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Brooks Peterson

Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com

Monday, March 27, 2000

You need us, whether you know it or not

If you will permit me, I propose to explore a theme dear to my heart: why you should buy and regularly read the newspaper.
   I realize this smacks of special pleading. But bear with me.
   There is of course the standard argument: Your daily newspaper keeps you informed about the world around you - here in Corpus Christi (home of the Incredible Disappearing Columbus Fleet) and in the great world Out There, where people like Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and the Spice Girls are doing all sorts of important things. And let's face it: Those guys in the Other Media just can't offer you that kind of in-depth coverage.
   (Note: This is not a slam at the electronic-journalism community. No indeed. In fact, we hang out there ourselves with our caller.com Internet presence. That makes it possible, ahem, for us to get breaking news out ahead of the pack. But I have often wished we could develop the kind of zip and showmanship our electronic brethren bring to their craft. I occasionally daydream about putting together a Weekly Opinion Blitz, in which members of the Editorial Board would pontificate, bloviate and exchange high-fives. It'll be tough to make this thing fly in print, but I'm working on it.)
   That's only scratching the surface, though. There are as many arguments as Ricky Martin has groupies. Consider, for instance, that your paper offers gainful employment to individuals - like me - who might otherwise be constrained to compete with you in the workplace. And if that were the case, well, who knows? I coulda been, oh, say, a personal-injury attorney. It might be me driving that Jaguar Vanden Plas instead of you.
   The real clincher, though - at least for me - is the endless entertainment value your daily paper (any daily paper) represents. The Chuckle Quotient in this all too serious world would plummet without us.
   There are, of course, the funnies. "Zits" alone is worth the price of the paper. Whoever puts out that baby out knows male teen-agers. And the continuing presence of "Peanuts," even in re-runs, is immensely comforting.
   How about Page 2, where we run (mostly) light stuff? In last Thursday's paper, we read of the latest assault on the Teletubbies, those incredibly mawkish creatures who (purportedly) entertain America's toddlers. A while back, it was Jerry Falwell complaining that one of the creatures manifested tendencies suggesting a gay lifestyle. Now, from the left flank, critics are howling that the Teletubbies are wooing their little viewers into a fast-food lifestyle. What's a saccharine, baby-talking TV creature to do?
   Best of all, though, are the rib-splitters you just stumble across. One such appeared in last Saturday's Home & Garden section - not the place you might expect to harvest epic yuks.
   "Shut doors only scratch surface of ways to keep pets off furnishings," the headline tells us. We learn that if draping blankets and/or installing mesh gates don't suffice to keep kitty from shredding the divan, there is a new and exciting option: SOFTPAWS.
   They are, we learn, "glue-on nail caps for the front paws that are distinctively duller than a cat's natural claws." Your $14.95 gets you 30 vinyl nail caps, good for three to four months. That means, if my calculations are correct, you get to apply three sets of these things to your cat in the stipulated period.
   Laugh? I roared. I wept. I howled. You're going to tell me any self-respecting feline is going to sit there quietly and let you do this to his/her claws? You and what army? Listen, pilgrim, if you propose to take this on, you'd better alert the blood bank first. We are currently Without Cat, but I can envision just how Graham, the alley cat who adopted us years ago, would have reacted to such an indignity: He would've sliced and diced us like a Veg-A-Matic.
   Get it? You need this stuff in your life. And, if you don't mind my saying so, we're the only ones who provide it. Call now. Trained operators are standing by.
   (Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)



Brooks Peterson

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