I'm sorry, Emily cannot write her column this week.
She's too busy falsifying documents, seducing 13-year-old boys, selling out her 550 words to No Child Left Behind and stealing fetuses from pregnant women. Because this, apparently, is what people do.
There's a joke among journalists about a man and a dog. The joke is that if a dog bites a man, this is not news. It's suburbia. If a man bites a dog however, this is news. Because it is unusual. Because men don't usually bite dogs. It is not, apparently, something that people do.
But the question today's media beg is this: What happens if one man, say Ryan, bites a dog, Rufus. Then another, say Scott, bites a different dog, Sparky. Is this news? What will newspapers say?
They will call this an epidemic.
They will say that everyone suddenly chews on dogs and that a momentous change in canine-human relations has taken place. They will pay experts to say things like this on television: \This significant phenomenon is related to global warming,"" or ""this alarming development clearly foreshadows the morphing of two very different species."" Things of that sort.
And you know what people will do? They will believe the experts, because the experts have degrees and gray hair and strong, confident voices. And after they believe the experts, they will realize that they are not part of this strange trend. That they are not trendy.
Then, these people will grab their angel-faced little pups, or their neighbors' little pups, or maybe their friends' pups and they will pull them close and then they will bite them.
And then they will feel satisfied. Because they will feel like part of humanity. Because biting dogs is, apparently, what people do.
This year, Emily hasn't read too much about puppy munching. But she has seen a lot about older females seducing their young male students. The first time she heard about it, she thought it was unusual. But after it happened again, the experts explained it was becoming more and more common.
One expert matter-of-factly reported it happened because older women subconsciously hope to ensure their offspring would have a healthy, living parent for as long as they could. Another warned with equal conviction that all women teachers were going insane.
They both agreed that these two cases meant seducing adolescent boys was becoming a thing that people do.
In her own quest to not be left behind, Emily is right now consorting with several middle-aged people in suits about promoting a positive image of the media and the experts the media pays to back up claims about epidemics. That is why she cannot present her work today.
Because she is learning how to endorse fetus-napping experts and dog-biting experts.
Because sacrificing journalistic integrity for money is, apparently, something that people do.
What is it they say? When a dog bites, this is not worthy of the news. When a man bites, this is worthy of the news. When two men bite, this is worthy of a cultural revolution.
ewinter@wisc.edu.
