Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Real News

For Canadians one of the few benefits of bordering the US, besides access to cheap government cheese and alcohol at 7am, is Public Television, home of Sesame Street, Front Line, and that freaky Bob Ross the painter guy – like Richard Simons on muscle-relaxants and vodka. They have something similar here called SBS which I am watching at the moment. SBS 2 actually, which shows nothing but foreign newscasts – Arabic, French, Polish, Malaysian and, right now, the US.

Holy crap what’s happened over at PBS? The McNeil/Lehrer News Hour is just the Jim Lehrer News Hour, and he’s turned into a black woman. And on top of that, here I am approximately 26,000 miles away, depending on your route, and they still have the gall to go to a pledge break. SBS sensibly did not go to a pledge break and the black woman, who seemed a little thrown by this, finally said “uh…for those affiliates…uh…not going to a pledge break…uh…the News Hour…uh….continues.” And it did. Those pledge-breakers are missing out. That’s when they put the real news on.

Well that’s done. Australian world news now. Oh look, Zimbabwe is having a cease-fire. Good for them! Oh, seems machetes aren’t covered, there is no cease-hacking. Oh well, at least they're trying.

5 comments:

Ghetto Photo Girl said...

Cease-hacking. Good one.

SkookumJoe said...

yeah, it was long way to get to that line.

Wisdom Weasel said...

The departure of McNeil from the News Hour was one of the first shots in the war to Decanadafiy US popular culture. You want proof? Well, Anne Murray is having trouble booking gigs in these parts.

Amanda said...

tell me more of this alcohol and cheese of which you speak....

SkookumJoe said...

was McNeil Canadian? There's a lot of canucks in he US news...Jennings, Brian Williams, John Roberts. It's all part of The Plan.

For some reason, Amanda, cheese is really really cheap in the US, at least in Washington state. And if you need beer at 7am you can get some at any gas station.