Weather terrorists make little kids puke

Last night there was a story on the WCCO 10 PM news about a little girl who was so scared of severe weather - even a passing dark cloud during an otherwise sunny day - who would get so worked up that she would vomit. Her fear of weather is so intense that she spends all day every day indoors. It was a rather sad story but I also felt angry while watching it.

I'm not a child psychologist but that level of fear has to come from somewhere. While the parents seemed rather normal, I am always ready to pin the blame on the parents. I'm guessing that one of the parents is a panicky Pete and plops down on the couch (or paces nervously while whiel taking breaks to peer out the window at the clouds in the distance) during severe weather coverage and gets borderline obsessed during the wall-to-wall weather coverage of channels 4, 5, 9 and 11 when the bad weather rolls through the Twin Cities.

I'm not perfect either but we've gone as far as taking our daughter out on the front porch and letting her watch the weather. She shows no reaction whatsoever to house-shaking thunder and the only time she has ever showed a reaction is when the cat jumped in to her crib during a severe storm and woke her up. She muttered the word "cat" to tell us what happened and was back to sleep in a few minutes.

Back to the WCCO story, though. The worst part, and the moment that should have made the main fear culprit instantly obvious to a few hundred thousand WCCO news viewers, was silver fox Don Shelby throwing things to meteorologist Chris Shaffer. He actually said something to the effect of "there's probably going to be more big boomers tomorrow, another severe weather day..." with Shaffer then beginning to whip up the weather fear.

I get it, the severe storms around her have sucked this summer. It's been worse than many previous years but the only thing that seems to get more news coverage is an oil slick covering the Gulf of Mexico or the election of our first black president. For whatever reason, weather equals TV ratings but with obsessive parents who should show their kids early on that even severe weather isn't anything to puke over, the media needs to sometimes take a step back and ask themselves whether or not the weather they are covering is truly as ominous and scary as they make it out to be. It's really a case of them trying too hard all too often.

Where's "White Entertainment Television"?

Jason DeRusha, Good Question guy for Minneapolis CBS affiliate WCCO, had some choice words for what I would refer to as internet trolls asking him why, when February is Black History Month, there is no White History Month. (via)

It’s not like during February, schools across the land stop teaching the history
that involved white people. Is there really anything wrong with taking a
part of our nation’s history that’s been largely ignored (that of black
Americans) and taking note of it? Why does it bother people so much?
If you don’t care for it, ignore it. It’s not a Good Question. Try harder.

Sometimes DeRusha ventures in to the "wacky" side of the Good Questions he gets and other times he takes the serious route. This, though, is one of a very few - if not the first times - I have seen him rather publicly decry the stupidity of some obviously racist and ignorant internet users who cower behind their keyboards submitting ridiculously lowbrow ideas and comments to a genuine journalist.

DeRusha isn't alone in dealing with comments of that nature. I have one friend in particular whom I'm fairly certain is serious when he asks why when there's a cable channel named BET (Black Entertainment Television) there isn't a cable channel geared exclusively towards "whites". It scares the crap out of me that I have a friend who (apparently) thinks at such a simple level. I've answered his question numerous times by telling him to use his remote control and flip through the channels. Basically EVERY DAMN CHANNEL could be billed as television for whites.

I kepe hoping that he uses this comment to inflame me and get a reaction (I'm good at reacting) but the rest of what he says isn't exactly the sharpest of comments either so I tend to take it at face value. I guess I'll have to take things to the next level. Maybe I'll suggest that he try our Spike TV because the dreck they air screams TV for dumb white guys.

Ah, hell, why can't people just zip it when they have the urge to utter something incredibly stupid? Of course without them, who would A.) work at Walmart and B.) I blog about?

For a more refined approach at blogging, check out the amazing photos from all across Minnesota at MinnPics!

Jay Leno to start sucking in primetime tonight

I should probably be writing this for my television blog but here I have no filter (and a far larger audience). That's the beauty of talking about tonight's debut of "The Jay Leno Show" tonight at 9 PM (central) on NBC. The biggest problem with Jay Leno is that his act on TV is bland. I'm surprised that his show at 10:35 PM drew enough audience to stay at number one for fifteen-plus years because I was unaware that senior citizens stayed up so late.

Leno's act is safe. There is no edge. Moving him to 9 PM (and gutting five hours of what could be original, scripted programming) could very well be the death of network television as we know it. Sadly, it all boils down to saving money. NBC has made countless mistakes in the programming area in teh past decade. They lost any grip they had on sports programming, never recovered from the ending of "Seinfeld" and failed to properly prepare when they knew that "Friends" and "E.R." couldn't last forever. They showed that their greatest weakness was being unable to change. They are stiff in their workings. NBC spent the past decade digging their own grave.

It even shows locally with NBC affiliate KARE-TV (Channel 11) sliding to number two in the 10 PM news ratings behind CBS affiliate WCCO-TV (channel 4). On the local front KARE seemed to follow suit by losing flashy anchorman Paul Magers to the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles (where he propelled the CBS affiliate there from fourth to first in local news ratings). That move was largely about money, too. Hell, they even lost their Paul Magers replacement, Frank Vascellero, to WCCO where some are saying that he's the eventual face of WCCO's news team.

But back to Jay Leno. While he is a sincere guy who truly cares about his staff, his act seems like it's been largely mailed in for the past few years. It almost seems like he saves his best stuff for his stand-up act as he tours the casino circuit while his former competitor, David Letterman, struck gold this summer by lurching ahead to number one in late night and continuing to be quirky with his monologue and behavior and actually asking guests questions rather than letting guests simply run thier lines and pimp their shit.

In the long run, if Leno succeeds it could be the end of scripted programming at 9 PM. It could be good in shaking up the rigid scheduling the networks have and free local affiliates to shift shows to where they work best with their local audiences. But it could be bad because a talk show is cheap. A talk show is a cop out in primetime and after Leno's show starts slipping in the ratings, expect the show to trim staff to keep costs down and with that quality and entertainment value will slide and the show's eventual downward spiral will begin and while I never hope for someone to fail, this sort of failure would be best for America's entertainment future.

So I've been away for well over a week but MinnPics will return in all its glory with all things Minnesota in photography! Check it out!