This woman is hopeless. But I could be wrong.

The Palo Alto Weekly carried a column written by local teacher Nancy McGaraghan that starts like this:

"Listening to the news can be dangerous to your health. Gas prices are at an all-time high and President Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low. There is seemingly no end in sight to the bad news. Consumers feel the pinch of inflation, and residents talk about a recent wave of break-ins. We worry about national security and the environment. Iraq, Iran, immigration reform, political detainees, genocide in the Sudan. And the most recent stressor: our poor health compared to other nations. Apparently, just being an American is stressful enough to be dangerous to one's health. Evidence suggests our poor health is itself stress induced. A double whammy. It's enough to make one think that Henny Penny was right: "The sky is falling. The sky is falling."

What's this leading up to you ask? This is how McGaraghan began her column about the 84th annual May Fete Parade--known locally as the children's parade. After taking the parade on a wild and inaccurate detour, the paper bizarrely titles the piece 'The merry month of May won't be highjacked by the 6 o'clock news.' Which, in fact, is exactly what just happened.