So . . . it's been a while since I've done a news-rundown blog entry. Contrary to what you might think, I don't use this as a topic for my blog when I've got nothing else to write about. It happens when a bunch of news stories all catch my attention on the same day for being, well, a bit silly. And when I only have one or two snarky comments to make about each story, there really isn't much need to devote a whole post to it. Here's today's collection.
We're in for a rough winter! How do I know? Well, this morning on the Canadian morning show Breakfast Television, Kevin the anchor and Frank the weatherman enjoyed some playful banter about squirrels. It seems that they have both(!) noticed that squirrels are very busy these days, feverishly collecting acorns and nuts for the coming harsh winter. They referenced the Farmer's Almanac in that squirrels work especially hard in the fall when a bad winter is a'comin'. My question? How the heck do the squirrels know? Furthermore, even if the squirrels did somehow know, it makes no evolutionary sense. They should work as hard as possible in spite of that knowledge because of the potential downside if they're wrong. Squirrels who gather an abundance of nuts regardless of the severity of winter would be in a better position to survive and reproduce. A more likely explanation? Narrative fallacy. We see busy squirrels and have a harsh winter, we infer a connection. No especially hard winter, squirrels forgotten.
A-Rod is getting beaten up by the New York Post because he's having fun on the golf course after he crashed and burned in the Yankee's very brief playoff run. Excuse me, but what should he do? Sit and cry in the clubhouse until next season? Are they insinuating that he didn't try too hard because he'd rather be golfing? I've defended Rodriguez in this blog before (his playoff performances are not a disastrous as commonly believed), but maybe he just shrank in the face of pressure. Effort doesn't enter into it.
There was also all kinds of fun with numbers in the sports section today. The NBA has cancelled the first two weeks of the season. According to a headline in the Globe and Mail, cancelled games cost the players (collectively) $350 million a month, and owners (collectively) $1 million per game. Seems one-sided, no? Consider now that there are 200 and some games per month, so if we want to compare apples to apples, it's $350 mill to $200. The players still worse off? Maybe, but consider that there are 350 or so players in the NBA (averaging $1 million lost per month each) and 30 owners (averaging about $7 million lost per month each). So the owners are worse off. Maybe. The high number of other considerations (e.g. owners are diversified and already wealthy, players are mostly not) means that, Globe and Mail, we can't just slap two non-comparable numbers on a headline and call it a day.
A woman in Michigan is suing the filmmakers behind the movie Drive because the trailer was misleading. She was promised something that was like the Fast and the Furious, and it didn't deliver (the fact that it is not like the Fast and the Furious makes me want to see it all the more). She is suing to get her ticket price back (plus possibly more). Overkill? I think so. Just complain to the manager and you'll get a pass to another movie. No sense in wasting taxpayer money because you didn't bother looking up any reviews online. I had a prof in film school who told of a family member who only went by the titles when picking films. He walked out of Midnight Cowboy because it wasn't a western.
Finally, Kanye West went to support the Occupy Wall Street protesters today, wearing a $350 shirt and $25,000 in bling. In related news, the organizers of the protest may be deciding just to pack it in.
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