Friday, August 01, 2008

Awww...No Hurricanes!

Apparently my good friends at Fox Orlando are bored out of their minds with the fact that there has been little to no hurricane activity this year. As I have chronicled previously, they love to break into the afternoon court shows with various non-events. One of their favorite is the weather, since Floridians are quite sensitive to the thought of another killer hurricane brewing ala the Charley/Francis/Jean trio. Thus the bored news and weather forecasters can justify air time, even when the supposed "hurricane" is a breeze caused by a whale fart somewhere out in the Atlantic.

Alas, this season there hasn't even been any sea mammal flatulance to seize up. But recently we've had a newcaster's wet dream in the form of a tragic child disappearance case. Little Cayley Anthony disappeared over a month ago, although her mother and grandmother only got around to reporting it 31 days after she supposedly went missing. The mom is in prison, and the grandparents steadfastly maintain her innocence despite having previously reported a smell of decomposition in their car (which the mom had taken) and other evidence that seems to point to not-so-clean hands on Mommy's part. A cadaver dog hit on the car smell as well as keying in on areas in their yard. There have been searches, digging, and a general media bruhaha but nothing in the way of concrete answers.

Fox has been desperately clinging to any tiny straw as an excuse for a break-in. Cayley's mom made a phone call. NEWS FLASH! BREAK INTO PROGRAMMING! Cayley's mom ate a cantelope for breakfast. BREAK IN IMMEDIATELY! She blew her nose...BREAKING NEWS FOR SURE!

Today was one of the most pathetic examples. Investigators were questioning the grandparents for perhaps the twentieth time and searching their home once again. Yawn. But that was good for a flurry of programming interruptions and face time for the newscaster. Then the sheriff called a news conference to say "Nothing new." In an orgasm of non-news acitivity, Fox televised the boredom while playing a loop of the same old footage from earlier in the day over and over, punctuated with photos of the poor child. Between us, hubby and I counted nine repetitions of the loop of cops carrying bags out of the house. Wow. Scintillating. Once surely wasn't enough.

I feel terrible for that poor little child, and I fear that odds are slim of her turning up alive. But at this point I really don't want to hear another word unless the sheriff is wielding her body at the news conference. Sadly, I suspect that the non-news reporting will continue with unabated enthusiasm unless a hurricane finally whips up.

Can't wait to find out how many times Cayley's mom blinked in prison today and if she burped after her meal.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I feel the exact same way! You almost wish there WAS a hurricane brewing, so we can stop hearing about the missing girl's mother's phone calls and what she had for dinner! If they don't have anything to report, I wish they would stop reporting it! We need some new, fresh news....I'm tired of the same old pharmacy robberies, bank robberies, and rainy afternoons that are making the news! Can't YOU do something new worthy or am I gonna have to do it?

-palm bay, florida