Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The Stupidest Story You'll Read Today
Posted by Bruce VanWyngarden on Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM
One of my regular stops on the Internet trail is at Professor Hex's blog. The professor calls himself a "scholar of the strange and mysterious," and his site mainly consists of links to news accounts and stories on the web about flying saucers, bigfoot, ghosts, and other paranormal subjects.
Most of the links are interesting if you are intriqued, as I am, by weird stuff. But today, well, the ol' professor linked to one of the dumbest stories I've ever seen. It's a hilarious report by a Minnesota television station on some locals whose brooms stand up by themselves — as in they don't fall over when you stand them upright. The report is mind-bogglingly stupid faux journalism, the kind that is rampant all over the country, particularly in small markets. The formula is as follows: Raise a ridiculous question — in this case, "Standing Brooms: Is it spirits? Is it science? Is it simply the style of the brooms?" — then find "experts" to talk about it, i.e. a physics professor and a "pyschic." Simply hilarious. Trust me.
And what's even more hilarious is that it turns out that this "phenomenon" is happening all over the country. How do I know? I googled "standing brooms." Check out the headlines from local television "reports" from around the country: "Brooms Standing Up: Planets Aligning?"; "Magical Standing Broom Stuns Alabama Town"; "Standing Broom: Is It Paranormal?".
I love America. I can't wait to go home and stand up my broom. Then I'm calling Fox 13.
Comments (5)
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I also love this type of stuff. Visit the Fortean Times. It's one of my daily stops on the web. That's where I saw a story about standing brooms, not too long ago. But they also have links to lots of cool science stuff, along with the bigfoot, ABCs, etc.
Did you see the story about the 30-foot cryptid spotted swimming in a Florida canal?
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Thanks for the cool links! Anybody ever watch "Monster Quest" on one of the Discovery channels?
Monster Quest, like most shows on the Discovery/History/ETC channels, is about 10 minutes of information spread across an hour of show. They test the limits of my patience.
I agree, but still find it intriguing how they've managed to turn "not finding anything" into a cottage industry. Ghosthunters is another example.
"Shhh! Did you hear that? It sounds like someone's saying "Geeetttt ouuuuuut" in Hungarian!"
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