Saturday, February 02, 2008

On The Bright Side

"On the bright side, one less homeless person to worry about" is a comment posted in response to a Sign On San Diego dot com metro news brief. Evidently a 19 year old driver fell asleep at the wheel causing the car to drift unto the shoulder of the road hitting a road sign. How the car then crossed an offramp crashing into another road sign, then a boulder that caused the car to fly through the air landing in a grove of trees is not explained by the news brief. A 28 year old homeless man was asleep under one of the trees when the car landed upon him causing his death. Did the comment mean, on the bright side, we have one less homeless person to worry about freezing to death or aha, one less nuisance to beg us for money? Judging by other comments I took it to be meant in the nicer sense.

It is rather like telling the veteran that came home from war minus a leg; "on the bright side, you are still alive" or "on the bright side, you still have one leg". Or telling the mom who's 3 year old just died in a drive by shooting bullet gone astray, "on the bright side, you still have 2 children to love".

On the bright side, the driver only suffered minor injuries and a broken nose in the accident. News brief did not mention damages to his vehicle. On the bright side, he lived to tell.

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