The other day a television newscast seemed more surreal than usual.
BBC News relegated _two_ stories about imminent human extinction to
the tiny crawl at the bottom of the screen:
Nuclear annihilation just one miscalculation away, UN chief warns- BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-62381425
Climate change: More studies needed on possibility of human extinction - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62378157
This made me think of John Lennon's opening line in "A Day in the Life":
To: "A Day in the Life" [John Lennon, Paul McCartney, 1967]
The Beatles - A Day In The Life Lyrics [Original Audio]
https://youtu.be/iSMu5Juyedk
https://youtu.be/usNsCeOV4GM
The Beatles- A Day in the Life (instrumental cover)
https://youtu.be/I5Cx1Mg0kLg
VERSE 1
I read the crawl on BBC,
About a climate change scenario:
The boffins think that there could be,
A chance we humans go,
So we're not here no mo'.
Or there could be nuclear war.
We didn't notice that the world had changed.
Warheads can even up the score.
But who may be deranged?
Nobody is really sure what carelessness could hold in store.
VERSE 2
Annihilation in the crawl.
The BBC has bigger fish to fry.
I guess they have a lot of gall.
They make us want to look,
Dangling on a hook.
Just what did I turn on?
INTERLUDE
Got up; got out of bed.
Saw bin Laden's buddy dead.
Clicked around until I caught the drift.
But then I shift 'n' catch it on the crawl:
Intimations that we all,
Mightn't make it past the fall.
Found my way downstairs and had some tea.
Is catastrophe our destiny?
Oyyyyyy...
VERSE 3
I saw the news today, oh boy.
The mainland Chinese might assassinate,
The U.S. Speaker, though she's coy.
She knows she will annoy,
Very many Commie Chinese apparatchiks with her ploy.
How soon will we be gone?
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)