How's this for an amazing piece of media America-bashing? In an article on an elderly woman's birthday in Amsterdam, Reuters seizes the opportunity to shoehorn into the story a ludicrously irrelevant swipe at the U.S., from the 19th century, no less:
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch woman who swears by a daily helping of herring for a healthy life celebrated her 115th birthday on Wednesday as the oldest living person on record.
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a former needlework teacher, was born in 1890, the year Sioux Indians were massacred by the U.S. military at the Battle of Wounded Knee.
The passionate soccer fan celebrated her birthday in a nursing home in the northern Dutch town of Hoogeveen.
It's a classic specimen of a PC social announcement, one which will be taught at journalism schools to future generations of journalistic novices eager to learn how it's done. Thanks for the tip to Jonah at The Corner.
Despite the utter dopiness exhibited by the writer of the piece, it does inspire one to consider a possible career as a composer of such announcements for Reuters. It seems like easy money. Here are a few of our practice efforts in case they ask to see a resumè of our work:
Joe and Flora Dillone will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary on July 6th. They were married exactly one month before American planes, without warning, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan incinerating 150,000 people in seconds. The Dillones have six children and twenty grand and great-grandchildren.
Frank Standish will be retiring this month from New Tool and Die works of Smithville, PA. Mr. Standish has been with the company for thirty seven years starting as an apprentice in 1968 shortly after U.S. troops under Lt. William Calley massacred 128 civilian Vietnamese at a village named My Lai in a typical act of American savagery during that war.
The Upper River High School class of 2000 will be holding their fifth year class reunion next week to celebrate the anniversary of their graduation in a year fraught with historical significance. It was in that year Republican George Bush, guided by the shadowy, Rasputin-like figure of Karl Rove, stole a national presidential election from Democrat Al Gore who actually had more votes than did Bush.
You get the idea. I bet we'd win the job if we applied.
