Friday, March 16, 2007

Bad News for People Who Prefer the Bad News First

Came across this spoof article I did several years ago on a forum with some of my kids. Please note 'spoof'. It's not real. Don't call a press conference!
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A new study, jointly sponsored by the UP, AP, CBS News, Reuters, and the International Bureau for Useless Studies and funded through grants from the Pew, Gallup, & Inane Polling Agencies as well as the UN Center for Resolutions on Meaningless Information, shows that those who take the Good News first, then the Bad suffer no adverse effects, as is commonly assumed.

The lead surveyor for this study, a libel-avoidingly nameless former news anchor (moonlighting for carreer options) noted that 87 of the 158 respondents seemed ok after receiving both the good news and the bad, no matter what the order.

Those who received the good news first, then the bad news, reported feelings of euphoria and elation, quickly followed by deflation and a "thump, thump, thump, thump" flapping sound. Bad news firsters simply seemed to ignore the bad news and concentrate on the rosy outlook of the good news - only to experience the cold, hard slap in the face of reality some time later (which is roughly tantamount to the thumping-flapping feeling on the International Scale of Stress Induced Ill Senses or ISSIIS).

Those who attempted the simultaneous assimilation of both the good news and the bad news as well as a series of mild to strong electrical pulses to the frontal lobe experienced extreme convulsions that could only be controlled by the consumption of several small town newspapers, which really contained no news at all. Scientists attribute this to the "no news is good news" theory of seizure modification, which was popularized of late by Marcel Marceau and other lesser known mimes throughout Western nations. Further studies are expected on the long-term effects of newsprint digestion.
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So do you want the good news first or the bad?

2 comments:

  1. Hmm, not sure where you are going with this... just a play on the "you want the good news or the bad news", a commentary on the "if it bleeds it leads" mantra in American maninstream media as discussed in Neal Postman's "Amusing Ourselves To Death" or a commentary on evangelism?

    Well, it made me think of evangelism. I just posted a long discourse on evangelism on my blog and only AFTER did I read this: what a shame, since you gave me some good thoughts on evangelism.

    It seems that a lot of folks only want to highlight the "good news" of the Gospel: abundant life, cool Christians to hang out with, awesome worship, relevant answers to life's questions.

    Others only wnat to highlight the "bad news": "you are a sinner who is going to burn in hell if you don't believe in Jesus!!!!".

    But, unless you tell both the good and the bad news: "you are a sinner headed for hell, but Jesus will forgive your sins if you believe and obey" you are not really evangelizing.

    Not sure if that's where you were going, but it sent me there!

    Salut.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I wasn't really going anywhere particular with that. Just some random goofiness from a few years ago.

    ReplyDelete

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