Hurricane Follies

I feel horrible about today's tragedy in and east of New Orleans. I expect the casulties to near 1,000, and regret the death of so many who were too poor, too sick, or too invalid to follow the orders to evacuate. I have far less compassion for those who chose to wave their dicks at nature in a show of bravado or hubris and can't quite understand why they'd live in an area where this happens once or twice a lifetime. Some part or other of the southeast gets whacked every year by a hurricane and every spot is vulnerable.

Still, when it comes to penis waving, I have to say one of my greater joys is watching hurricane coverage. I could watch those reporters in their slickers all day and never grow tired. It must be the ultimate act of deluded self-importance to think we viewers, somehow, learn anything from watching someone blown around. We've seen what it looks like to try to stand in high winds and nothing is gained by showing us some other fool in some other hotel parking lot, or risk another photographer's life by asking him or her to show us what a tree looks like bending in the wind.

We've seen the pictures hundreds of times, and they never change, nor do they very often show us anything remotely interesting. Oooh! A plastic bag or shingle flying in the air! I just watch, transfixed and smiling, while these bozos try to make news out of it. This isn't news, we won't know anything for hours, it's just a show.

Last night the Weather Channel was interesting. While Katrina grew in strength and intensity, only the female anchors could stand in front of the weather maps. If one of the guys their erections would have confused us about where they were pointing. As it was, as long as the women wore black and kept their backs away from us we couldn't see how wet they were becoming from the thrill that was evident from everyone's voices.

This morning, to my delight, men and women in rain gear. Here are some notes I made while watching while the storm hit the land. One thing about 24 hour news coverage is plain: news doesn't happen that quickly, so they have a lot of time for improvising. It's not surprising, but still funny, that given five minutes to provide ten second's worth of reporting, they babble on and say some of the least profound and more insipid drivel I've heard in my life. They not only state the obvious, they seem enthralled by it.

First, I have to admit that I got suckered into these weather events whenever they happen. Also, that I'm invariably disappointed: they're never as disastrous as predicted, they never live up to the hype. Before it hit, the people on the Weather Channel were talking about 150Mph winds and "sea walls" of thirty feet, but now that it's here, the hurricane is much more modest than that.

In the Superdome some minor damage in the roof led to a leak. Wisely, those in charge led those affected to a drier spot. I can only wonder how long those being dripped on would have suffered if the people in charge hadn't helped them.

The TV pictures show water on the street, trees blowing, and cheap-ass corrugated roofs being blown off. This isn't news. The best part, though, is the reporters covered in LL Bean heavy jackets with hoods talking about the dangers and horrible conditions while in the background families walk around in T-shirts smiling.

And, those in the studio continually beseeching the reporters to "stay safe." I'm sure survival is a foreign concept to these intrepid souls, and nothing is more patronizing then to tell someone you think they're too dumb to stay alive.

Speaking of, two fatalities in Florida from people running generators inside their homes. Even leaving aside the stupidity of running an internal combustion engine inside, how can you do that? Wouldn't the noise itself cause you to toss the damn thing outside?

More broken windows and trees. Fluttering street signs. No one would expect that.

In the city of Houston...Free Parking! for anyone displaying a Louisiana license plate!

"the big threat is wind damage"
That would never have occurred to me. Thanks!

Live, real time, unscripted news reports reinforces my belief that most of us, in spite of training, have a firm grasp of the obvious. I wouldn't be any better at speaking off the top my head, so what qualifies these people?

"It actually hurts to stand out here because the wind's blowing so hard sometimes"

"It looks like that Nissan sign is getting ready to go"

"you can see the flag ripping in the wind there"

"certainly some areas have gotten hit very hard now"

"we don't even know what's happening, to be honest"

"to be quite frank we scrambled for our lives"

"...trees uprooted...debris on the ground"

about that wrap-around sign (the Nissan one): "you can forget that baby"

"we've seen some corrugated aluminum being blown off"

"our STB technology" Fine, your tech for filming and transmitting the report has a name. How is it different from anything else? Why should I be impressed with a series of random letters?

"you can hear the debris flying in the wind" Oh, really?

"[Mike Majonos], as a Fema housing inspector, what will your job be once the storm passes?"

Kim Kurtz (Firth) WKRG (webcast reporter) swears like a sailor, or her camerman does.

"so many things that you don't realize can hurt you at 105mph certainly will"

'when I was a kid I used to love riding my bike through that water, but we now know that it's unhealthy so don't do it" This is unbelivable. What kind of an ass would say this? Is he rubbing his youthful joys in the faces of today's miserable kids? Is this a joy so ripe with danger that it surprises the scientists the human race survived? Will his children ever be able to have any fun? Or, should I be impressed by what a little daredevil he was?

Bush comes on, in someplace sunny. He says the gov't will do more later, after the storm passes, but right now he's urging us all to pray. I'll have to write him, see how that plan of his worked out.

Whatever happened to the good old days when the leader was so strong with good mojo that if he allowed something like this to happen, his power over the gods and nature was seen as suspect and he was run out of the village, fleeing for his life?

"this storm is causing a significant amount of damage in Mobile, in fact you may have seen my hat blow off"

Neulasta ads ... if I'm stricken with cancer the last thing I'll be doing is recommending to my doctor what medications I should take. I'm pretty sure it's *his* job to tell me, not the other way around.

"Killer on the move, that's Katrina" -- Wolf Blitzer
"What an awful, awful hurricane" -- Wolf Blitzer
"What a pretensious, pompous ass this Wolf Blitzer is" -- Russ Kremer