4/5/09: The Start ... or so ... of Spring Break

I don’t know if anyone regularly reads this. You might be reading this if you were forwarded here from my Twitter or my Youtube page. I know that I haven’t really updated in a while. I was trying to get a daily post of sorts going, similar to Liam’s (Littleradge) “Today I ...” posts. That idea fell by the wayside. Oh well. The point is, I’m trying to keep this alive.
Anyway, I’m writing this as I make my way back home via Shortline bus. Earlier in the day, there was major local news: a man walked into the local American Civic Association with a gun. (story here) It resulted in a hostage crisis in which 4 died and at least 12 were wounded, one of them being a Bing student. It was all over the news. I first heard it while listening to WHRW, the campus station that I DJ at. Then I got two calls, both voicemails from my mom, checking to see if I’d be able to get out of the area safely. I then found out that CNN was covering the story, as it was BREAKING NEWS. The videos that they were looping were relevant stock footage of the situation (i.e., cops surrounding the area). The only news that was coming out of the area was that there were 4 dead and 12 wounded, including a Binghamton student. Oh, and one of the local high schools was locked down. All in a days’ work for the panicked community and the news-starved networks.
But what I thought was interesting was how much coverage this was getting. Let’s look at it this way. If you’re a college basketball star who steals a couple boxes of condoms, it’s relegated to the back page or given a brief mention on the news. If you beat up another college student and flee the country, you get a little more mention. If your basketball team makes it for the first time to the NCAA tournament, you get the sports section to your self. But, if you start a hostage crisis, the world’s eyes are upon you. You’re front page, breaking news! You’re bigger than the news that Britney Spears decided to stop touring or Joe the Plumber came out and said that everything about him was a cleverly planned hoax (which I wouldn’t mind).
There has seriously got to be a scale somewhere that determines the worthiness of news stories. Actually, I think that there’s one in America: The Book. Or maybe it’s in America: The Desk Calendar.

As the bus is driving back towards home, I look out at the window every so often to see if there’s anything of interest. There really isn’t. It’s mostly trees, grass, buildings, and small rivers or lakes. There’s nothing impressive between Bing and my home. Each exit or town between Bing and my home must be like living in Nowhere, USA, population 1500 ... or so it seems. And what’s more is that the weather is crappy. It rained back at college earlier, as I was making my way to the shuttle over to the bus terminal. It was raining earlier on, probably during the first half hour to hour of travel. But now, there’s a dense fog surrounding the bus. I’d go as far as to say that it’s as thick as pea soup … but I don’t want to sound clichéd. I mean, I can still see the trees for a couple hundred feet. The road is wet. The trees … I’m seeing a mix of evergreen and leaf-less sticks. That’s really it. Hopefully, the weather back home will be decent enough while I’m on break for a little over a week, about 10 days, 9 if you don’t count the day I’ll be travelling back up to college.