Catching Up

I was without email, TV, radio and newspaper for two weeks. As soon as I arrived home from my trip I logged onto The Clock - my primary news source for Detroit-area professional sports team celebration-related stories. What I found instead shocked me...

Tim Russert is dead? I found an unsettling irony in this mention by Stoner. A couple of weeks ago that Democratic Party spokesperson, whose name I can't recall, erroneously referred to Russert's father as having passed on, saddling Russert with the onerous task of correcting him. Not only was his father alive, but now he [Tim] has been outlived by him. In the Denver Post I later found a respectful comic by Mike Luckovic shows Russert arriving at the pearly gates; St. Peter announces over his shoulder to an unpictured God, "Your Sunday morning competition has arrived..."

Reading the past few issues of the Denver Post, I also came across these disturbing stories:

"Israelis seemingly rehearse attacking Iran". (Great!)

"Britney's [Spears] [17-year-old] sister, Jamie Lynn, has a girl". The father is Casey Aldridge, a pipe-layer(!)

"6th foot found on beach in Canada" during the past year near Vancouver. Authorities have no reports of people missing their feet. In an apparently unrelated story, a man was convicted of 20 counts of cutting up corpses (including that of Alistair Cooke) for the later selling of their parts to medical companies(!)

"Study: [Gun] Dealers missing 30,000 guns" in a recent nationwide inventory by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and the finding is likely undercounted. "We've seen that guns that dealers claim lost are frequently sold to gun traffickers," said Daniel R. Vice(!), an attorney for the group.

I'm now left with the quandary: should I take another trip, or can I get away with just canceling my newspaper subscription?