Football TV

The football TV shows – college and pro – are back on the air in this fall season, and once again they have kicked the news – local and national – off our screens for the next five or six months. It’s a strange message the networks send us: For six or seven months, the world, national, and local news continues its consequence, its import throughout the weekend. But once the football season starts, it’s as if all that’s significant retreats into hibernation, replaced by what’s really important, physical mutants trying to maim one another for the edification of those of us who think these contests hold some worth (which they potentially do for those who bet on them (or broadcast them)). What’s on TV is what we value. I may loath it. But here I sit, watching it. Just one more unwitting idiot with a flat-screen HD TV and too much time on his hands.

Man recovering after hitting cow with snowmobile

There are occasionally news headlines that while engaging interest and raising questions, also threaten to be anticlimactic when one reads the full story. Consider the following example from this morning:

Man recovering after hitting cow with snowmobile

Certainly this headline provokes curiosity: What were the circumstances of this incident? Was there intent involved, either on the part of the man or the cow? Does “with snowmobile” refer to the man or to the cow? If the man were the one “with snowmobile,” was he riding it, or did he just pick it up and whack the cow with it? Did the cow retaliate? What were the nature and extent of the man’s injuries? And was the cow hurt? There are any number of intriguing possibilities here. But of course if one reads through the brief story that follows, those possibilities become rather tepid:

Authorities say a northeast Iowa man continues to recover after a weekend accident where he struck a cow while riding a snowmobile. The accident happened Christmas evening in rural Fayette County north of Clermont.

A Ski-Doo snowmobile driven by 49-year-old Kevin Mack of Fayette was southbound on a snowmobile trail when a cow crossed onto the trail and was struck by Mack. Mack was taken by ambulance to the West Union hospital to be treated for unspecified injuries. The Fayette County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate the accident.

So it was a riding accident, not a bar fight, and while we know a Ski-Doo snowmobile was the model involved, we don’t know what the “unspecified injuries” were to Kevin Mack, let alone what, if any, injuries were suffered by the unnamed cow. I sometimes think it would be much more entertaining – and informative – to just read the headlines, skip the stories altogether, and let my imagination create a much more satisfying world.