IT is not news when a dog bites a man. It is when the man bites the dog. That was what the late Republic News Editor Joe Logarta taught us in our news writing class.
So what was the report about a mad dog biting 21 people doing in the front pages of the local newspapers yesterday? What was it that made it merit banner headline treatment?
The obvious answer is that it was because of the sheer number of victims. And also because it was not any ordinary dog but a mad dog.
In many neighborhoods, stray dogs own the streets. You avoid getting near them because you fear they would bite you. Fortunately, in most dogs, their bark is stronger than their bite.
But why should we be exposed to to the danger of being bitten by a dog, whether rabid or not? Isn’t the government supposed to round up these askals and confine them in the city pound?
The recent biting incident is a wake up call. Please, dear sirs, do what you are supposed to do about these dogs and put a little more meaning to the concept of the protection of life and safety of the taxpaying public and their families.
u2022••
Donald Trump spent the first day of his US presidency lying and picking a quarrel with the media, most newspapers wryly reported yesterday. The bone of contention was the estimate on the number of people attending Trump’s inauguration and the supposed attempt of the media to drive a wedge between Trump and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The complaint against the media had a familiar ring to it. I felt like I’ve heard it before, in a recent past, said by a different president in a different setting. Was Trump plagiarizing another head of state like his wife, Ivanka, plagiarized former First Lady Michelle Obama during the US presidential campaign?
But why should Trump fret about attendance in his inauguration? The figure that matters is the number of electoral votes he and his opponent Hilary Clinton garnered respectively in the elections. After his victory, any other number is irrelevant and immaterial.
Or is Trump insecure because he knows that he lost the popular vote? But if such were the case shouldn’t he be reaching out to those who rejected him? Shouldn’t his thrust be to make his fellow Americans believe that he can and intends to unify them after a very divisive election?
Like many others, I had always looked up to the American model in appreciating the value of an election to a democracy. Like them, I have oftentimes grumbled why we could not seem to reach the level of maturity of the American electorate, who, in contrast to us, readily accept the results of the election no matter how hard-fought it was.
I’m not grumbling anymore. The people who taught us democracy are not any better than us after all. Thanks to Donald Trump.