Argh. The local "news" reports aggravate me sometimes.

There was a stabbing in my town night before last. And the guy who did it is apparently on the loose. Now, it's true, 90% of these kind of things, it's that the victim and the perpetrator know each other and have some kind of history - a feud, a drug deal gone bad, the victim testified against the perpetrator - something.

But thinking about the Gaffney, South Carolina serial-killer (who was killed by police in a standoff over the weekend), and the fact that no information along the lines of "the killer knew the suspect," I'm a little worried.

One of the local channels did a brief story, and at the end noted that there had been a SECOND stabbing in town, last night. And then they showed the "stock footage" they do for a developing story, the street-signs for the street intersection nearest to where the crime happened.

This second stabbing happened one street to the east, and two streets up, of the intersection I live near. Close to me. Too close.

No other information - no "police do not think the two crimes are linked," no "family members are being held for questioning," nothing.

So I flipped over to the OTHER local news channel.

And watched. And waited. And began to twitch.

Oh, you might be relieved to know that Michael Jackson is still dead. And that his family is still fighting over custody of his kids. And that that NFL player was killed by the girlfriend he was cheating on his wife with, because she suspected he was cheating on her with someone else. Oh, and OH NOES OBESITY! More Americans are fat than ever were before. And the poor economy is leading more people to abandon pets in shelters. Oh, and if you live alone, you're lots more likely to develop Alzheimer's, apparently.

NONE OF THIS IS NEWS.

What I WANT to know is this: is it safe for me to leave my house, or will I be set upon by someone with a knife?

Not a WORD breathed of that. Then they shifted to a segment advertising a local "oxygen bar" (the heck?).

So, I took a deep breath, opened the door, walked to my garage, and got my car out. Obviously I was not stabbed or I would not be writing this.

But it FRUSTRATES me: is not the point of having a "local" channel to broadcast news that is happening "locally"? If I wanted to hear extended speculation on Jackson's estate, or discussion of 20 year olds who date married football players, or scaremongering health news: well, there's CNN, and CNN headline, and MSNBC, and Fox News, and I think a couple of others?

So I don't know. I felt the same way a couple of years ago when we were having regular escapes from the local county jail (which is about 7 blocks from me the opposite direction of where the stabbing this morning was).

And I will observe this is one of those times where I'm not so nuts about living alone: oh, don't get me wrong, I think sharing a house with another person would mostly drive me nuts. But when there's some danger lurking, it would be kind of nice to have someone else around - and again, I realize that "someone else," no matter how big or how strong he might be would not be much help against an armed intruder, still, there's something to be said for someone kind of knowing (more or less) where you are, and whether you might be in Mortal Peril or not.

(Hm. Maybe we need to get a series of Weasley-clocks for my department chair so she could know where each of us was, at least as regards the Mortal Peril part of it.)

Other than that: Yesterday was one of those 12-hour days. Taught all morning, had a brief break to inhale lunch and prep lab, then went out into the field yesterday afternoon with students, then had a loooooooooooong evening meeting.

I do not like summer Wednesdays.