As the current hurricane, I believe it is called Barry, plays itself out in the gulf, a word of reminder might be in order. If you are into watching the weather on TV you need to keep in mind that even the weather can be Fake News. We forget that the programs we watch are not really there to inform and educate. Like public schools, the broadcasters are there to generate revenue to pay their salaries and indoctrinate to their own position.
The weather man is probably not hired because he is a highly trained, professional meteorologist. He is hired because he can hold your attention until the next advertisement comes on and get you to tell your friends the exciting things you heard on their channel. If the weather man is a sexy babe then you can add “sex sells” to the mix. Their job is to take some dry data and make it into a remake of Gone with the Wind crossed with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
All the data I could pick up said our current hurricane was a minor issue. I am sure that if you were at the wrong place at the wrong time with no awareness you could have some problems but for those of us 600 miles away in the opposite direction it is not time to buy extra water and put up the storm shutters. We were in Texas for Hurricane Harvey. It swamped Houston and caused a lot of havoc on the Gulf coast. Where we live we got some robust winds and heavy rains.
I remember being in California when we had some serious rain and a few mud slides. My mother in law called from out of state to see if we were still alive. Seriously. She was worried that we had been overcome with mud slides when we lived on the top of a rise. Such is Fake News Weather.
As President Reagan said about a more serious issue, “Trust, but verify.” If the bouncy babe on the news tells you it is raining the least you can do is look out the window.
homo unius libri
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