Anyone who is a regular news junkie has no doubt stopped, scratched her head, or laughed out loud at some of our fellow Homo sapiens foibles. During Jay Leno’s Headlines segment he regularly anguishes over the dumb criminal stories that come his way. Often Roy and I just turn and look at each other when we see something on TV that baffles us. Silent communication and similar beliefs about what’s dumb or funny or unbelievable become second nature when you’ve been married as long as we have.
So, in case you missed them, I’ve assembled a potpourri of snippets from the news. The National Post was my source. I believe they all qualify for the ?what were they thinking? award. Read ?em and weep.
Jay would like this one. In mid-April a 19-year-old Windsor man led police on a foot chase after leaving the stolen car he was driving. Nothing unusual in that; police come, criminals run. The fun in this story is how the waist-down paralysis he claimed from a jailhouse beating in January was miraculously healed and allowed him to run several blocks and climb a seven-and-a-half foot fence!
Students from a university in Nepal haven’t received their year-end marks because the exams, kept under lock and key in a police station, were eaten by an infestation of rats. Eww. Just a slight PR problem, from my vantage point.
Like so many before him, Britain’s Prime Minister Brown forgot he was wearing a live microphone when he climbed back into his car following an encounter with a woman who expressed concerns to him during a campaign stop. We’ve all been there in some sense, sans mic. To his credit and with the election just days away, he’s apologized and bent over backwards to atone for his exasperated comments. Will it affect the election outcome? Pundits will debate this for days.
A lot of people seemed baffled by the swooning, screaming, and fainting of Justin Bieber’s pre-pubescent fans. While most of us wonder what they’re thinking, we also remember exactly the same reaction to Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and others. Girls will be girls, especially if in the presence of their idol and That’s not likely to change anytime soon.
The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) reports that Canadians send 122 million texts each day. Marc Choma, director of communications, says, ?texting is great for quick hits of sharing information, but it doesn’t replace our innate desire for live voice interaction with others.? Canadians still spend an average of four hundred minutes on cell phones per month. How about this radical concept? Put down the damn phone, look up and talk to the person next to you. Make eye contact. Read body language. Learn the give and take of conversation.
Convicted killer Colin Thatcher won’t go quietly. The only thing to his credit is his agreement to give the profits from his memoir back to the Saskatchewan government. Profiting from his crime would be the last insult.
That’s my current crop of ?what were they thinking,? from where I sit.
