“For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.” Henry David Thoreau
Thankfully the snowstorm that massed over the northeastern coast isn’t as bad as the media played it up to be. What was predicted to be 3′ or more of snowfall over a 12 hour period, has for the most part, been much less. The 80 mph winds never came to be. As of this morning, primary roads are clear enough for travel and mass transit in the city of New York has resumed. I suppose there is a benefit to the sensationalized reporting in that when people expect the worst, they tend to prepare for the worst. I recall an Uncle that told me as a kid that if you do, you will always be disappointed. There is great fear in the unknown and storms are no exception. Myself, since sometime around y2k I have found myself to be somewhat cynical about the world around me. The media seemingly becomes a field of whackamoles, popping up in perpetual news cycles, trying to wring the last drops of juice from the turnip of a news story, adding a little water if needed to make more, until the next scoop comes along. Egg heads on one channel debating whether the next decade will be submerged in global warming, global cooling or climate repurposing while on the next channel they consider that aliens may have had something to do with the missing Malaysian airliner. Last night I sat in a dark living room and listened to minute by minute reports of the coming “Snowpocalypse”; a different news reporter every segment saying basically the same thing in a different octave. “The approaching white hammer” “The jackpot of snow” made me smile as I pictured some producer huddled with a writer scraping the barrels of newspeak between commercials for Liptor and Allstate. Thank God that the storm was only what it was. Thank God people were spared what was predicted. I hope the television media will survive. I’m sorry if the weatherman looked a little foolish. I know I’ll still try and tune in as much as I can. I’d just like to save a little of the drama for Hollywood.
