Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Ecstatic


I just had to laugh at Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's report from Baghdad during the hourly news summary this morning. NPR (following the dreary AP's lead) decided that Iraq's being allowed to send four athletes to the Olympics in Beijing is not just big news, but joyous news:
"Iraqis here are ecstatic after IOC officials announced they had lifted the ban following a meeting with the Iraqi government."
Call me skeptical, but I'm willing to wager that you'd be hard pressed to find an Iraqi outside the Green Zone who could give a rat's ass about this news. But hey, celebrating Iraqis always make for thrilling news from the land of liberation.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gee, and I thought I was fairly immune with only allowing the top-of-the-hour headlines into my ear canal.

Anonymous said...

Afterthought: This might place NoPR in comparison to Jehovah's Witnesses, traipsing from door-to-door (in their case, car window to car window) with hollow proclamations...

"Have you heard the good news about Iraq?"

(slam)

Anonymous said...

JW's don't vote (not interested in man's laws) and they don't celebrate any holidays except easter (I believe). They might not make any sense, but they're a hell of a lot less annoying than the standard npr announcer, and they're not going to tell you what you should be doing.