Is It News?

Many of the elevators in downtown have LCD screens that show news headlines, weather and stock reports and lots and lots of ads. You can't fault the TSX reports and i've developed a keen interest in the long term weather reports for obvious reasons (it also shows current temperatures for Calgary and Toronto (to make us feel good for being in Vancouver) and Miami and Los Angeles (to put us in our place and make us feel sad again)) but the news reports that they show are the most inane and useless items you could imagine. This week includes the running saga of Dick Cheney's hunting mishap (i don't like him at all but even I think that this is not something he can be faulted on - it's not news), Canadian Olympics highlights (a Canadian came 9th in the speed skating!), tips on how to get thinner by kerbing your appetite with a hot cup of tea in the evening and setting goals when you exercise (the nanny state has given way to the nanny media corporation). Major news events are mentioned but there's only so much depth you can go to in a paragraph and it's so overtly inoffensive that it just seems like a waste of time. But, lke a TV in a pub, it drags your eyes in and there's no avoiding it.