• A Bloomington mosque was set on fire with an incendiary device Saturday. So far, big-league bloggers Michelle Malkin and the Powerline boys do not seem to think this reaches the level of an Indiana pie attack.
• Al Roker on MSNBC, in fully-rattled combat mode six hours before Hurricane Dennis was scheduled to make landfall:
"If history is any indicator, and it not always is..."
• I'd like to remind the cable nets that this is the beginning of hurricane season. I'm inured by now to the week-long slow-motion 20 mph chases of major-storm-like graphics across thousands of miles of ocean blue. I realize that any impact on Caribbean islands that does not involve American tourists will be treated as footnotes. We in the Midwest are well aware that California and Florida are the Beyoncé and Brittany of weather, while we are, at best, Dido; half the Mississippi Valley was underwater for two months in 1993 before anybody but NPR even noticed. But if you persist in sending your parka-clad minions (one guy looked like he was dressed for an assault on K-2) out into the height of the storm, sticking microphones into the faces of any other idiots who pass by, they will, by Hurricane Fred at the latest, be surrounded by people holding up "Hi Mom" and "John 3:16" signs.
• And the result of all that was that CNN spent the entire time Dennis was making landfall with Anderson Cooper describing what was going on in the parking lot of his Ramada.
• If this behavior will end only when somebody is bisected on air by a flying stop sign, I pray it will be one of the "talent" and not some poor cameraman.
• On the other hand, to whatever Indianapolis Star editor assigned the July 5 "Hey, kids, fireworks are all on sale at tremendous savings!" feature: I have a bag of marshmallows in storage waiting for the day they set your house ablaze. Marshmallows have a long shelf life, but I'm hoping for sooner than later.
3 comments:
I saw that CNN coverage. Ridiculous. Maybe they've given up competeing against Fox and MSNBC and are targeting the Weather Channel now. Of course, even the Weather Channel doesn't do NON-STOP coverage of hurricanes.
I agree, I blogged about the same thing... what is it about coastal storms that makes them so important when the Midwest sees this every day? I think if the media based itself in Chicago, some of them would lighten up.
erik, you ask what makes coastal storys so important to cable news?
two words -- dynamic pictures.
remember that any news/comment/words spoken or written are done to accompany pictures.
once you learn that, i bet you'll stop relying on cable for news info and watch cable from stuff like spike tv and e!
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