Odds and ends, 12/7/07

I admit I don't follow politics as much as I should. But this talk about this Obama guy not deserving to be president kind of stumps me. Some folks in the Clinton camp say Obama wrote something in kindergarten or third grade saying he wanted to be president of the United States someday, and that shows he has so much ambition that he cannot be trusted with the office.

Putting aside the irony of a Clinton making such a statement...

What's wrong with a kid wanting to be president, anyway? Back in kindergarten, my second-grader said he wanted to be president and then come home and get a job driving a school bus. He's given up on the president part now, but it's probably just as well. A five-year-old with big dreams... so dangerous.

The older I get, the more I understand why my parents had a hard time with politics.

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I'm tired of crack journalism. I mean the addicting stuff that makes you feel good for a while because you're not Britney, then you crash when you realize that she still has a lot more money than you. I'm tired of dealing with national news organizations that drop everything when a small-town white woman turns up missing. And I hate it when we see endless reruns of tape of a hot woman teacher who has been accused of having sex with her middle school students.

Please don't ask me to explain how these local stories turn into national ones. I'm feel sorry for the families of missing women or boys who have been taken advantage of, but folks, we have enough of these local problems in our own town.

The bad thing is, stories like these pay the bills for the networks. Why do you think Greta van What's-Her-Name is still on the air? There must be a group of people who follow these stories. Perhaps the networks should check to see if their customers all snacked on lead paint chips when they were kids. It makes me sorry I pay DirecTV to bring me these "news" channels.

And the morning network show that I watch isn't much better.

No wonder I tell my kids to avoid a career in network broadcast journalism if this is where the industry is going.

At the risk of repeating myself, I will try to put this is a more eloquent form. Unless michelle or tanstaafl or someone beats me to it.