Aren’t you glad these guys are our news gatekeepers? Because they come up with headlines like this:
Icky Algae Worries New England Fishermen
STOCKBRIDGE, Vt. — It looks like a clump of soiled sheep’s wool, a cottony green or white mass that’s turning up on rocks and river bottoms, snarling waterways.Already a scourge in New Zealand and parts of the American South and West, the aquatic algae called “rock snot” is creeping into New England, where it is turning up in pristine rivers and alarming fishermen and wildlife biologists.
“It scares me,” said Lawton Weber, a fly fishing guide, who first spotted it on the Connecticut River in northern Vermont in June. “It’s an aesthetic eyesore when it’s in full bloom mode and its impact on the trout population is going to be significant.”
Ooooh. Icky and scary. But “icky”—now there’s a professional journalist’s dream adjective for you.
If you’re six.
Say hello to the dog days of August, and slow news days.
In Israel the equivalent of “dog days” or the “silly season” is “onat ha-melafefonim” — cucumber season.
I prefer “slow news days” over a major catastrophic news event every time {I live in Minneapolis, site of the bridge collapse]. In fact, I hope the “dog days” continue into winter!
I would much prefer that the incompetent media get conned by another phony John Karr/JonBenet Ramsey episode, then have to report on a real disaster event.
It isn’t slow news season. It is the continuing lack of good news judgment at the so-called professional media.
chsw
In Texas they’re the icky sticky days of summer. (Not really — I just made that up, but August is icky and sticky in Texas.)
BTW – here’s a bit of trivia for you. Do you know why it’s the “dog days of summer” (never of autumn or winter or spring)? Because the season is named for the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, the “dog star” (since it’s in the constellation Canis Major), which re-emerges in late August from behind the sun and can be seen in the eastern sky just before sunrise.