Bob's Angry Rants

Once again the morning news has made me sad about the world in which I live. Not so much because the news was depressing, but because of the way it was presented and the choices that were made by the people in charge.

Over the past 24 hours there have been 5 earthquakes centered on San Ramon with a rating of between 3 and 4 on the Richter Scale. For those of you who don't live in California, this is about one step above a big truck driving by the front of your house. So, of course, Kim Yonenaka is standing in an empty parking lot outside of a Starbucks with a live report because so many exciting things are happening the morning after a minor earthquake, like people commuting or the sun coming up in the east!

The most thrilling footage they could come up with was a bottle of paprika that had fallen off of the shelf at a local Safeway. While Kim Yonenaka continues to provide a description of the destruction, we get several different shots of the broken spice bottle. First a close up. Then a wide shot. Then a shot of the spice rack, panning down to see the broken bottle. The tragedy. How will San Ramon ever recover? Emeril Lagasse desperately tries to think of another way to kick it up a notch as the Great San Ramon Paprika Famine begins. Somewhere, a mother tries to explain to her child why he can't have the goulash he promised her. A nation mourns.

So now the TV news is talking about how this may indicate that "The Big One" or at least a big one is coming. This despite the fact that earthquake prediction has proven to be iffy, at best. There will probably be a special on tomorrow morning about how to properly prepare for a large quake by stockpiling resources and buying things. Be afraid! Buy things! A mild earthquake could hit your town tomorrow! Don't let this happen to you. Maybe it will be celery salt, maybe it will be coriander, but a spice bottle could be broken!