Too Much CSI? Experienced a little excitement in the ‘hood this morning. Around noon our neighbors’ housekeeper rang the door bell. Seems she couldn’t unlock their front door as she’s been doing for 35 years. The lock was a-kilter, angled 45 degrees to the left as if someone had tried to jimmy it. The cylinder wouldn’t accept her key. What’s more, their golden retriever was barking in a strange way, and when she went around back she discovered the sliding glass patio door was ajar.
After checking out all her details, I advised we call the police. Neither of us desired to enter the house to discover anything untoward. We’ve all seen too many TV crime shows. They weren’t going to find my fingerprints in that house.
We waited 15 minutes for a patrol car to arrive. After hearing our story, the policewoman called for backup. This was getting real interesting.
We waited another 15 minutes for the second squad car to arrive. As we cooled our heels in the backyard, the officers entered the house, searched all the rooms, looking under the beds and in the closets, even in the crawl space in the basement. No bodies found, nothing tossed about, they declared the house safe to enter.
CNN’s Worst Nightmare: In case you missed it, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning issued a ruling on the Affordable Care Act, the so-called Obamacare.
Want to know who missed it? Or more precisely, who got it wrong? CNN. And Fox News.
At 10:09:03, CNN sent out a “Breaking News” email alert with the following message: “The Supreme Court has struck down the individual mandate for health care—the legislation that requires all to have health insurance.”
All that planning for the biggest story of the year to date and CNN, which has billed itself as “the most trusted name in news,” got it WRONG. It took nine full minutes before CNN corrected itself. And then it compounded the error by making another mistake, this time not saying the Medicaid extension provision had been declared unconstitutional: “Correction: The Supreme Court backs all parts of President Obama’s signature health care law, including the individual mandate that requires all to have health insurance.”
(My thanks to Casey for sending me these email alerts.)
Not to be outdone, Fox News also reported the individual mandate had been declared unconstitutional.
Interestingly, as I was watching special CBS News coverage of the decision from 10 to 10:30 am, I wondered how NBC News and ABC News were handling the story. NBC, turned out, was airing a segment of The Today Show on swimming pools, while Rachael Ray was in the kitchen on ABC (sorry, I didn’t linger long enough to discover what she was cooking).
I guess the news business just ain’t what it used to be.
And neither will women’s tennis, if a no-grunting rule is implemented. There’s no agreement on the civility and gentility of players grunting when stroking a ball, but the Women’s Tennis Association “plans to launch an initiative in conjunction with the International Tennis Federation and the Grand Slam Committee—timetable to be determined—to teach young players breathing techniques to avoid grunting and to eventually adopt a rule against noises deemed too loud, with the help of a decibel meter to be designed for use by chair umpires,” ESPN reported.
Women grunting has been around at least since 1962, but those who feel it is unseemly can’t wait for a new generation of players who are silent on the court. I hadn’t given it much thought till now, but I don’t agree with those who believe some sports, like tennis and golf, demand absolute quiet from fans when a serve or shot is taken.
Are golfers and tennis players lower forms of athletes than basketball players, baseball players, and football players that they need total silence to focus all of their concentration on the serve or shot at hand? After all, taking a free throw with the game on the line is one of the more tension-filled moments of a basketball game, as is lining up a game-deciding field goal, or pitching a baseball with the bases loaded, yet we don’t expect fans to sit placidly as the action unfolds. Let’s stop coddling these so-called “athletes” who stare down talkers. Let them learn to zone out the noise, be it from the stands or from their opponents across the net.
Grunting may not be feminine, but if that’s what it takes for some women to play hard and win, let them do it.
