From: telecomdigestsubmissions@remove-this.telecom-digest.org   
      
   I've been preparing for the oncoming Hurri^h^h^h^h^h Trop^h^h^h^h   
   Thund^h^h^h^h rain since yesterday morning, after hearing and reading   
   predictions of all the bad things which were going to happen when the   
   whatever-the-hell-this-is came through.   
      
   I'm supposed to know better: hyping the weather report is a national   
   sport among the B-list of blow-dried airheads who recite the AP's   
   rip-n-read weather forecast for a (very very good) living. During the   
   1960's, their few minutes of point-and-prognosticate became a "happy   
   talk" interval inserted between the count of Vietnam war dead and the   
   oh-so-profitable commercial breaks that followed. For some strange   
   reason, little has changed, even though Americans have been inured to   
   constant trajedy because of the nine or ten wars we've had since   
   Vietnam, and because we see more and more people being shot for not   
   showing proper obeisance to those civil servants who carry guns.   
      
   I understand that they have a certain amount of soap to sell, and that   
   they're all hoping to claw their way up to a "National market" station   
   or even one of the networks. I know these things because I once worked   
   as a broadcast engineer, back when TV stations had to have engineers,   
   and while unions were still able to represent those without a trust fund   
   and a lobbyist to call on.   
      
   I could, I suppose, get used to the "forecaster" blathering along about   
   the dire consequences of not buying the soap that his boss is selling   
   instead of the soap that the other guys are selling. I just don't want   
   to. I'm fed up with the constant, unending, insufferable torrent of   
   fearmongering and fear-based marketing and fear-based electioneering   
   that have taken up every megabyte of my Internet feed for the past four   
   years, and I want the weather forecaster to tell me about the weather -   
   and then shut up.   
      
   Bill   
      
      
   --   
   Bill Horne   
   Telecom Digest Moderator   
   Copyright (C) 2020 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)