Taking Off The Muzzle; Ducking The Rocket’s Red Glare

We’re back, lifting a self-imposed “cone of silence” after a difficult news run and sensing that – like a ringing telephone no one is answering – we were just adding to already-bubbling stress levels out there.

Things began to manifest last week when, in the face of some unsettling national headlines and apparent confusion over where we seem headed as a people, we noticed an increasing snarkiness on our comments boards and in our local parking lots as people began to throw punches – and anything else they could find.

The citizenship seemed prickly, primed and ready for a fight, and we saw more than a few of those pop off with people going to Duke City and combatants old enough to know better wading in like Rocky Balboa over perceived slights or slurs.

Your steadfast crew here at NEWS24/680, ever cautious and always mindful of public sentiment, minded our radar screens as commentary dropped away and visitation skyrocketed in a social media paradox of profoundly confusing implication, looking at one another and mouthing: “What the hell is going on?”

All this while our increasingly popular text alert system continued to percolate – the persistent blip, blip, blip of incoming text messages belying the readership’s apparent decision to put itself on mute.

So, you were listening, but not willing to talk.

We got it. So we shut up, too.

The beach beckoned but we gave up thoughts of abandoning ship and heading to the coast as your text inquiries continue to blip in: “What’s burning?” “Why are those sheriff’s cars going to X?” “Why is there a helicopter hovering over my house?”

We’ll admit we don’t know the answer to every question but we’ve gotten pretty good at figuring stuff out and have been proven right more often than wrong – in a landscape where most don’t want us to know anything at all.

Things began to go boom boom boom over the weekend and this time it wasn’t from those bass cars the rappers write about as some local teens decided to put on a mobile pyrotechnics show in various parts of the 24/680. As usual, we were deluged with “Who’s doing the shooting?” inquiries until we heard them, too, and ID’d the sonics as airbursting aerial mortars and started getting sightings of teens scampering across local golf courses or Moraga Commons with boxes of pyro.

Pretty unsmart and possibly beyond just “teens blowing off steam” as we start to dry out and head into fire season again. We’re told some oldsters may have spotted and cautioned the youths but were surprised when their paternal advice went unheeded and with some choice words in return. Ahem. You kids.

Anyway, we’re back and unmuted and we’ll see where things take us this week. Things have to get better, right? Right?

Right.