Reading the news ( and it sure looks bad)

Why is it so hard to find news about good things happening in the world?  Is it because tragedy and pathos play better than something that might be viewed as fluff?  The Sandy Hook story continues to dominate the airwaves.  I wonder how long it will be a lead story.  It's not as if there is a trial or any real justice to be handed down.  The person responsible is dead.  Trying to find someone else to "pay" for the crime is pointless.  I am sure the slimy bottom-feeders in the legal profession will try to convince those suffering in the aftermath that there is money to be gained.  Will money change anything?  No, sadly it will not and the only lives that will be improved at all will probably be the lawyers who will collect a fat fee on the misery. 

I have been thinking lately about the cult of personality that seems to pervade the media these days.  We know far too much about the love lives of certain people.  I for one am sick of seeing Taylor Swift's face trying to be sad as she dumps yet another piece of arm candy so she can write that "tragic breakup song" that is sure to propel her to the top of the charts.  I wonder if she chooses boyfriends based on their dump-ability.  She is fast becoming not the sweet innocent that her media machine would have us believe.  One or two dinners or media events does not a relationship make,but the media and possibly her handlers has her walking down the aisle with anyone she even says hello to.  That's got to be a real drag.  What kind of life it that, always in the fishbowl?  I know far more about her and Kim Kardashian than I care to.  What is it about the K sisters anyway?  They are the modern day equivalent of the Gabor sisters.  No discernible talent, just famous for being arm candy.  What kind of life must you have when you are the most famous for  whom you have as your sex partners?  The Gabor sisters married often enough and Eva did have that stint, woefully stunt-cast as Lisa in "Green Acres"  I feel sorry for the younger crop of K sisters who are not even Kardashians but get lumped and marketed along with them.  Not much of a life, I think.

The whole gun control debate is getting a little crazy.  The arguments on both sides are coming from passionate reactions to the shootings of children and how to prevent such tragedies.  I personally don't believe gun control to be the answer.  Timothy McVey blew up that building in Oklahoma City using fertilizer.  Do we outlaw fertilizer? ( I could make a joke about what the outcome of outlawing Bull crap would have on Congress, insert your own joke here)

I used to read the comics every day for a laugh, but I stopped subscribing to the local paper when I was hit with a ten percent pay cut in the guise of a furlough and the Editor of Said Paper CROWED about it and talked about all the things that we could do with that time off.  Many of her suggestions involved spending more money- which we no longer had.  I took a look at my budget and decided to make ten-percent worth of cuts to it STARTING with my subscription to the Daily News.  I had been a subscriber since it was a throw-away called the Valley News and Green Sheet, but I could no longer afford the luxury of a newspaper.  They are scrambling for subscribers, I hear and they often contact me but I am not going back.  They have bought into the age-old idea that City Employees are lazy at best and corrupt at worst.  I don't need to pay good money to be insulted.  Now I get my news and my comics online.  There is a whole subculture of people who "Meet" and complain about what the writer/artist is doing with the strip.  Most are grousing about the character development or plot line.  Seldom do you see someone say something constructive.  I often wonder why people continue to read them if it bothers them so much?  Like my parting of the ways with the Daily News, it was a hard habit to break but I have done it.