One of my regular stops on the Internet trail is at Professor Hex‘s blog. The professor calls himself a “scholar of the strange and mysterious,” and his site mainly consists of links to news accounts and stories on the web about flying saucers, bigfoot, ghosts, and other paranormal subjects.
Most of the links are interesting if you are intriqued, as I am, by weird stuff. But today, well, the ol’ professor linked to one of the dumbest stories I’ve ever seen. It’s a hilarious report by a Minnesota television station on some locals whose brooms stand up by themselves — as in they don’t fall over when you stand them upright. The report is mind-bogglingly stupid faux journalism, the kind that is rampant all over the country, particularly in small markets. The formula is as follows: Raise a ridiculous question — in this case, “Standing Brooms: Is it spirits? Is it science? Is it simply the style of the brooms?” — then find “experts” to talk about it, i.e. a physics professor and a “pyschic.” Simply hilarious. Trust me.
And what’s even more hilarious is that it turns out that this “phenomenon” is happening all over the country. How do I know? I googled “standing brooms.” Check out the headlines from local television “reports” from around the country: “Brooms Standing Up: Planets Aligning?”; “Magical Standing Broom Stuns Alabama Town”; “Standing Broom: Is It Paranormal?”.
I love America. I can’t wait to go home and stand up my broom. Then I’m calling Fox 13.
