Headlines

To: News organizations
From: Daddy
Date: Yesterday
Subject: [Insert 30 seconds of thinking up a vapid subject line.]

I’ve always been a fan of the big cheesy headlines. Alliteration, puns, you know the goods. Upon visiting numerous sites today, I’ve found a few. FoxNews, the worst news channel/Web site/conglomerate ever, tops all competitors with its headline about the plane that crashed into a busy intersection in Chicago. (Honestly, this story has been on CNN.com all day. How long do they want us to read about a 6-year-old boy getting crushed? It’s Christmas for fucking sake.) Here are some cheesy, stupid headlines:

“Mayhem at Midway Airport” — FoxNews.com; Oooooooh, chilling. Who says “mayhem” nowadays? Go back to the 1930s, maybe you’ll find a movie title with it. I dunno... Maybe “Mayhem in Manhattan” or something.

“Passenger: Cars were passing us” — CNN.com; Wow... Calm the fuck down, Mr. CNN. What brainiac thought this up? Whomever he or she is, that person needs a raise — quick! Now go get me some fucking coffee. Black, no cream, no sugar.

“Boy: Parents made me stay in ‘box’ ” — CNN.com; OK, I would be totally heartless, and sickeningly cliche, if I made a joke about thinking outside the box. I’ll shut up.

“@#%&*! Typo in stock trade costs firm $225 million” — MSNBC.com; I’ve always wondered if there’s a formula for determining which characters represent which letters in expletives. I’ve always been a fan of the simple “f--k” or asterisks (f***ing). And if you notice, a lot of times, they don’t even use the right number of characters. What cuss word is five letters? Shits? Damns? Crap-o? I think I’m thinking too much about what they’re thinking.

(PUN ALERT) “For British gays, new law rings wedding bells” — MSNBC.com; I think “gays” will be an obsolete term in the future for, well gays, kinda like what happened with Negroes. What will be its replacement? Americans favor long, drawn-out phrases that piss off anyone who has a speech impediment: African-Americans, Latino-Americans, maybe Homosexual-Americans??? Hmmm.

“APB for stolen flamingos” — MSNBC.com; I shit you not.

“Secrecy & National Security” — C-SPAN.org; Admit it. You didn’t even know C-SPAN had a Web site did you? If you did, I bet you’ve never visited. Is it just me or do “Secrecy” and “National Security” not going extremely well together. It would take me less than three seconds to think up a sentence using those words: “Despite staunch attempts of keeping secrecy, the government’s handling of national security was exposed, distastefully, when a 44-year-old Floridian was shot and killed at a Miami airport.” That was easy.