This is an emergency broadcast of the Emergency Broadcast System. There is about to be a terrific storm in your area. Terrific meaning biblically terrible to you, your roof and your car. Terrific for us back in the studio, well, means terrific. We sit back and watch cool video shot by foolhardy amateurs. That scares the bejabbers out of viewers. Under that, we find that our commentary can make or break mass hysteria. It’s a kick.<\/p>\n
We credentialed forecasters get to wonder about American broadcasting. What are people thinking, like if they wonder why meteorology has more vowels than consonants for a change, that is, if you count “y” as a switch-hitter. You should, it sounds like an “e.”<\/p>\n
Oh, the Advice from People Who Are Right:<\/p>\n
Turn off your televisions. Are you crazy, you ask the Weather Guys? Hey, one good surge from a downed limb and the TV tube will blow glass shards at you. Oh, flat screen? It’ll melt a little and release radioactive sleezium at you. At least, that’s what Mom always told us.<\/p>\n
Besides, shouldn’t you be hunkered in an interior room with no windows, like a closet or bathroom? You’ve carried a TV in? What if the electricity cuts out?<\/p>\n
You’re supposed to use a portable radio with a speaker not ‘phones (for the family to all hear). Yeah, in the drawer next to the flashlight and spare batteries for both. Radio stations always have specialized in weather reports.<\/p>\n
FM? Well, maybe they all just play music loops with no humans to cut in for breaking events. All the announcements are recorded (not pre-recorded, that’s redundant). You don’t know how to turn on AM? There’s a switch, keep feeling for it.<\/p>\n
AM you find is mostly music, too, with lots of static? Keep scanning and you’ll hit on a couple of news-talk channels. That’s their job, talk radio, to cut in with the latest. Oh, they’re all sports-talk from New York or syndicated call-ins for crazies from LA? Well, since the Federal Communications Commission deregulated broadcasters they cut their obligation to local listeners. You’d think out of civic obligation … but with the FCC putting in its 40 hours a week investigating obscenity complaints, who cares?<\/p>\n
Well, it’s been nice talking to you. We’ll return to regularly scheduled shtick once we’ve milked the weather panic dry. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is an emergency broadcast of the Emergency Broadcast System. There is about to be a terrific storm in your area. Terrific meaning biblically terrible to you, your roof and your car. Terrific for us back in the studio, well, means terrific. We sit back and watch cool video shot by foolhardy amateurs. That scares […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":80,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/06\/14-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":0},"title":"14 people","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Thursday 9 June 2004. A terrific quote I've recently found and logged in my Commonplace Book (filed on the home and work computers) is: \"Art is not art if only 14 people know about it,\" said by Joni Mitchell, quoted by Jacquelyn Mitchard. (Mitchard is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":211,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/06\/211\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":1},"title":"Coursing into Boston","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"BOSTON -- My first longhand note this morning: Just because I'm an early riser doesn't mean I'm a morning person.\" Getting into downtown Boston and only five minutes late for my 2 p.m. meeting of the columnists board was not quite as hard as we were warned by several sources\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Boston Blotter"","block_context":{"text":"Boston Blotter","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/boston-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":229,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/09\/organic-boilerplate\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":2},"title":"Organic boilerplate","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Newspaper supplements as a rule have disclaimers in them. Sure they're small type, but they are there. They basically give the dates of the sale, that rainchecks are offered if an advertised item gets depleted and that the prices are exactly as posted. Ozark Natural Foods, my favorite grocery store,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":399,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/by-george-part-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":3},"title":"By George, Part I","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"No, not that George, the other one. Not that George, either. It's not fair to say if George Orwell were alive today, he'd be totally yada yada yada on creation science and intelligent design. But what if Orwell actually wrote about the subject, even though those two terms were not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/09\/drop-anchor\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":4},"title":"Drop anchor","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 22, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004. The presidential debate particulars have been announced. Jim Lehrer of PBS, Charles Gibson of ABC and Bob Schieffer of CBS will be the moderators -- and PBS's Gwen Ifill will host the vice presidential debates. Lehrer is the top news guy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/01\/bad-lessons-for-writers\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":5},"title":"Bad lessons for writers","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday 10 January 2006. P.J. O'Rourke, in reviewing the novel Dog Days by Ana Marie \"Wonkette\" Cox last Sunday for The Washington Post, wrote: \"Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}