Good News is No News

Quick quiz.  The following is a picture of:

(a) A wild turkey.

(b) Jandek.

(c) The only living man who has yet to see Jude Law’s penis.

(d) Dick Cheney, sneaking out of Crawford Ranch the back way, hoping to avoid protesters.

(e) Alfred Waddell, an Australian man who has walked every street in Sydney, Australia, and its 172 suburbs.

If you answered (e) with any sort of confidence it’s probably because, like me, you’re too exhausted to get angry anymore and have taken refuge in the pink fluffy arms of HappyNews.com.

Part of the problem, j’accuse?  No way, José.  I’ve pounded my head against the walls so often it’s causing structural damage and the only thing that's changed is the shape of my skull and my standing with the co-op board.  Now I pledge to quietly sit by and let Congress... oh, everything.  Just keep it up, guys, you’re doing a fantastic job.  I just hope that when we replace every last one of you in a couple years the damage you’ve caused isn’t too irreparable.  You irresponsible fucks.

Me, I’ll be over here numbing myself with human interest stories.  You think I’m being sarcastic?  Why should I busy myself gnashing teeth over this “Peace Mom” protest [the beauty of the thing being that Cindy Sheehan (until God gave her mom a stroke – take that, liberal!) threatened to haunt Bush’s ranch as long as he stayed on vacation; the most American protest, ever] in which every single person, on both sides of the security fence, is an idiot?  Oh, the hundred people in Texas who’ve suddenly realized that a wrongly-waged war has consequences are so much more worthy of media attention than  the all the un-patriotic Americans who didn’t want us over there in the first place.  You dug your graves, red states, now fill ‘em up, fill ‘em up good.  Besides:  Sheehan’s from fucking California.  Oh, whatever.

Must... think... happy... thoughts.  Look!  U.S. Consumers Love Their Cream Puffs!  And not a single mention of heart disease, or the staggering cost of health care, or...

Feel-good inanities are better than celebrity-oriented melodrama, any day.  Who cares if Angelina Jolie is making the international smuggling of infants all the rage?  Cameron, you simply must get yourself a tiny Cambodian child; it would look positively smashing with that outfit!  As soon as the trend has expired there’s going to be a whole shanty-town next to Beverly Hills; some opportunistic filmmaker can shoot Los Olvidados II:  My Life’s in Turnaround, wherein Zahara and Maddox feed ravenously on dogs abandoned after that 101 Dalmatians fad ran its course.

So, yes, I’m suddenly thrilled that the Scottish Arts Council Youth Music Initiative has approved funds to teach public school students how to play the bagpipes, and even more excited that there’s an entire ocean between me, and them.

Before Happy News, I didn’t even know that there was anything positive about the environment, left, anymore.  Now I know:  Historical whale movements.  And:  There’s more biodiversity at Chernobyl, though much of it is mutated and it will still be hundreds of millennia before people can...

Wait, a minute.  Here’s a Happy News headline:  Al-Qaida Leader in Saudi Arabia Killed.  WTF?  Now we’re reveling in others’ deaths?   AND avoiding the more aesthetically-pleasing “al-Qaeda” spelling?

That’s it.  I give up.

Here.  Here’s a picture of dead panda:

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