Imagine these stories. One is actually real, the other is purely hypothetical.

The Headline:

Man Gives Birth For a Third Time.

The Gist:

Man was once a pretty woman (who competed in Miss Teen USA Pageant). She realized that she liked women-and wished she would have been born a man. so, she gets surgery and hormone treatment to (sort of) turn into a man. She keeps her ovaries. She falls in a love with a woman (who looks kind of mannish anyway, to be honest), who can’t conceive, so man/woman get artificially inseminated, and get pregnant for the both of them.

Shock Value:

A 2, roughly. People and what they do are not surprising in any way.

Headline 2:

Notre Dame Wins 12th Consensus National Championship!

The Gist:

Notre Dame hasn’t won a championship since television was in black and white. They no longer get the best players. Cold-weather teams struggle in general. The SEC rules football. Elite football recruits pay no never mind to academics.

Shock Value:

A 10, easily. Since 1994, Notre Dame more often resembles Northwestern than Notre Dame. For a generation of fans, they have never even come close to winning “the big one”. 5 losses a year is the norm. Notre Dame is as close to beating elite teams as Paris Hilton is from discovering the secret of time travel (Paris, it’s not the Flux Capacitor, I promise).

How sad is it that a man giving birth is a less shocking event than Notre Dame ruling the college football world?