DanMargarita.com

The story that I saw on the crawl the other day was one in which an elderly German woman was accidentally killed when a "trick" bear fell on her in a nursing home. I'm not making this up. I have searched high and low through newspapers and the internet and have not been able to find any other corroboration of this story, which is why I question my eyesight not to mention my sanity. Well, I often question that anyway.

Of course this death is a tragedy for the woman, her family and friends, but let's face it---for the rest of us it may be the most humorous demise since the "Chuckles the Clown dies" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which said clown was dressed as a giant peanut when shucked to death by a rogue elephant. Actually it's funnier because that was merely a fictional death, whereas this German death was real, or so I think.

I've read that studies have shown that bringing pets such as dogs or cats into hospitals or nursing homes has proven to be very good therapy for patients. Perhaps someone in Germany read these same studies and figured the bigger the pet, the better the therapy. I have no doubt that there's nothing the elderly love more than seeing a bear coming towards them.

I'm trying to picture the thought process behind the decision to bring a bear into a nursing home.

"Vell Hans, vee have brought singers, dancers and magicians in to entertain our elderly clients. Zere can only be von thing left zat zay vood vant to see---a trick bear!"

I'm guessing there was probably some miscommunication at the meeting with someone innocently asking "How 'bout a beer?"

Of course hindsight is 20-20 and one can say that the bear's performance was flawed, unless of course, the trick was to fall on an old woman and kill her, in which case the trick was a success.

The crawl is not the only thing that bothers me with TV news today.

Am I the only one annoyed with the standing anchor craze? Are we supposed to think that we just happened to tune in to a bunch of folks standing around the water cooler, who as luck would have it, are discussing world news, sports and weather? Somebody please get these people a desk and a chair.

If they're going to go with the water cooler look, why not have them give water cooler news?

"Good evening, I'm Natalie Jacobson. I've just learned that our news director is fooling around with the wife of one of the writers."

If you want a casual look, why not take it one step further?

Fade in: Voiceover:

"Now for the evening news. Here's your host John Smith."

The camera focuses on several stalls in a men's room. We see the feet and lowered pants of our anchor, the sports guy, and weatherman.

Anchor:

"Good evening. Another attack in Israel tonight has left three dead. With more on this story, here's Andrea Wilson from the ladies room."

Unless we viewers can get together and undertake a massive letter writing campaign to convince the networks to change things, we?ll just have to grin and bear it.