The BS News

I miss being in touch with current news. I wasn't ever really one to follow news very closely, but it was nice to be able to get a dose while cooking dinner in the evening. Being unable to read or understand average speech (way too fast for me still), I don't get the snipets that I did at home.

Most of my access to news comes in the form of CBC streaming audio, but because of the time difference the live streams that are on at convenient times of the day for me tend to be weird overnight shows. I also enjoy The Hour (a CBC TV program that airs episodes - without commercials!! - online... here's link). Every once in a while we virtually tune-in to comedy shows like the Rick Mercer Report (link here), The Daily Show (click here) and the Colbert Report (another link). The comedy shows are good because of their entertainment value, but they also toss in just enough current topics to help us feel a little more connected than otherwise.

Shawn brings the Japan Times home every now and again. It is a Japanese newspaper in English. It tends to have loads of US news - we don't read much about Canada in there, but at least we can get an accurate weather forecast.

I do manage to look at the evening news now and again when I am on the cardio machines in my gym. They usually have lots of food content - broadcasting from some kitchen somewhere, that kind of thing. They are also quick to skip past the "bad" stories, you know chalk outline in a parking lot or shot of a girls bike abandoned in a park then cut to mom crying, but always spend lots of time and replays on things like a small deer trapped on a rocky cliff somewhere or a woman who breeds persian cats. The best part about looking at the news at the gym (I say looking because I definately can't read the subtitiles) is putting my own story line to the images they show. The news show is actually called "BS News", so I try to attach fittingly BS stories to them. Really, who in the world do they hire as translators in this country!