Watching or reading the news can be a pretty good way of keeping up to speed with what's going on in the outside world. But sometimes getting to the real story requires you to read between the headlines.
Just last week, for example, was the news that scientists had determined that obesity is actually caused by a virus. At least, that is, in mice that are exposed to a ridiculous doses of some super rare virus. Not only that, but if you have been unfortunate enough to receive such exposure the changes that the virus causes are pretty much permanent. The between-the-headlines message there being that if you happen to suffer from obesity it's really not your fault, that you can't do anything about it anyway, that you might aswell continue consuming the same quantities of food as before because that will actually help the economy.
And then this morning we learn that there are wild Mountain Lions roaming the streets of San Mateo. At first blush, it seems like a pretty cool, exciting story about the hardiness and adaptability of wild animals to co-exist with humans. However, reading between the headlines a slightly different interpretation can be inferred. Apparently these are pretty dangerous animals that can savage a person pretty badly and potentially cause death. I think you'd need to be able to run pretty fast to get away from one. I think those obese mice would struggle to escape. As would, I suspect, a human suffering from the same 'virus'.
Faced with the choice of saving the economy verses saving my own life, I know which I'd choose.
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