Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Every one of 'em has a vote

There's an anecdote back somewhere in Greg "Pappy" Boyington's autobiography in which our protagonist finds himself forced to make a living as a wrestling referee (the real kind, with belts and folding chairs and foreign objects in the kneepads, not that stuff they do in the Olympics). As he's counting the bad guy out in one match, he happens to look up at the crowd and remark on its, erm, particular enthusiasm.

"Yeah, and you know what else?" the wrestler says. "Every one of 'em has got a vote."

So as twilight creeps in on this rainy Thanksgiving eve, let's pause for a moment and give thanks for Fox News, which reminds us every day of what some people want those votes to be thinking about when they make their myriad big and little political decisions.
You can discern quite a bit from the four (five, if there's a streamer; three if something's so breathtaking as to rate a spot on the left and the art position as well) stories that get pride of place at the top of the Foxnews.com home page. The center of visual interest -- what we printosauruses would call the "centerpiece" -- is the prototype Missing Blonde case. The traditional "lede" is Left Coast anti-American ingratitude:
Seattle public schools want a side of political correctness served on your Thanksgiving table.
Washington state's largest school district sent letters to teachers and other employees suggesting Thanksgiving should be "a time of mourning" for its Native American students.
Does "stir furor" mean the peasants were out in the streets with torches and pitchforks? No, it's code for "we called one of the usual suspects and asked him to comment":
Nationally syndicated talk show host Michael Medved was more blunt.
"The notion that now you have a major school system sending out a message that, no, rather than expressing thanks we should emphasize guilt on this holiday — that is sick, it is destructive and it is anti-American."
The second story shows the out-of-control government caught in a reality show, and the third -- well, read it in all its five-graf glory:
A 3-year-old girl in Mesa, Ariz., escaped with several serious wounds after a trifecta of unfortunate accidents, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported Tuesday.
The girl was playing in her backyard Monday and was somehow able to climb to the top of a cinderblock fence, when she fell off the wall and landed on a neighbor’s cactus plant, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported. She was subjected to further bad luck when the neighbor’s two dogs bit her and dragged her across the yard.
Abby Trujillo Maestas, the girl’s neighbor who was not home at the time, feels awful.
“Our prayers, our hearts go out to the child and her family,” Maestas told MyFoxPhoenix.com.
The girl’s mother had to jump the wall to rescue the girl from the canines. She was brought to a local hospital for treatment of various puncture wounds on her head, neck and back. She’s expected to make a full recovery, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported.
Oh, stop the press.
Looking downpage, we can find echoes of these and several other recurring Fox themes, organized for your convenience here by category and hed:
Missing White Women
Missing Mom's Cop Hubby Can Collect Pension
Breasts!
Breast-Baring Fan Chants Cause NFL Uproar
Swedish Women Go Topless To Protest Swimwear Rules
Love Gone Bad
He Went On TV To Marry Her: Did He Kill Her?
Wife Says No Beer; Hubby Replies By Shooting Goats
Liberals Are Coming To Get Your Family
Measure To Ban In-Office Romance Fails In San Francisco
San Francisco Approves Gender-Neutral ID Cards
Muslims Behaving Badly
Saudi Arabia's Judiciary Rape Victim Lashing Verdict
Episodic Disaster Lurks Everywhere
Cops: Drunk Man Sleeps On Train Tracks, Loses Arm
But the coolest thing about Fox World? There's so often a happy ending:
Chinese Girl to Undergo Operation to Remove Spare Arm From Back
Dude! Somebody's got a spare!

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4 Comments:

Blogger The Ridger, FCD said...

Fox.

You couldn't make it up.

6:03 PM, November 21, 2007  
Blogger fev said...

Hey, if people were just making Fox and its ilk up, I wouldn't have had a dissertation. And the consequences for civilization would be dire.

How was the Riverwalk?

6:15 PM, November 21, 2007  
Blogger The Ridger, FCD said...

The Riverwalk was great. Easily the best thing in Texas. I'll blog about it this weekend.

8:49 PM, November 21, 2007  
Blogger fev said...

Well, who would have guessed it?

Hope the Trackless Northwest is treating you well. Sounds like rocky times there of late

8:20 PM, November 22, 2007  

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