One thing that I think the internet may have done is tempered local weirdnesses about bad things. When I was a kid in the Annapolis Valley, the local AM radio stations would broadcast the fire alarm announcements as paid advertising. So, thirty four years ago, right in the middle of hearing the theme to The Greatest American Hero or "Island Girl" there would be the sound of a wind up fire alarm, the statement "the fire alarm in the Middleton Area is brought to you buy Smith's Chev-Olds" a little ad and then the news that Mrs. Muldoon's chicken shed burned down due to little Johnny playing with matches. If the fire news was good enough, people would get in their cars and go have a look see. When the Greenwood mall burned, the gawkers packed the highways and byways, likely impeding trucks providing mutual aid from outlying communities.

I thought of that when I heard about the new French-language obituary channel that is starting up in Quebec.

A Quebec businessman believes he has the perfect business to suit ageing, Baby Boomer viewers - an obituary channel. The country's first television channel dedicated to funerals and mourning could start broadcasting as early as this summer, after the CRTC granted a licence for a regional Quebec cable channel called Je me souviens. The French-language station would broadcast obituaries, notices of hospitalization and messages of thanks and prayers.

It may come to English Canada, too. What a boon for the disaster mongers currently stuck cursing the sunny days on the weather channel. Guaranteed negative news to cluck over. Apparently the developer of the concept "the idea of putting obituaries on television came after he attended several funerals over the years that left him longing for more."

There is something odd about this. And not just the obvious oddness. Does anyone think this is actually a bad plot of a sci-fi show and that somehow somewhere this will trigger the undead to be walking the streets?