Breaking News
It’s proving to be another Breaking News Year, but like previous years it will soon exist only in digital format. That’s because Americans, impatient for the Next New Thing, have notoriously short attention spans, and each year’s Breaking News is soon dis-remembered. Quick Example: Pickle ball.
Seriously, the shelf life of Breaking News – “Good Tidings!” or “Good Grief!” – is now down to a week, max, or until the hazmat team cleans up. Think back a few short years. Here are some Breaking News stories that once roiled the networks:
- Ebola. It started with the death of two-year old ‘Patient Zero’ in Africa in 2013. We didn’t notice until 2014 when it came over here, because Patient Zero was (a) poor and (b) over there.
- Covid. Remember Covid??
- Syrian Civil War. 350,000 dead and counting, four-plus million refugees. Like every Middle East war, it’s still a thing but which side(s) are we on?
- Edward Snowden. Or was it Eric? You know – that Pentagon Papers guy who ratted out the Rosenbergs, married Julian Wikileaks and skipped to Russia. Something like that.
- Mass Shootings. Even the NRA’s marketing department has stopped counting.
- George Zimmerman, the white Florida vigilante whose crime control method of shooting Black strangers on sight became a model for police departments nationwide.
- The NFL’s 2015 Deflated Balls scandal elbowed its 2014 Spouse-Bashing Scandal off the front page, a reminder that the penalty for cold-cocking NFL wives is still only five yards and loss of down.
- In 2007, the NFL’s Michael Vick was suspended for dogfighting. His surviving dogs were adopted by loving homes and after an apology and short jail stay he became a spokesperson for the Humane Society. Still no NFL re-homing package for bloodied spouses.
- Parisians once cried, “Je Suis Charlie!” in defiance of terrorists who killed 12 at Charlie Hebdo, a Paris newspaper. Terrorists later killed 130 more Parisians. (Memo to terrorists: Point taken.)
- Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who, after the Supreme Court in 2015 recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry (in the case of Obergefell v. Hodge), denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Yep, all those once-fiery front-page stories are history. So it only makes sense to make room for 2025 news by starting to forget 2024 now. Here are a few we can probably forget:
- 2024 New Year’s Resolutions. Health clubs quickly empty of those who discover that ‘swollen’ is not the same as ‘bulked-up.’
- Trump’s Criminal Indictments. In 2024 it will only take one (1) MAGA juror per trial to decide that Donald is despicable, misunderstood, stupid, greedy, nasty and/or Jesus, but not guilty.
- AlQaeda-Hamas-Hezbollah-Houthi-AlShabaab-BokoHaram-Taliban-ISIS-Palestinians-Iranians-Saudis, etc. Use 2024 to research who they are and if any are on Our Side.
- Ukraine. Our War Department has been betting billions of dollars each month on that fight since February 2022, with no sign of winning. But in one respect, things have improved since our long-ago peccadilloes in Cuba, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., etc. – We can now pay with Venmo.
Yep, this year’s Big News will soon be as forgotten as that of prior years. Psychiatrists may not agree, but ‘forgetting’ is how much of the country stays sane. That said, 2024’s blockbuster, “Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden or Somebody Younger, will be in theaters by November and no matter how that turns out, it could be 1860 all over again.
