Mea Culpa

Recently, I’ve been reminded of a event from years ago that, at the time, seemed relatively insignificant to me.

Years ago, if I happened to be on the road, I would often listen to a particular local radio station. At the top of most hours, this station regularly played “World and National News from...” In their eight minute encapsulation of the top world events, I always assumed that they had to be pretty picky- not only in what news stories they would choose to highlight, but also in how much time they could allot to any individual story. I assumed this until one day, when I paid a little more attention.

On this particular day, as I was pulling into work, I was listening to the news and after one reporter finished up his thirty second in-depth report from the middle east, he switched back to the studio anchor. The anchor led into the next story, using the same authoritative urgency as he had used to lead into the middle east story, and he said, (and I am only slightly paraphrasing), “It turns out that broccoli has even greater health benefits than originally thought. This, according to a recent scientific study. Here, with a live report, is …”

I sat there, blinking at the radio for a few minutes, trying to take this in.

I don’t know if “bizarre” is the right word, so lets just say that I found it “odd” that with the precious few minutes available to them to cover the Important News of The World, they not only felt this late breaking broccoli report needed to be covered, but that it needed to be covered “live” (“live” from where, I have no idea). Even years later, I still find it “odd”.

Anyway, as I said, recent events made me think about this traumatic period in my life, and I’m now wondering that if I had ever relayed this fascinating story to anyone, was it possible that someone or someones might have felt that I was in someway callously insulting the integrity of the broccoli? If that were the case, I would like to publicly go on record and apologize- not only to that person or persons, but also to the broccoli. It was never my intent.