Does Caylee Anthony Coverage Suppress Our Urge to Kill Children?

Interviewer: I am speaking with Joseph Tankreadton, Missing and/or Dead Children Programmer of the Constant Cable All News Network (CCANN). What exactly is your job as Missing and/or Dead Children Programmer?

Tankreadton: My crack team of journalists and journalist-like people search the nooks and crannies of our country for children who are a) missing and/or dead or b) have the potential to be missing and/or dead, and then bring continual news of their disappearances and/or deceasement to the world.

Interviewer: The discovery of Caylee Anthony's remains in Orlando, Florida must have been quite a boon.

Tankreadton: Yes, indeed--it's the kind of dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime story that CCANN gets to cover only ten or maybe fifteen times a week.

Interviewer: But, is the kind of continual coverage that CCANN and other news networks lavish on these unfortunate children truly necessary? Is this really what viewers want to see on the news?

Tankreadton: First, we don't wish to be compared with other news networks. After all, CCANN's Missing and/or Dead Children Division has been voted "Missing and/or Dead Children Division quickest to respond to the smell of missing and/or dead children."

Interviewer: Who voted this?

Tankreadton: I forget. But more importantly, viewers not only want to see these stories--they need to see them. And CCANN provides an important--nay, a crucial and necessary service to the world by covering such stories.

Interviewer: Please explain.

Tankreadton: I shall, forthwith. You see, most Americans want to kill children. It's built into their DNA. Young adults, parents, the elderly, bachelors, scientists, financial consultants--they struggle with the urge all day long whether it's at home, at work, or at play. And not just their own children, mind you, for all the obvious reasons but children who are complete strangers. Right now, you are suppressing the urge to kill a small boy who is around six years of age and has tousled sandy brown hair.

Interviewer: I am?

Tankreadton: Please, don't deny it. Have you ever been near one in a restaurant or in a movie or on a plane? Ever been at a couple's house when all they do is yammer on and on and on about everything their freaking brat did that day? Don't you have to bite your lips and punch yourself in the gut to keep yourself from strangling that cute little misshapen thing with its own snuggly? Why, just the other night I was at a party where some foul-smelling urchin kept sticking his unwashed, spit-strewn hands into a bowl of peanuts, jamming them into his mouth and then putting them back in the bowl. Tell me that, if you had the chance and could get away with it, you wouldn't grab the tot by the legs and smash his brains against the wall. Go ahead. Tell me. Go ahead!

Interviewer: I hadn't really thought about it.

Tankreadton: You're a damned, stinking liar but it's understandable...and, fortunately, that's where CCANN comes in. Our wall-to-wall coverage not only provides vicarious satisfaction for those people who are too gutless to actually kill children themselves but it also provides a warning for those who may summon the courage to want to try. Because whenever they turn to CCANN, they can see how our law enforcement officials will never stop looking for them, even if it takes 26 years after the actual killing to succeed. We are the thin blue line separating society from mass infanticide.

Interviewer: That's very altruistic of your network.

Tankreadton: I don't know what that word means but yes, it is.

Interviewer: So, what did people do to suppress their child-killing urges before such networks as CCANN came into being?

Tankreadton: I don't know and frankly, I don't want to know. I am just thankful that we are here to make a grave situation a little less grave. Wait--did I say grave? (chuckles mightily) Now, please excuse me--an adorable girl has been missing from a Walmart in Alabama for over ten minutes.

Interviewer: For your network's sake, I hope she turns out to be dead.

Tankreadton: Thank you. That's very kind.