The Seeds of Panic are Sewn.....again

     I got home from work, turned on the television for some background noise and the first commercial featured ,Gloom AND Doom!  Weather Watch 2013!  Will this be the year we repeat 2002?  Is there another Hurricane Charlie in our future?  Tune in tonight for an update on the tropics. 

     What a load of manure, load of horse hockey, a bunch of bologna!

     Tonight on the local news and weather, the update will be:  hurricane season starts on Saturday.  There are no storms currently brewing in the tropics off the coast of Africa and the conditions are not right for a storm to form anywhere and strike anyone....in the next few weeks.  

     This is exactly what makes the conditions right for more harm than good.  By making up news where there is none and making a panic when calm and continued preparation are the order of the day, these so called news outlets cry "wolf!" until no one listens.  By desensitizing the public and warning of, well, really, nothing....when a storm does form and track our way, people will not listen until it is too late to really prepare.  

     This is also why I preach a doctrine of know what to expect in your area and start there.  If you live in snow country and survive annual storms and blizzards and long periods of power outages and dangerous travelling conditions, start there.  Prepare for that.  If you live along a river that has been known to flood, watch the rainfall up river and be prepared for that!  

     I see people on the news who live in such places and because it has not flooded in a few years or even a few decades, they are surprised when it finally does flood.  Maybe they, too were desensitized by constant media Wolf cries.  I didn't know there were awards for graphics in the news but, apparently one of our local stations won this award and keeps bragging about it.  I saw one of this years 'special graphics' today.  It was bright and stunning and the words of the announcer were repeated in large yellow letters....Are YOU prepared to SURVIVE a storm?  I have not paid mind to these mindless cries for attention until I saw a reporter ask a survivor what they thought about the last tropical storm we had here and he said, "I didn't know it could be like this, I thought they were exaggerating when I listened to the weather warnings."

     Poor, guy!  He thought they were just making noise!  He tuned them out and ended up sitting on top of his car with his dog being whipped by rain and 45 MPH winds.  He looked terrified, even after his rescue.  What a shame.

    So, the seeds of panic are sewn in the name of ratings and not enough news to fill the time set aside for the news.  For the sake of ratings now, there will be fewer listeners when the danger is near and more people clinging to their pets praying just to survive.  

    again.