It’s something of a guilty pleasure to read the post-election newspaper and wedge myself into the crowd of spectators watching the victorious Obamas soak up their new status as First Family. As a parent, I understand the President-elect’s current regret over having included his children in televised interviews during this historic election, which seems to have started around the time of RoboCop. Now the Obamas’ job as both leaders and parents will be to shield those children from the bizarre spotlight of expectations and voyeurism the media and citizens will undoubtedly provide. I would like to say in advance to the President I voted for and our First Lady: you’re welcome, and I’m sorry.
So much is being published about the process our country has just wrapped up and in other ways is only beginning that it became a challenge to find a non-political story to catch my interest in the paper today. But then I saw it under the ‘abroad and at home’ heading. It was right above the piece about an airline crew having to use duct tape to keep an unruly, inebriated passenger in her seat during a United flight from Puerto Rico to Chicago. In addition to striking a flight attendant and falling on a blind passenger’s head and then pulling the person’s hair, her antics caused the aircraft to land in North Carolina. For me, the most remarkable part of this story is that I wasn’t on the plane.
The item that grabbed me, so to speak, was about a female jogger in Arizona who was attacked by a fox while on a trail near Prescott. The animal bit her foot while she was running so she reached down and grabbed it by the neck to pull it off, at which point the fox then bit her arm. She wanted the animal tested for rabies so she ran a mile to her car with its jaws clamped to her arm. I feel compelled to repeat that because I can’t remember the last time I ran a mile to my car with or without a fox chewing on my arm.
Once she arrived at her automobile, she pried the animal off and tossed it in her trunk. You can go ahead and read that sentence again on your own without my emphasis. It certainly deserves a second look. She then drove to the Prescott hospital where the fox proceeded to bite an animal control officer. The sheriff’s department report stated that both the runner and the officer were receiving rabies vaccinations.
It always thrills me how much can be learned from a few short moments reading the newspaper, and it saddens me that print journalism is currently on such shaky ground with plummeting circulation amid reader desertion to online sources for current events. With that in mind, let’s review what we’ve just discussed:
1. Barack and Michelle Obama and their two lovely daughters will need the nation’s support and generosity of spirit as they settle into the highly visible new lives that only one of them was actively seeking.
2. For the safety and protection of all passengers and crew, our judicial system should institute a charge of FWI or Flying While Intoxicated. Anyone found guilty could be punished by having to fly to Australia and back in a non-reclining seat with no snacks.
3. Should we ever be jogging in the Southwest and a rabid animal attaches itself to our body, wow, that one’s a toughie.
Boring Headline: Blogger Visits Prescott Without Incident
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