When bad is good.

As you may know, The Guitarman likes to read his morning Sun Times cover to cover before he has to step into the fracas that is his life with a two teenager household. Whatever arguments or annoyances await, I at least have the solace of my 30-45 minutes of just me, my coffee, and my paper. And those infernal reading glasses. The wife prefers to get her news from one of two sources: the TV, and me. So it was the latter today, as I am relating story after story of negativity to her and she comments, "Can't you give me any good news?" Sure I said, and proceeded to turn back to the sport section to mention the Blackhawks impressive 7 goal performance, and the record setting 6 RBI major league debut of the Cubs Starlin Castro. That's where the only good news is these days.

So a quick check of my usually thin Saturday edition reveals 29 articles, not including the always rosy sports section. Of the 29, 7 I considered indifferent, 4 I put in the "good" news category, leaving me with 18 pieces that are for the most part, bad news. Metra chief commits suicide, pit bull kills woman's dog, Philadelphia landlord sentenced from a 20 year peeping tom career, another cop gets off, disgraced department heads resign, Illinois house still can't pass a budget, 8-year old chained to bed in 2 day old diapers, the gulf oil spill, the list goes on and on and on. Depressing. If I wanted to feel depressed I'd go watch "Leaving Las Vegas" again. I read to stay informed, and all I get these days is pissed off. I didn't even mention the commentary by a Chicago lawyer and judge, who both contend that my Scumbag of the Month winner Cook County Judge Thomas Gainer Jr. was following the law when he let off that drunk cop for vehicular homicide due to false arrest. It shouldn't matter because of some technicality. Two guys are dead because he was drunk, and he will get his job back.

And the good news? It would be nice to read, "Springfield passes campaign reform AND passes a budget in an election year," or "Chicago to offer free job training to inner city youth, or "Inventor of a flying car that runs on water will share his technology with the world." It's gonna happen, I know it. But our "good" news is actually headlined by Michelle Obama's tribute to her mommy, and previous bad news turning good. It's encouraging that the woman from Ireland that was beaten with a bat has come out of her coma, but she is where she is because of a bat wielding loser with no soul.

A friend had an idea that he would create a publication that would only print positive stories, leaving the daily grime to the big news outlets. That's noble, but I scoffed. There might not be enough to print a front page. But it's all good to the newspapers, after all, the bad stuff brings in the green stuff.