In the News

Just for information sake.  My girls' basketball team were defeated quite soundly yesterday.  I stood stoically on the sideline through the second quarter watching the girls sacrifice their egos at the hands of St. Saviour's College (I've never heard of St. Saviour, but I'm going to have to Google him - or her - to find out).  At one point we were down 40-0.  Granted, we did shoot the ball at least three times in the first half, but I put all the blame for our poor performance on the sun - it was in my girls' eyes.  Oh, wait, that was the second half.  I'll find some kind of excuse, bad coaching I think, for our decidedly one-sided defeat 54-6.

This blog is not about basketball and even though I could probably write thousands of words about the joy of coaching, this week I'll be projecting some thoughts about the news.

One of the perks for working at Faith Lutheran College is that one of the state newspapers, the Courier Mail, allows teachers (I get to be included in that segment of the population) to purchase the daily rag for $15 per year.  I thought that this would be an excellent idea to catch up on current events in the world, see how Queensland is doing with regards to national prowess.

Reading the Courier Mail, though, is like... well, you know when you're little, and you decide that the coolest thing in the world is to take your bike out onto a gravel road, push it to the top of a hill and then hop on.  You point the front tire down the middle of the road hoping beyond hope that the tire does not get caught in a rut or hit a big rock - then you let gravity do its thing.  At first its fun. The wind whips your hair a little bit; you begin to catch a few bugs in your teeth, you're feeling a little bit daring so you take your feet off the pedals - oh, it's so fun, so exciting, and then you realize...

So this is what a train conductor feels like when he (or she) sees a moose on the tracks and knows that no matter what, stopping is not really an option...

but you try to stop anyway.  Hand brakes (if you actually had any) aren't really going to work.  You're on a gravel road, the least amount of pressure will send you into a skid that will probably throw you into the cornfield.  Okay, so foot brakes it is, but you know that at the rate you're going, which feels like mach forty-two, foot brakes have as much an affect as wearing long sleeves, instead of a t-shirt out into a blizzard - it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.  Then, as a last resort, you think...

If I can just get my pedals twirling fast enough, perhaps I can slow the bike down that way...

So now you just look plain silly.  Feet flying, wheels spinning and then you hit that inevitable bump just twenty feet from the bottom.  Front tire twists to the side and you are sent over the handlebars for a quick date with the road where the main appetizer is a gravel sandwich.  Open wide.

And then you come to and realize that for the next four hours not only are you picking gravel from every layer of flesh in your body, but the grit in your teeth will not be washed down with any amount of rinsing.  You'll never feel clean again. 

Yeah, that's what reading the Courier Mail is like.  It's fun(ny) at first and then you pick up speed but then, there is no way of stopping the train wreck.  You're left picking grit out of your brain.  You'll never be clean again.  For instance, here is a gem I found a few days in the Courier Mail.  No kidding: actual news.

Headline:  CAT PEE DRIVES MAN TO ASSAULT CHARGE

(no shock that there is no byline for the article)

A MAN allegedly ran down his sister with his car after her cat urinated on his computer.  The woman, 19, received a fractured spine, a broken leg and a collapsed lung and remains in serious condition in hospital.  The stoush allegedly began after the woman's cat urinated on her brother's computer at a house in Winmalee in the Blue Mountains.  Police said the man, 20, dragged his sister across the floor and threw her cat into the car.  The woman was then struck by the car outside the home.  Police charged the brother with common assault and negligent driving.

I just want to pick through this 'news' for a little bit.  Police didn't charge him with attempted murder?  Negligent driving?  What?  Is this such a normal occurrence that it's called a common assault? 

Okay, hold on a minute, negligent driving.  It seems to me that there was nothing negligent about the brother's driving.  To me, it seems he certainly meant to run over his sister with the car.  Oh, wait a minute.  Maybe he actually meant to throw the sister in the car and run over the cat.  Yeah, that's what he was trying to do but he became disoriented by his rage and mixed up his sister with the cat.  Sure, now I can see that it was negligent driving.  He didn't really mean to fracture his sister's spine, leaving her an invalid for life (if she survives).

How is this okay on any level.  I understand that the odor of cat urine can drive any man crazy.  Just in the last weeks I myself have come to a place of feline hatred.  Our next door neighbor has three cats.  Two of them look like they have permanent burs in their hair.  These long haired pseudo-rodents have been wandering our neighborhood which,  in the best case scenario would be looking for mice to eat, but I'm pretty sure they have been simply using my yard as a port-a-toilet.  Every once in a while when return home later at night, I can see the reflection of the eyes of these cats - evil looking things.  They have this pleased look on their face when they see me as if they are saying, "Yeah, merry Christmas.  Your present is in the backyard and guess what?  I didn't flush." 

So, I shoo them off trying to remember to put on my checklist for the next day find uncovered cat feces in backyard.

I'm a busy person though and I rarely remember that my backyard is a litterbox for the neighbors demoncats.  I do remember, though, when I begin to mow and I chunk up little, smelly logs placed in little, smelly piles.  It would be one thing if I just chewed them up in my lawnmower, but the reek from these little feline logs is overwhelming and more than once, my children have found me curled up over the handle bars of the mower retching. 

"Daddy, are you okay?"

I point to the little pile I've just run over.  They scatter.  As I read that I notice that I scatter is a pun.  Scat, scatter... obviously the scent of cat excrement is doing something wrong to me. 

So, what I've begun to do is to make a lap around the yard every morning searching for these little land mines.  Sick, I know, but I take a plastic bag with me and pick up the steaming little piles and traipse across the street to line up the poo in the neighbors driveway right underneath her car tires.  (I do this in the dark because it wouldn't look good for the pastor to be seen taking vengeance on the neighbor - but, I can't help myself).  I imagine that every morning, as the neighbor drives somewhere, she arrives at her place and things, "What is that smell?"

Oh yes, she should know what that smell is.  If only her cat pooped in her own yard.

But never once have I thought to myself, I think it really would be a good idea for me to walk across the street, mangy cat in hand, throw the cat in my car and run my neighbor over.  Really, I've never thought that.  Call the animal services, yes.  Negligent driving, no.

At the end of the Courier Mail's article, I didn't add the last sentence.  I wanted to savor it for the journalistic, Pulitzeresque writing. 

The cat was not hurt.

That's where my mind was going.  I'm glad they added that last little tidbit in.  As if the cat's wellbeing had any bearing on the article other than to make light of the tragedy that has just happen.  Of course, this incident probably does not stand on its own and if this twenty-year-old and nineteen-year-old explosive brother sister combo were living at home together, there's going to be some fireworks sometimes.  Even though the Courier Mail mentioned the health of the cat, it failed to bring up the real question of the story...

Is the computer okay? 

Here's the news this week.  I look forward to adding a few more articles from the Courier Mail.  It definitely adds spice to life.