Obvious Truth

Headlines ending in a question mark do not indicate reportage, they denote opinion ... and should be ignored ... and the reporters fired.

Niagra Falls

You've heard of 'suicide by cop' where  disturbed individuals threaten cops in order to insure that they themselves are shot. Now we have a copycat phenomenon ... "suicide by mass shooting." The California Borderline bar mayhem was clearly of this ilk ... as were many of our school shootings ... and maybe even the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.

My guess is that these wingnuts have devised to give up their mortal coil and want to make the headlines in the process. Why then do so many others have to die in the process? Since we can't get the media to avoid playing this lethal game, perhaps we can find another way for these suicidal nuts to make the headlines with their demise ... without all these other deaths?

How about bringing back that old media-grabbing fad ... going over Niagara Falls in a barrel? A sensational suicide with no collateral damage  ...

Lessons Learned

This blog's recent exercise in summarizing topical headlines from a variety of Internet news sites has been very educational. Since most Americans never read news further than the actual headline, the authors of these blurbs are often more influential than the reporters or opinion columnists themselves. As these headline crafters are not necessarily accomplished journalists, their influence is often disproportionate to their talents. As a consequence, there are characteristics and lessons that were revealed to your humble blogger during this headline gleaning process. Let me offer here a few of these lessons learned:

- Good headline writers capture the essence of the referenced story in as few words as possible without causing confusion or referencing obscurities. A little humor sometimes helps. Very few Internet news sites have high quality headline writers ... The Drudge Report and Politico are recommended.

- Opinion-piece, but not necessarily news-article writers should be allowed to compose their own headlines for the reasons suggested above.

- Often on-line headlines are crafted in a way to get the reader to click through to the body of the article ... which often is where the lucrative advertising revenue is generated.  In dead-tree headlines this is not the case as the story itself sits right below the headline and the ads are also within eyesight.. Therefore on-line headline writers use tricks to get click-throughs ... such as ending with question marks or ellipses (...). (A talk-radio host here in Boston suggests that the yes-no answer to any headline that ends in a question mark should be "No".)

- Another headline-writing  ruse is to make a leading declarative statement  that begs further clarification or details. This exercise in purposeful vagueness was a disqualified in my blog headline picking process.

- On-line headline writers can add emphasis to their work by making their text  bold or changing its colors. But, alternatively, newspapers can run banner headlines challenging the text size range of the Internet.

- Unfortunately, there are many headlines that bear little or no relation to the underlying story ... or take some minor point and promote it to the gist of the article or column. Very often this misdirection is reflective of the political bent of publisher or website. Or, even worse, both the article and headline are both fake news ... a very unfortunate journalistic trend.

- One of the advantages of on-line headlines is that they can include or point to an image or even a relevant video or gif format... shades of the newspapers in Harry Potter movies. These moving images can amplify or even obviate the need to read the actual article.

Bottom Line: You can learn an awful lot of what is going on in the world just by reading the headlines on a wide variety of Internet sites ... sometimes even without taking the click bait.

Headlines

Half of Sanders backers WON'T back Clinton

Brain eating amoeba kills teen

Rangel: Americans don't need guns, but I 'deserve' armed guards

California exodus increases as costs, taxes skyrocket

Aging monkeys become more selective regarding their social circle

Kremlin program: Teleportation by 2035

ANOTHER: Baltimore cop not guilty of murder in [Freddie] Gray case

NYC orders businesses to make gender-neutral bathroom signs

Pope, flanked by migrants, says 'let everyone come'

Clinton IT specialist invokes the 5th more than 125 times in deposition

Listening to Mozart lowers blood pressure

CA to close last nuclear power plant

Afterward: I spoke to one of my blog readers tonight and he thought that I was making up these headlines. No! No.! No! These headlines are those which I have selected from numerous Internet news sites and which have struck my fancy ... be they weird, funny, scary, ironic, etc. None are made up. If you wish to see the story behind any headline, just copy and paste it into Google or another search engine and you will likely get the details. If I put them in as links, I would be a news aggregator which I choose not to be. Have fun with just this little capsule of our strange world!

Headlines

Iranian cleric: Immoral women are causing climate change

60% drop in newspaper jobs as online takes over

UN: America needs 'robust gun regulations'

NASA unveils electric powered plane ...

AR-15 sales surge among gays and lesbians

Curry wife slams 'rigged' NBA

USA powering up first nuclear reactor in decades

U.S. trade deficit highest in 7 years

McCain unleashes: Obama 'directly responsible' for Orlando

Obamacare premiums to skyrocket again

Record cold Antarctica ... -112 degrees F.

Growing trend for stressed workers, using BONDAGE to relax

Taliban using 'honey trap' boys to kill Afghan police

Headlines

I have found the following informative and/or humorous headlines on-line just over the last few days ... and deemed them interesting enough to collect them into a blog entry. I may be offering you more of same in the future:

European plan to reduce CO2 emissions actually increases them

Traffic lights in sidewalk so smart phone users don't have to look up

Family has first girl after 101 years of boys

Four out of five criminals in European capital [Copenhagen] are foreigners

Burgler sues homeowner who shot him

Obama administration fails to screen Syrian refugees' social media

Rising CO2 levels greening Earth

Dog dies of exhaustion after rescuing 7 people from Ecuador quake

Venomous spider bites man's penis

Just 37% of High School Seniors Prepared for College in Math, Reading

Meat Tax Proposed [in Denmark] to Fight Climate Change

Full Steam Ahead

The Democrats have not lost any media momentum in their relentless pursuit of political victory in 2014 (and beyond).  Despite some recent unforced errors, it is still full steam ahead for this party in power.  Here is a representative sample of some recent headlines … mostly from Breitbart News:

Jason Collins to Fundraise for DNC with FLOTUS

OBAMA CIVIL LIBERTIES NOMINEE: ‘INAPPROPRIATE’ TO PROFILE FOREIGNERS FROM HIGH-RISK COUNTRIES

 

PELOSI: I PRAY HILLARY CLINTON RUNS FOR PRESIDENT

Obama Blames America For Gun Smuggling In Mexico, No Mention Of Fast and Furious

States: 'Blindsided' by plan to shift costs of 'uninsurables' to them under ObamaCare

Hagel's Pentagon Defends Unconstitutional Policy Against Soldiers Sharing Faith

O Thanks Hispanic Voters in Mexico

 

Obama Administration Intentionally Hid the Pattern of Attacks in Benghazi

 

Bill allows for $150M in grants to sign up illegal immigrants to become citizens

 

Sharpton: Benghazi Hearings 'Vast Right Wing Conspiracy'

 

DEM PARTY LEADER: SEND GOV HALEY 'BACK TO WHEREVER THE HELL SHE CAME FROM'