Newsbreak

I've been following the Global Credit Crunch Crisis(tm) news relatively closely - for a layman - and made an effort to watch the early evening news yesterday to see what they made of the bankrupcy of Lehman Brothers, former Wall Street heavyweight blah blah blah. I should not have used the blah blah blavh device. This has the potential to be really fucking serious. Having missed the start of Channel 10's news I switched to Channel 7.

Top story. There has been a parade in Sydney for our Olympic athletes! The paralymics are still taking place, so presumably - there was no mention - those athletes will get their own parade. Or maybe they will get no parade because, well, this is Sydney, a beautiful city, and we really don't want to have to look at disabled people.

Second story. A Brisbane woman reported a sexual assault, allegedly perpetrated by three rugby league players in a Brisbane nightclub. We don't know why she was in the gents toilets with the players, but I am sure we will find out in due course. Important stuff.

Then there was a story about a sexual abuse scandal from twenty years ago which is approaching court now. Catholic school stuff, for not-a-change. Old news, but great media work in naming those implicated and ensuring they will not get a fair trial and may have a greater chance of getting off should they actually be guilty.

We went from there to the revelation that most of New South Wales's red-light cameras don't work. That item struck me as strangely irresponsible reporting...give everyone a nice big notice that you can run red lights with all-but-impunity. I think there are six working cameras in NSW. Far, far fewer than in other states where they have gone digital. The news that anything to do with NSW roads is probably broken is not news at all.

Still no sign of a global credit crunch that coulod wipe out the value of your home and your pension...

A diamond back python was rescued from a power line in Mosman. It could have been electrocuted! Hurrah for the rescue services! Big, not endangedered, harmless snake moved from wire to tree. That seemed like the typical feel-good story, so maybe my money, job, pension and life as I know it really is OK...

Then, and only then, did we hear about the failure of Lehman Brothers, the stock value falls on local and global sharemarkets and so on. All rather dull. But don't worry folks, that is something that happens to Wall Street, not to you...it really isn't anything to be concerned about...the world's largest insurer goes cap-in-hand to the already broke US treasury? Why should that bother us?

What about that snake eh? That was lucky...

And while we're talking about snakes, back to Sunday...