A news helicopter has been parked over the next street to the south for the past 40 minutes. I hate that.
This morning was the first truly cool morning we’ve had since last spring: temps in the mid-70s as late as 6:30. Glorioski! I opened all the doors and windows to let—finally to let!—the fresh air drift through the house.
But noooooo… The minute you sit down to enjoy your home and your yard, you know you’re going to be buzzed by a cop helicopter or a Snoop in the Sky. As it develops, today’s intrusion is not the police chasing one of the neighborhood home invaders. It’s the “news” copter (I use the term “news” loosely) slurping up gore for the evening news. Some poor woman, having dropped off her child at the nearby charter school, drove her SUV out of the parking lot and hit another poor woman as she crossed the lot’s driveway on the sidewalk. The pedestrian was pushing a baby in a stroller and shepherding a four-year-old. She managed to get the older child out of the way, but the baby was crushed beneath the vehicle.
This is a horrible incident. Frankly, I could do without pictures of it on the evening news or in any other news media. But if we must indulge, surely it couldn’t take more than ten minutes to capture an image like this.
First, I question why it’s necessary at all to display such a thing. And second, I wonder why it’s necessary to buzz a residential neighborhood with a roaring helicopter for the better part of an hour, so as to entertain the masses with yet another lurid video of yet another traffic accident.
Mercifully, the local TV stations have given up on fielding a flock of “news” helicopters. The reason was not so merciful: couple years ago two helicopters, chasing the cops who were chasing a sh*thead who had taken off in a stolen vehicle, crashed into each other over mid-town Phoenix. Four men died so that you and I could watch the spectacle of a few cops trying to chase down a loser in a stolen junker.
We were lucky we didn’t waste more lives. The two copters crashed into a park. A large VA hospital stands adjacent to the park. A couple blocks to the north, two big high schools were in session. And the park is ringed with mid-rise office buildings and commercial strips.
After that, the stations decided to use a single common helicopter to pool their Snoop in the Sky reporting, which helps substantially with the crazy-making noise level. Before then, we would have had four choppers hanging over our homes for an hour. Chances are that decision was made more for financial reasons than out of consideration for the locals’ peace or because management felt much concern for future employees’ safety. At any rate, at least one small benefit accrued after that hideous and heart-breaking accident.
What does this have to do with things monetary? I don’t know. Probably very little. Except that cop and news helicopter racket is part of life in the big city. Retiring to a small town would have the benefit that few small-town news stations can afford a helicopter, and neither can small municipalities. Life with less affluence could mean life with less noise pollution. How lovely it would be to enjoy fall’s first truly pretty morning, without having the peace shattered by gawkers on the wing!