Interpreting the News

(In case you didn't notice, this is the second BLOG in two days, so don't assume you are caught up when you read this one.)

In the mornings, Adam plays the radio while he is making breakfast. In the evenings, I often listen to the news as I ferry the kids to and from karate. The kids listen along too, but they often don't understand the episodic nature of the news stories, and they blend them together, sometimes deriving funny interpretations out of otherwise tragic newsstories.

Case in point: this morning, we heard a story of 180 trapped Chinese miners that are feared drowned after a levee broke and flooded their mine. This story was followed by one about how China is bracing for an eminent typhoon. Gwen looked up from her breakfast and asked, "What is a typhoon?"

Adam replied, "It the same thing as a hurricane, except it is in the Pacific."

Gwen asked, "So, the miners were drowned by a hurricane?"

A similar situation came up a couple of weeks ago when six miners were trapped by a cave-in in Utah; this was a few days after a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis. We first heard a story about how the CEO of the Utah mine kept insisting that an earthquake caused the cave-in, although experts disagree, then another story about how authorities did not believe that the bridge collapse in Minneapolis was caused by a terrorist attack.

Gwen piped up, "So, they think an earthquake caused the bridge to collapse?"

"No, honey, wrong story," I said. "The mine owner thinks an earthquake caused the mine collapse, but authorities disagree."

"They think the mine collapsed because of a terrorist attack, then?" she asked.

"No, they don't. That was the bridge story, except they don't think a terrorist attack caused that, either."

Exasperated, Gwen said, "I don't know why you listen to the news -- it doesn't make any sense!"


By the way, that tooth is still hanging in there (literally!) Gwen and Xav have been having a lot of philosophical questions about the tooth fairy ...