Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Man Tries to Bring Possum Back to Life

So this is one of those stories that somehow made both online and print media.
First the blurb about a man who attempted to recusitate a dead possum. Now most of us I would assume, would know that obviously this person who would try to bring a varmint back to life was not a member of Peta. Nor a member of an animal rescue group.
Yet this story made the rounds.
It was chatted about on Facebook, that ubiquitous social network, tweeted, and I am sure was discussed around more than several water coolers.
After several days of press, it comes to light, that this person was inebriated.
Was anyone really surprised about that revelation?
This was not a beloved pet, but a wild animal who met an untimely end.

Yet the fact is that someone in the press must have felt that this was newsworthy.
The speed at which even the most inane act made the national headlines is something that perhaps we all need to take a look at with a fresh perspective.
Did we need to know this? Was there no other news item that could have been inserted in it's place?
Are we all so news deprived that this became the topic of the day?
Or is it that we are all so weary of all the bad news we are bombarded with on a daily basis, that a laugh once in a while is needed and because we need that laugh, articles ( though this was more a blurb) like this one continue to show up on our home page, as a filler on page five of our local newspapers, or as a tweet on someones twitter.

I personally would rather have the story that meant a little more than this example of person who had too much to drink, and so tried to revive road kill.
What do you think?