Harry´s Blog

CNN Opens its Doors to Old Time Religion

After the Times of New York took on that eloquent conservative pundit Bill Cristol, CNN, not to be outdone, invited babe in the woods Tony Snow and tough gal Laura Ingraham onto their sacred secular.

Unfortunately, George W.’s former veracious mouthpiece did not heed Bill O’Reilly’s candid warning: “I mean, that’s the devil over there….You can’t go into the pagan throne over there.”

Here’s Snow pooh-poohing Darwin: “The evolutionary theory, like ID (intelligent design), isn’t verifiable or testable. It’s pure hypothesis.”

And Laura expounds on elite Americans: “They think our patriotism is stupid. They think our churchgoing is stupid. They think having more than two children is stupid…. They think owning a gun is stupid. They think our abiding belief in the goodness of America and its founding principles is stupid.”

Yes, ladies and gents, God is coming to atheistic CNN. Make no bones about it, these two stalwart promoters of Christian principles are going to tirade some good old time religion to CNN’s cynical atheists and their cynical atheistic listeners!

Newscasters

I wondered about the decline in announcers. I thought that it was just part of the deterioration that is occurring in giant strides on all fronts. But there seems to be method to it. A BBC man in Vienna explained it this way: Previously newscasters talked down to you, but now they talk directly to you.

The announcers of yore spoke mellifluous English of either the British or American variety. They had information to convey to you, their descriptions had a literary quality and they brought a warm sense of humor into play. And God knows, humor is needed to make this war-torn world bearable!

Some people might appreciate learning and being entertained at the same time, but others might not like having to perk up their ears. An articulate and eloquent man or women might make you feel inferior if you lacked his or her verbal dexterity.

Egalitarianism if the way of the future!

Don’t think that nepotism is responsible for bad pronunciation or bad delivery!

Here’s how the new batch of announcers are being hired: Scouts are sent to search for them on the streets. If they see someone who looks like he’s never turned the pages of a book, he or she is stopped and asked: “Sir (or madam), have you ever read a book?” If the answer is no, the pitch is made. “We’ve got a wonderful job for you!”

Interviewers are picked the following way:  Scouts get the telephone numbers of housewives who are homebodies. They make their calls, and if the homebody lets them in, they enter to make their pitch. A high, squeaky voice is no deterrent, nor is non-regional accent. A legitimate accent or a brogue or a burr is, of course, an impediment. If the scouts see an open book on the table, unless it’s pulp fiction, they high-tale it out.

However, once in a while, some humor does creep in, albeit involuntarily. Just recently a new- type announcer said that the Rolling Stones had gone down in the “anals” of rock history. She may have mispronounced annals, but by doing so, she got to the core of rock - and provided a chuckle.

Digital Ventriloquism

Let me start out by stating that every nation can boast about the fairness of its fair sex, albeit that some keep their women from competing by shrouding them from head to toe in public, so that no stranger can get an eyeful.

Forgive me for being prejudiced and chauvinistic, but I say that the most beautiful beauties of all are American beauties. I give them gold and the Italian and Spanish varieties get silver and bronze, respectively. There is only one fly in the ointment - the voices. Italian and Spanish women mostly have low, rasping voices. They emulate the ahooga horn as it used to be blown in jalopy traffic jams in days of yore. I’m not old enough to remember that but I can imagine it. The Spanish are the fastest in the world with an inimitable rat-tat-tat quality that cannot be superseded in velocity.

The American variety is high pitched and off key or as flat as can be. This is not inherent to the language, since the British women’s voices tend to be yummy and swallow-y. Of course the British would insist that theirs is a different language and that the language spoken State-side does not even stem from English.

The word siren does not accurately describe this sound, there’s a distortion of the word that is used in the two “Bs,” namely Brooklyn and the Bronx, which is more onomatopoetic. The word that accurately describes this sound is “sireen,” which rhymes with queen.

The highest pitch is reached when an engagement for marriage is announced in the midst of a bevy of peers. The shrieking and screeching transcends the sound barrier and is emitted during a ritualistic flapping of arms and high hopping.

These sounds, as well as the Latin low ones, I posit are one of the reasons for a decrease in heterosexuality, and I offer a solution by providing new sultry low voices via digital ventriloquism. The voices could be varied like a cell phone ring. Every woman could choose the one that she thought best suited her, and fewer men would be driven away by atonality.

Now I know that I am tampering and tinkering with natural sounds in favor of unnatural ones. But in this day and age where plastic surgery, transexuality and cloning run rampant, I say so what! Who cares whether a smooth, creamy voice comes from the vocal chords or a computer?

- Herbert Kuhner