turned out mostly functional”. I’m not sure my 7 year old believes me but what does he know? - he can’t even drive a car!

And while I’m on the subject, over hyping the weather has got to stop. I live in Texas; as in hottest fucking state in the union. As in mild winters but nothing in comparison to our Northerly neighbors. Headlining a cold-front which brings less than an inch of snow as ‘ARCTIC BLAST 2010’ while playing ominous music in the background is a tad melodramatic; anyone viewing this would rush the fuck out and stock up on non-perishables, expecting Armageddon in the form of a blizzard-tsunami hybrid, bringing 30 foot snow drifts and fucking mastodons. Instead what we got was slightly cold weather and some snow flakes. Not exactly the snow-mageddon they warned ceaselessly about on TV; but then again, that doesn’t draw viewership, right?

So in short, don’t drink apple juice, don’t even look at anything made in China for fear of lead contamination, don’t you fucking eat anything from the grocery store because it will give you cancer, don’t carry book bags because you’ll need back surgery by age 12, don’t play in the street because pedophiles lurk on every corner ; as a matter of fact, don’t you even think about going outside because you will either freeze the fuck to death in ‘absolute-zero’ weather conditions, or immediately vaporize in the near-sun-like temperatures.

Apparently we live in some dystopian future where death from horrific circumstances is as common and natural as catching a cold from every surface humans come into contact with. According to the news now, my kids can either die of H1N1-bird-pig-horses-ass-flu, or get vaccinated and receive autism as a bonus. Awesome sauce.