It could be from The Onion

But it isn’t. We should be worried about this.

The Onion is, of course, the very funny collection of made-up news stories celebrating the mundane and ridiculous in life as if it was news. Onion headlines usually tell a non-story like “Man disappointed that crackers are stale” and then elaborates with the typical ‘stuff’ of a news article; the ‘who, what, where, why and how’ of it all. Quotes are given, neighbors are interviewed… the whole thing is a hilarious parody of mainstream news sources.

Or so we think. But recently, looking at the articles/headlines that actually ARE mainstream news, I’m not so sure one hasn’t been mixed with the other. For example, and I quote from MSNBC’s main news page from June 15th:

• Wade says knee is feeling ‘a lot better’
• Cuban is lucky and good
• Don’t get too excited, Heat fans
• Heroin users dying for a high across US
• Why we sneeze in the sun
• Tips for a great backside
• Bigfoot alive in Minnesota? (at least they had the decency to put a question mark at the end of this one!)
• Bush apologizes for glasses faux pas
• Big Ben vows to wear helmet while riding cycle

This is important stuff?

I get off on this theme every once in a while, I know. But a couple of days ago there was an article about how investors have lost some $3 trillion over the last 2 weeks because things the new Fed chairman said threw the market into a tailspin. (I'm one of those investors, and it wasn't pretty.) I can't find that article today at all. Today all is rosy on Wall Street and the Fed guy is whistling a slightly different tune. Those were headlines too.

So what is real? What is important? What should I be attending to? It is ALL from The Onion.