News and a kava chaser

The news these days is such a stone-cold bummer that maybe the [I]Saipan Tribune[/I], or any other paper, should come packaged with a shot of whiskey just to take the sting out of reality.

I can’t bear to think about Saipan’s economy. And on the international front, I close my ears whenever I hear international news about mayhem, war, and doom. Meanwhile, in our neighborhood, Luzon has absorbed three typhoon punches lately, and Japan’s 8.1-magnitude gobber-monster earthquake just scared everyone with tsunami fears, so I figure that even Mother Nature herself is conspiring to depress me.

So, in order to prove that the world really is messed up, I offer a random survey of news items that have crossed my desk:

If you think your brother in law is weird, take a glance at [I]The Bay City Times[/I], Sept. 24 edition, in which this Michigan newspaper highlights the goings-on in the burg of Saginaw.

It reports that one Ronald Kuch, 44, was arrested for taking conjugal liberties with a dog.

Not weird enough for you? OK, he allegedly did it “within view of a day care center.”

And here’s the capper: The dog was said to be road kill, having been dead for “four or five” days.

Kuch has reportedly been charged with crimes against nature, and is thus facing the prospect of 15 years in the slammer.

I don’t know if he had any plans to marry the dog, or merely intended to date it. But along comes this fact that makes me shake my head in disbelief: According to an April 27 article in the [I]Christian Science Monitor[/I], the average U.S. wedding now costs (ready for this?) $27,000.

Insane! I know they say that marriage is grand, but I didn’t know it was 27 grand.

And some aren’t grand at all. Domestic violence offers tales that can strain credulity.

This example from a July 19, 2004, [I]Reuters[/I] news report won’t soon be forgotten. Dateline, Manila. Story lead: “A drunken Filipino farmer nailed his wife’s mouth shut and beat her to death in front of their children, then prepared breakfast for her the next day without realizing he had killed her, police said on Monday.”

Or, here’s a Brazil dateline, Nov. 11, 2006, from [I]The Associated Press[/I]: “A Brazilian woman who was shot six times in the head after an altercation with her ex-husband was out of the hospital and talking to the media on Saturday.” She was evidently pretty much OK, all things considered, and the .32-caliber bullets didn’t penetrate her skull. Something like that makes you believe in miracles, until you realize that they hadn’t yet caught the perpetrator, which turns you downright cynical again.

Meanwhile, as the CNMI braces itself for a lecture on immigration policy from Washington, certain stories in the U.S. don’t go widely reported, though small papers sometimes manage to eke out stories before they are buried. Example: On Sept. 21,2006, the [I]Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register[/I] reported: “A 5-year-old girl is undergoing treatment for possible HIV infection after the man charged with raping her—an illegal alien who was previously deported to Mexico—admitted he has the virus, authorities said.”

Anyway, there is your survey of news items from the recent past.

So I think I’m pretty much ready to retreat to an armed compound on Pagan Island, where the waters of the Pacific can lap at my feet, but the ocean of humanity can be kept at bay. You’re free to visit, since you’re a friend, but just to be safe keep your hands where I can see them, and make sure you know the password.

Until then, if the [I]Tribune[/I] won’t attach a shot of hooch to the news, then maybe I’ll ask for a jar of kava instead. Might be the only thing that does the trick these days.

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“The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.” —Voltaire