Early this morning everyone’s deep down fear of being chomped upon by a large hungry animal with teeth the size of a child’s foot materialized when a shark mistook a swimmer for a seal.  The fatal attack occurred at Solana Beach at around 7:30 AM when retired Veterinarian Dr. Dave Martin was swimming with a group of triathlon trainees. The shark, according to a report released by the Associated Press swam up from below and took a bite out of Martin’s leg.  Martin was rushed to shore by fellow swimmers but died as a result of his injuries only about twenty minutes after the attack occurred.

On the Google News homepage this morning the shark attack was listed as the second top story underneath the article about Syria building a secret nuclear program.  I have to say that my heart skipped a few beats.  Sharks, nuclear weapons-I mean what’s next flying tanks?  I understand that the state of the world is not exactly peaches and cream at the current moment…but I mean we are already terrified of losing our houses as a result of the mortgage crisis, we are concerned about losing our jobs because of the state of the economy, we are confronted with a worldwide food shortage, we are at war with…you got it, terrorists and now Syria is quite possibility stockpiling up a nuclear weapons program while renegade sharks are picking people off for breakfast?  Where’s some valium when you need it?  Oh that’s right, healthcare premiums just went up.

I don’t want to fall into some sort of delusion, painting the picture of a perfect utopia, but it would be nice if the media could throw us a few bones here and there.  I mean they can make up a few stories if they have to.  Oh, that’s right they were already partaking in the art of “bending” the truth when the Pentagon used military analysts working for U.S. television networks to drum up favorable coverage of the war in Iraq, many of whom actually had ties to military contractors, who surprise, surprise are you know, making heaps of money off of this war.  So as a result, plenty of bad news revolving around the war was most likely made to seem like it was good news, which later was uncovered to be not really news, but instead what some might label as a sort of propaganda.  Meanwhile, I think the situation in Iraq sort of speaks for itself being that after five years we are in are in fact still there and no it is not a delusion, stop rubbing your eyes.

But I got off track.  What we really need is some good news…you know a story involving puppies or kittens, or better yet, puppies and kittens.  And thanks to the New Zealand Herald, famous for its many stories on sheep, hedgehogs and other four legged creatures, we do.  In the county of Des Moines, the Herald reported, a dog nursed nine orphaned kittens after their mother died. Well what do you want from a country with a plenty of grass land and an extremely low crime rate?  I for one prefer the cute animal story to you know those about nuclear weapons and sharks.  But to be fair the latter two subjects are much more newsworthy than I would guess one that involves cute furry baby animals.

For anyone who actually cares the third story on Google’s news homepage was: “Clinton Too Obsessed to Call it Quits,” which depending on whether or not you are a Democrat might be considered “scary” enough, but truthfully is no where near the level of queasiness brought on by shark attacks and nuclear weapons.  Either way it has not been exactly a month filled with bright sun-shiny stories, so for a dose of something a bit less worrying and bit more heavy on the cuteness factor check in with the New Zealand Herald.  I can pretty much guarantee you they are not stockpiling nuclear weapons, they don’t have an extra long and excruciating democratic primary catfight going on and the last time there was a shark attack off of New Zealand’s coast a troupe of dolphins saved the swimmers at risk by surrounding them and creating a barrier from potentially piercing jaws.  Just don’t go storming the New Zealand Consulate.