Dealing with whatever it is life sends my way

Here are some things on my mind. Maybe you've been thinking about some of the same things. Or not.

Easy to open

I dread seeing those words on anything I buy. I know 5-year-olds can easily open the box containing their favorite cereal. Why can't I? Is one of the curses of being old the loss of simple skills like opening stuff labeled "Easy to open"?

The other day my wife and I were in the kitchen putting together a pot roast. As she was getting spices out of the cupboard, she handed me the bottle of Worcestershire sauce. At some point the makers of this seasoning decided to make the distinctive bottle "easier to open." The only thing worse than "easy" is "easier." Trust me.

Lots of products in containers with lids now have an extra layer of nuisance to deal with: that plastic safety band than pretty much guarantees you will (a) lose your cool when you open those dill pickles and (b) discover which tool (an ordinary steak knife) works best as you jab and poke and peel.

Coming up next ...

These are the words uttered by news anchors during regularly televised news programs. It's time for a commercial, but instead of showing the commercial, the anchorperson says, "Coming up next" and uses several minutes of air time to tell you what you are about to be told.

Did it ever occur to the brass of these news shows that using that valuable time to pass out more information would be better than telling us what we are about to be told, and then being told what we were told we would be told? You think?

May cause death

I've talked about this before. Many programs, including the evening network news, are sponsored almost exclusively by pharmaceutical companies that suggest we tell our doctors how to do their jobs.

I don't know about you, but I didn't spend all those years in medical school and residency and specialty training. I'm a simple newspaper writer. All I know about these newfangled drugs is what some slick ad agency wants me to know. That includes the disclaimer that what the ads are suggesting I consume can, in some cases, kill you. Great.

I'll remember that the next time I see my doctor. "Doc," I'll say, "can you give me a prescription for some of that stuff that might kill me? No I don't have irritable bowels, but those ads make taking a new drug sound like so much fun. Heck, what do I care if it might kill me?"

Weather reports

Once upon a time predicting the weather here in Southeast Missouri was a fairly simple system: Look west, and wait.

Cold fronts, warm fronts and stationary fronts used to be the backbone of any decent weather report. Not any more, of course. Now meteorologists have powerful computers that guess what the weather will be hours or even days from now.

What gets me, though, is the hype that most weather forecasters -- from the Weather Channel on down -- use to make you pay attention.

Yes, it's going to rain tomorrow, but it's not the end of the world. Not even likely.

I suppose weather forecasters all want to hedge their bets. After all, who is going to watch weather forecasts that are consistently wrong? So forecasters use the cover-your-you-know-what system that involves computer models and slick graphics.

"Expect the rain to start sometime after midnight and tapering off just before noon -- unless it shifts to the north. Some of the storm cells could produce severe weather, and we'll be watching that closely. If the temperature drops below 32, expect some ice on roads and sidewalks, so be careful if it turns cold. Freezing rain could develop sometime during the next week, and accumulations of ice could cause power outages."

That's the winter forecast. The summer forecast is the same, but without the ice stuff.

I know weather forecasters want to give us useful information, and sometimes they get over-hyped in the presentation. My suggestion: Take a deep breath before going on the air. Relax. Take a sip of water. Show the audience that end-of-the-world news is best left to reporters behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, which all the networks think is really, really cool.

War in Afghanistan

Which leads me to a huge pet peeve I have with network television right now. But you know what? Those folks don't care what I think. They will continue to send reporters behind enemy lines to show us the same mutilation and mayhem as might be found ... in almost any American city.

There are some real enemy lines it might be worth going behind.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.