Intergalactic News Service Launched to Aid Hapless Earth News Media

By Dutch Winzagin

Greetings Earth Denizens,

Today, in a well-meaning and yet brazenly rebellious act, I am launching the Interstellar Independent, a journal for news from around this parsec of the known universe. This is a galactic first. I am doing it against the advice of the vice regent for intergalactic affairs, my direct superior on my home planet, Udontsay, in the galaxy Saywattagin. This is because I’ve become quite a fan of Earth, and I think I might be able to assist you in avoiding what appears to be a looming catastrophe.

Not that catastrophe isn’t a natural occurrence in the universe. Usually we at the Intergalactic League of Orbiting Observers (IGLOO), have a “hands-off” policy with the planets we observe. But there are ways to circumvent catastrophe in special cases. Earth, as I think I’ve indicated, is quite special. There are no other planets in your galaxy, for instance, which have an abundance of both cats and red wine. Not to mention that there are few planets as gut-socking beautiful as yours.

In fact, it was when I was thinking about cats and catastrophe while hovering in a state of awe above Yosemite Falls in my cloaked levi-craft and sipping a glass of premium Cabernet that I finally decided to launch the Interstellar Independent.

Earth needs an intervention.

Let me explain.

I was perusing the Earth news of the day on my levi-craft’s holo-com system. I soon came across a news item which included the acronym IPCC. All three of my ears perked up because where I come from the acronym stands for Interplanetary Phalanx of Crazed Catlovers, of which I am an enthusiastic member. I hadn’t heard a peep from the Phalanx for lightyears. The whole reason I ended up on Earth as an observer has to do with the preponderance and sheer variety of cats. And red wine. And now, it seems, impending catastrophe.

The catastrophe comes in when I realized that, here on Earth, IPCC has nothing to do with cats. It stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They issued a report and was it ever a doozie! I thought the scientific data showing the impending perils of climate change would be raging across the planet, carried by every major news outlet. After all, it spells the end of the human prospect, or so it seems as one peruses the report.

But when I did a journalistic analysis of your internet, the following number of news stories came up.

IPCC report: 2

Donald Trump indictment: 12,007,344,221

Everywhere I looked the IPCC story was eclipsed by the adventures of Don the Con (this is the shorthand moniker we’ve come to use to identify this particular Earth human male). It seems Don is now running a new con in the form of announcing that he would soon be arrested for making hush money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels. In my galaxy, porn stars are the designation for suns going supernova. Quite an exhibit. Everybody wants to watch. But I digress…

It seemed quite evident to me, when this story broke, that this was a slick move by Don the Con to “get ahead of a story.” It goes like this:

Grand jury investigates man, convening every Wednesday afternoon.

Grand jury is maybe on the verge of indicting said man.

Man launches one of his big fibs: “They were coming to arrest me on Tuesday!”

But grand jury doesn’t convene until Wednesday, so they don’t indict on Tuesday.

Grand jury takes a pass and doesn’t convene after all.

Man isn’t indicted and media goes into wtf mode.

Despite this obvious time warp, the Earth News Media’s outlets and pundits ran with Don the Con’s fib like a pirate starship hitting hyper drive, as we like to say.

This is just the type of thing that has led to an emergency intervention on my part. The IPCC report predicts certain human catastrophe. And yet everyone’s attention is riveted to a porn star and a con man. There is something not functioning properly with the system of news dissemination on Earth. Important news rises and evaporates as quickly as a light particle. The most trivial news persists like plastic in a landfill.

I am sure that my vice regent will eventually come around when I explain all of this. I don’t think I’ll be recalled from my post. We’re not, after all, ignorant barbarians on Udontsay. We know when a good planet needs help.

Dutch Winzagin is a planetary observer from the planet Udontsay in the far away galaxy Saywattagin. He is a fan of Earth, an admirer of cats, and an avid devotee of red wine. His original designation was High Duke of the Winslow Clan of Saywattagin, mercifully shortened by his vice regent after having had to repeat the longer designation several times while introducing Dutch in social settings.