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Frequently I read complaints that the Biased Liberal
Mainstream Media focus on bad news while ignoring positive
developments throughout the world, and truth be told, there
is some merit to those grievances. I follow the news
closely, and very little of what I see, hear and read
lately could be classified as good.
But that's a problem that's easy to solve. Just think how much better you'd feel if you read stories like these instead of the usual negative stuff:
Constance Fundament, president of Christian Mothers
Against Presidential Blasphemy, Scatology and Profanity,
yesterday praised President George W. Bush for going a
whole week without accidentally uttering a common
four-letter word for fecal matter into a live microphone
that he thought was off.
She added that her organization had also commended
Vice-President Dick Cheney, who has now gone nearly six
years without being caught calling anyone a common
seven-letter word for rectum.
'We're excited by these developments,' she said, 'and
we pray the clean streaks will continue.'
Or we could try this from our own state:
Fall colors will be more vibrant and distinctive in
the mountains this September, according to Bob Booster,
head of the Centennial State Marketing Commission.
'In many previous years,' he said, 'the aspen
dominated the views, and so people often missed the subtle
autumn glories of the stream-side willows, riparian
cottonwoods and hill-side scrub oaks. But now the
flamboyant xanthous aspen are getting out of the way of the
more expansive views that we're eagerly anticipating, and
we're sure that visitors will be amazed by what they see
this fall.'
He also pointed out that aspen appear to be thriving
on at least a million acres in Colorado, 'so people who go
in for that sort of thing will still have that
opportunity.'
Elsewhere on the home front, we're not getting this good news:
Testifying before a congressional oversight committee
last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said there
were upwards of two billion telephone calls, e-mails and
credit-card transactions that American security agencies
did not examine in 2005.
'For obvious reasons, I cannot provide an exact
number,' Gonzales said, 'but we have a pretty good
estimate. There are occasions when we respect the rights
and privacy of American citizens.
And why dwell on the dismal when it comes to education?
A nationwide survey earlier this year found that a
majority of 2006 high-school graduates could read and write
at a sixth-grade level. In another exciting development,
nationwide tests disclosed that many other graduates could
understand street signs, make change and send and receive
short electronic text messages.
In foreign news, we could accentuate the positive:
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice yesterday pointed
out that there are at least four Middle Eastern nations not
current warring with other Middle Eastern nations.
Citing Qatar and Dubai, 'as well as other countries
that I will not mention for security reasons,' she said
their current pacific status 'should demonstrate to the
world that peace dominates in the region.'
When a reporter asked about how many Americans would
be evacuated from the region on account of an alleged
conflict between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon,
she took issue with the word 'evacuate,' and said the State
Department had found 'a good deal for passage on a
Mediterranean cruise ship, and we wanted to share this
bargain with American citizens who happened to be in that
area. This is a great time of year to visit
Cyprus.'
Tired of bad news from Iraq? Then look at the bright side:
At a press briefing in Baghdad yesterday, Maj. Gen.
Wallace Pangloss announced that
144,871 American military personnel in Iraq had remained healthy on the preceding day.
They were not killed or injured by insurgent forces
in direct conflict. Nor were they harmed in any way by
improvised roadside explosives or suicide bombers, he
added. Further, there were also 26,074,548 Iraqis who made
it through the day without injury, and 'I think that pretty
well negates anything you might have heard about a mosque
being bombed with heavy civilian casualties.'
When you think about how pleasant the news could be if it were just presented property, you have to wonder why there's so much bad news. It's just a matter of emphasis, after all.
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