Peak Cringe from the Fox News "Family" here in the DC Area

 

I happened to be on the treadmill at my local gym when this came on one of the screens that isn't Forever Tuned in to the Channel Dedicated to Reruns of "Friends."  It's oddly worse without sound- you don't know what anyone is hyped about, but you know they are hyped because it's all smiles and clapping and jumping up and down and it goes on and on and on and on AND ON and you can bet it that no news reporting will be going on while some guy in a suit appears and is treated like the Second Coming.

Because I didn't watch it with sound, and because this clip is a merciful four minutes long (in the original, this nonsense is actually repeated at the end of the hour, just in case there were a few survivors of the Cringe Avalanche the viewers were subjected to when this mess started.)  So at the time, I had no idea who Robert is or why the Earth was supposed to stop spinning to "welcome" him to the Fox News "Family."

I'm not going to watch it again, for reasons I think are rather obvious.  Instead, I just did a quick Wiki search for this Robert Burton guy, and it certainly did clear up a lot.  Turns out that Robert Burton is the author of a series of books called The Anatomy of Melancholy, which he published in 1621 and which went through several expansions and revisions over the next several decades.  Pretty cool.  I don't know why he's joining the local Fox News staff but I'm sure he's got more to say about the state of the world than, say, the guy who does the weather or the guy who reminds us how badly the Wizards suck again this year.  And it's about time we heard from people who have been dead for five centuries; too often we lose our connection with them and forget that being dead doesn't necessarily mean you have nothing more to say.  

So even though I didn't stick around to see Mr. Burton actually introduced to his new "family," I'm sure he'll fit right in and be a real cut-up in the breakroom when he isn't providing insights concerning issues like, well, Melancholy, and dishing about how he really felt about James I giving a play he wrote a bad review.  I'd like his honest opinion of the Wizards, too.  Like, are they going to win ten games this year?  What do you think, Mr. Burton?