All Posts Tagged With: "hurricanes"
RNC, Gustuf and God
Sometimes you simply couldn’t make this stuff up. You’ve probably read about this but it bears repeating. The former DNC Chairman, Don Fowler had an interesting conversation while on a flight back from Denver with his seatmate, S.C. Congressman John Spratt. Apparently sitting immediately behind them was a blogger with a phone which had a video camera. And did I mention he was a conservative blogger? Oops.
Fayed Out
Perhaps it was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time but I don’t recall ever becoming this angry at a group of TV anchors before. Let me tell you what happened and see if you don’t agree with me.
Thursday night (8/21) I turned on the Weather Channel to see the forecast but instead of the normal weather they were showing a special – Storm Session 2008. At the time I turned in, there were four people talking about reporting during hurricanes. They were trying to one up each other in terms of the highest speed hurricane winds they had been in and then teasing one of them who had never been in the eye of a hurricane. After listening to them for a few minutes I become furious at all of them and ended up writing a very irate email to The Weather Channel.
Why was I so angry? At the time these reporters where joking about being in hurricanes, my house was being pounded by Tropical Storm Fay. Although not a hurricane, it was close enough what with gusts over 50 mph and torrential rain. (In one 2 hour period we got 4 inches of rain!) I don’t recall ever seeing this much rain and I lived through Hurricane Charlie, Francis and Jean in 2004. In fact, I said in my email that I had these three hurricanes go right over my house and it wasn’t something to joke about. I further added that lives were lost and property destroyed so they needed to show some respect. I would have written more than my 499 characters but they only allowed 500 characters.
What gets me so angry is that all anchors, not just these, no longer seem able to understand that these “stories” are real. They are not simply potential award winning reports which make them look good or a chance to get more on air time. Some of the old time reporters still have some empathy but to the younger ones, the stories they report are as real to them as the video games they play.
I didn’t think of this until now but perhaps lack of empathy isn’t the only problem. Maybe the bigger problem is that reporters see themselves as being the story. Why else would those Weather Station guys stand in hurricanes? Not to emphasize the hurricane but to make themselves the story. In fact just today, one young reporter who was standing in knee deep flood waters got splashed by a car going by. Although I was without electricity and couldn’t see the footage I did hear her on my radio. For the rest of the broadcast she complained about getting wet. There are streets full of homes in 2 feet of water but all she could do was whine that she got splashed. Once again the story was no longer about the flood waters but about the reporter.
Here is the real irony of this. The most self centered woman currently in the news also happens to live in my “back yard” so to speak. Of course I am talking about Casey Anthony, the young mother of the missing Caley. Casey has no thought in her head except about herself. Yet I bet some of these young reporters would give Casey a run for her money in terms of egos. Then these same egotistical reporters have the nerve to report on how self centered Casey is! (OK, it may seem like the pot calling the kettle black as I sit here writing a blog about myself. But this is different, this is fluff, not the news and not about a missing child.)
Anyway, Tropical Storm Fay has finally moved away from my town but it has left a trail of destruction behind her. I tell myself that I am lucky. All I have is a leak in my roof with water damage on a ceiling, more water marks down a wall and some kind of electrical problem due to water damage. It could have been much worse. So now I sit and wait for the insurance claim adjuster to call me back. As slow as that call may be I bet that I will hear back from the adjuster sooner than I hear back about my email to the Weather Channel! Then again, couldn’t you just see a group of reporters doing a segment or even a whole show on how reporters have become the news! And sadly, they would never see the irony in that, either.
(In case you are wondering, my electricity came back on after about 12 hours. But I am almost sorry because now I not only hear but have to see that reporter getting splashed again and again and again….)
Florida, Florida, Florida
The delegate count is beginning to slowly build up for Obama with the magic number clearly in sight for him. Although I don’t particularly care for him I nonetheless am beginning to breathe a sigh of relief. Why? Because I live in Florida and if Obama has enough votes without Florida then Clinton can’t drag this state into a controversial fight for the Democratic nomination.
After the last two elections there were people who absolutely hated my state. Yet to those of us living here it seemed extremely unfair. That whole business of hanging shads and miscounted votes happened in South Florida. Everybody knows that Palm Beach and Miami are partly populated with Yankees; retired New Yorkers, Bostonians and other northerners. It is also a haven for immigrants, legal and otherwise, who may not have a good handle on the English language. But it definitely isn’t representative of the rest of the state.
Nonetheless, Democrats blamed Gore’s loss on Florida, regardless of where in the state you lived. And their anger and bitterness ran so deep that when my state was hit with three consecutive hurricanes in 2004 causing terrible devastation across the state they blamed it on God punishing Floridians for the past elections. Excuse me? You try being huddled in a bathtub for hours on end while not one, not two but three hurricanes come tearing across your front door. There is nothing as unnerving as to suddenly lose power right after your local weatherman announces that the eye of the hurricane was over your hometown. Then as friends and neighbors are cleaning up and making repairs to be told by some scathing Democrats that you deserved it.
They were still angry at us in the 2004 election where Florida was one of the main reasons the Democrats lost, again. If this state is that important to the Democrats you would think they might be a bit nicer to us. But noooooo. After the ’04 loss many of them couldn’t stop saying how stupid we were to vote for Bush again plus to have a Bush as governor, too. I still don’t quite get that strategy. If you want someone on your side you probably shouldn’t call them stupid.
Now here we are in the middle of election season and my state is again in the middle of the debate because Florida leaders moved up the primary date against the party’s rules. The National Republican leaders said they would only count half of the Republican delegates while the Democratic leaders said that they won’t count any of the Democratic Florida’s votes. Even though over 1.5 million Floridians voted for a Democratic candidate they were told that not one of their votes count.
OK, that makes sense. You have a state that has been pivotal in losing the past two elections and you tell them that for this primary their votes don’t even count. I can’t help but think that the National Democratic Committee is still punishing Floridians because of the past two elections. Call it revenge for 2000 and payback for 2004 but I just call it very nearsighted. They will need these votes come November, yet why should the voters turn out for them since the leadership has said they don’t count now in the primaries.
Florida appears to at least have avoided being dragged into an internal party fight for their candidate. Obama Democrats continue to say Florida doesn’t count whereas Hillary’s team wants to count her votes from this state. There were definite signs that the two Democrat groups were going to once again fight over votes from Florida. But as I said up front, luckily it appears that Barack is now in such a commanding lead that even with our votes Hillary still won’t catch up to him. Whew. I feel almost as relieved as I do when a hurricane heading my way turns course at the last minute and goes out to sea. Yet even though we may have missed this one who knows what might churn up come November? I guess we Floridians will just have to hunker down and wait and see what roll we might end up playing this fall. But if we don’t vote for the Democrat’s candidate and they lose for a third time, just call it payback for counting us out in the primary….