In other moving headlines this week . . .

“Water Is Wet”

“Grass Is Green”

Where do I start? I wish I could fully reply to this, but my taxes are due in two and a half weeks, so I don’t have that kind of time.

Watch ANY — no, EVERY — local newscast and you will see the most basic “rules” of journalism violated every third sentence. Fat with cliches, awful grammar and the police talk it claims it avoids, TV writing is downright awful. And why with the present tense? “It sounds more immediate,” they say. That’s right; all my neighbors say stuff like, “I watch Channel 1 because their writing is more immediate, as if the story is happening right now, and that’s very important to me.”

And sure, this present tense sounds very conversational: “Four people are killed in a rush-hour accident involving three vehicles.” I always catch myself saying to friends, “Yeah, four people are killed.” I guess it’s better than “four people LOST THEIR LIVES . . . ”

“Excuse me, I seem to have lost my life. Has anyone seen my life around here?”

OK, sorry. I almost went off on a rant there.