How About a Happy Theme for Tomorrow?

Sometimes days have a way of taking on a theme. I'm a little bothered by today's "theme."

On the way to work this morning I heard the 911 recording of the guy who killed his entire family and then blew his own head off with 911 on the phone. I'm against censorship -- but I can't believe KNX played the tape. Does anyone really need to hear that?

And then I heard the same recording twice more when KNX repeated the story during the day. (Actually the news is even sicker: there's one surviving member of the family -- the man's son who is currently serving in Iraq.)

And then when I was getting ready to leave the office this afternoon KNX started covering a really intense car chase. They first reported the suspect was wanted for murder and was driving at speeds of up to 110 m.p.h. in the vicinity of Wilmington, San Pedro and Long Beach (where I spent my early childhood).

So of course I had to head into Scott's office and turn on his crappy TV. I watched it for about 15 minutes. Why are those car chases so gripping? This guy nearly wrecked his Buick on a freeway offramp. But he kept going -- riding on one rim. He nearly ran over some pedestrians. He finally ended up in the driveway of an El Pollo Loco where he got out of the car and pulled a gun on the police. The officers immediately shot him dead -- live on TV with the reporter in the helicopter yelling at the cameraman to "pull back, pull back" from the camera shot. Ugh.

And as I sit here writing this entry with the TV on, the KTLA News at 10 just teased both stories (even before the DC evacuation story).

At least the DC story had a better ending.

(On the topic of my childhood in Wilmington -- I can remember that whenever I was at my Grandmother and Grandfather Fliegner's house at night they ALWAYS would watch Hal Fishman on the KTLA News at 10. That seemed so square to me. I thought there were much better shows to watch on other channels. But this was during the 70s when homes only had 1 TV and adults got their way. So Hal Fishman it was.

How ironic that now if I'm at home during the week and it's 10 p.m. I always have Hal Fishman and the KTLA News on.)