Recently, I have been thinking about starting a new news commentary blog. I read a lot of news, I figured, and I probably have a lot to say about them, but who will listen? Then of course I realized that this was precisely the reason I originally created Ennui- just to get that great big pot of crazy off my chest. Sadly, maybe because I have not been following news as carefully as I should have, I feel like it has been a long time since I’ve seen a news segment fully worthy of an extended Ennui-esque commentary. So imagine my relief when I came across Us Weekly’s Exclusive: Angelina Jolie Not a Fan of Obama.

Last week, a panel of doctors at the Center for Disease Control announced that they have discovered that some people have a natural immunity to swine flu. These people are the elderly. Yes, my good friends, apparently many old-timers can’t get the H1N1. This is shocking and frankly a tad appalling to me. I like old people, but the idea that their bodies are better apt to handle a “deadly new virus” seems to run contrary to any common sense I thought I might have gained over the years.

The old adage of the newspaper trade – when there was such a thing, before the advent of USA Today, the Internet, and short attention spans – has been that “Dog Bites Man” is hardly news, but “Man Bites Dog” is a headline home run. But what if a dog bites a mountain lion, and the man does nothing, except watch both animals bleed all over one another, while they battle over his human destiny? Is that news, worthy of a front-page story? If you’re the L.A. Times, it’s worthy of the front-page section, replete of photos and filling all of five paragraphs in the “California Briefing” section nine pages deep.

Times are tough – hell, it’s a recession. Investment bankers have found themselves shunned from financial circles and social gatherings; those without clothes have found barrel prices sky-rocketing. Recent graduates have seen the American dream shattered – I’ve pulled furiously at so many bootstraps in the past ten months that I’ve kicked straight through three good pairs of boots. But there’s one occupation under more duress than any other, tides rising higher as more and more walk the plank. That’s right, I’m talkin’ pirates.

Here at Ennui News Headquarters, we spend a lot of time of time trying to keep the making of history straight. Every day remarkable things happen somewhere in the world- old leaders die, new leaders are born, recessions come and go, drunken men jump out of 5th story windows to escape their nagging wives, twice. These goings on seem important, but as any avid Will Smith connoisseur can tell you, no news is important in comparison to aliens. The thing is, we are ready for them. And by we, I mean Kazakhstan.

Researchers reported Wednesday that prescription drug residue has been found in the tissue of fish inhabiting the areas around five waste-water treatment plants in the U.S. The chemicals found in our small gill-breathing friends included medicines for high cholesterol, blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression. Coincidentally, the study pointed out that the tested fish were models of good health and serene temperament.

…Just joshing, people, drugs don’t work on fish! Duh! Although the report published by the journal “Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry,” did say that even small amounts of prescription drugs could harm aquatic life, the details of said harm were not elaborated on. Or maybe they were, I just sort of skimmed it.

This Tuesday, Obama delivered his second primetime televised speech to the nation. Here is the NY Times’ main criticism of this speech and Obama’s general approach:

This was Mr. Obama as more enervating than energizing, a reminder of the way he could be in his early days as a presidential candidate, before he became defined by rapturous crowds. “He doesn’t seem to emote any real urgency or anger,” said Matthew Dowd, a former Republican strategist who has often been complimentary of the new president. “So at times it comes across as a bit distant and intellectual. Joe Trippi, a Democratic consultant, said: “He said all the right things. But sometimes his confidence makes him seem flat.”

Looking through the news today in hopes of finding something funny or simply ludicrous to talk about, my normal sites and blogs revealed nothing of hope so I turned to the Fox News website instead. Now, let me point out that I love Fox News. I love it for all the wrong reasons. Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are beyond belief for so many reasons—and a little piece of me truly did die when I found out he is a New York Times #1 bestseller.

When I saw that the Fox News website has a section devoted to evolution, I was flabbergasted. There is a joke here. There are a lot of jokes there, really, and you can figure them out for yourselves.

On February 24, the Hearst Corporation announced the bleak future of the San Francisco Chronicle, chronicling losses in ad revenue, poor circulation and lamenting that it might have to shut the paper down. A mere three days later, the Rocky Mountain News published its last print edition. And on March 17–on St. Patrick’s Day, of all days–the Seattle Post-Intelligencer met its own ironically unlucky fate: it too said goodbye to the print world.

But of course, I’m not telling you anything new. In case you’ve been living under a hole, the future of journalism is largely in question.

A few weekends ago I was meeting up with an old friend with the intention of spending a night on the town and doing it on the cheap. During our undergraduate days, our benefactors and part-time jobs gave us enough to eat out on weekends and buy fun things like video games and beer. However, even with the support we were- as most every college student is- flat broke.

From my perspective a lack of disposable income lends to creativity. Would piracy be rampant if everyone could easily afford the media they desired? I doubt it, and I also doubt that in better circumstances I would have ever designed the groundbreaking equation [11%ABV x 50000mL / $9] that conclusively proved Boxed Wine to be the best bang for your buck.