The 5:30 News

 By Bruce Shawkey

I've become more aware in the last months that the 5:30 news is more about titillating video footage than about actual news. Almost every broadcast has at least one story about a horrible car crash where people were either killed or seriously injured. It makes for great footage, especially if one or the other vehicles bursts into flames.

Every day, it's estimated there are 19,937 crashes where 118 people die, and more injured. That works out to 831 motor vehicle accidents each hour. Some are worse than others, involving fire, mangled metal, fire trucks, ambulances, and more. It makes for great video.

I'm tired of it. If there is one good thing about it, it makes me a little more vigilant to drive carefully, pay attention, and quit playing with my phone and other gadgets.

I am appalled at all these stories about self-driving cars. I actually saw a video of a woman asleep at the wheel while her car was driving itself at 60 miles per hour. Wake up people! (literally). You owe it to your fellow human beings to drive responsibly.

Self driving cars should be outlawed, in my opinion. But they are not. Supposedly, they are being "perfected." Sorry, I don't buy it. Ask any crossing guard who has witnessed a near miss of a "self-driving" car hitting a kid. 

And the same thing with plane crashes. Not necessarily commercial flights, but private aircraft. Pure  sensationalism. I realize broadcast news has to compete with the internet, but things are getting out of hand.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Costco History

Image
 By Bruce Shawkey Time for another Costco run. This time to the Costco outside Verona. First off, lunch in the food court.  Quarter pound hot dog and a Pepsi for $1.50. Cheapest lunch around. The Costco hot dog was introduced to food courts in 1984, one year after Costco's opening in 1983. The original hot dog was made by Hebrew National, and was sold at a hot dog cart outside a Costco location in San Diego. The price was set at $1.50 at its introduction, and has remained at $1.50 ever since.  As of 2018, Costco sold a yearly average of 135 million hot dogs, more than every Major League Baseball stadium combined. Next, shopping for supplies. Dawn and I were at once approached by a salesman hawking cellular service. Dawn told him were just there for a rotisserie chicken.    The  chicken is one of the things Costco is famous for.  Costco has been selling rotisserie  chickens   since 1994   when sales of the item started becoming popular at grocery stores. The cooked bird debuted at
Read more

John "Ben" Bolerud, Mayor of Mineral Point

 By Bruce Shawkey This is a story illustrating how so many lives can intersect and what a small world it is. This is a story of my dad, a high school classmate of mine and his grandfather, and a former mayor of Mineral Point, a city in iowa County, Wisconsin. John "Ben" Bolerud was of Norwegian descent and was elected mayor of Mineral Point in the 1950s and '60s. He road around town on a mule, presumably because of the hilly terrain of this former lead mining town with a history dating back to the civil war (lead shot for rifles). This is how a local paper remembered him: Tuesday evening, Benjamin Bollerud, former Mineral Point mayor, area historian, and traveler passed away at his home on Meeker Street. Bollerud's death marks the end of an era. In Mineral Point history. Bollerud's colorful dress, speech, actions and style was of another era that some may remember but few have lived. This week, the Democrat-Tribune has gone back into previous issues to give our re
Read more

Raymond "Skip" Henderson

Image
 By Bruce Shawkey I met Raymond "Skip" Henderson about 1986. He was (and is) a watch collector. He lives in New Orleans, and scours the antique shops along Royal Avenue in search of treasures. He also combs the local garage sales and flea markets. One time, he found an old lamp and lampshade. He inquired as to its origin. He was told the shade was made from human skin and was an artifact of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. It was $35, and Skip decided to buy it.  He held on to it for about a year and then decided to get rid of it. Said Skip, "I mean, you take it out of the box, man, people do not want to be in the same room as this thing." Skip sent the shade to a friend in Brooklyn, Mark Jacobson, who writes for New York magazine. Jacobson paid $6,000 to have it tested at a leading genetics laboratory. The results confirmed every ones' suspicion. It was made from human skin.   The story ends there. Skip did not wish to have the lampshade returned to him. Skip
Read more