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threeplusfireJon Stewart made a bunch of jokes recently about how the news and other Republicans seem to have this amazing ability to ignore Ron Paul. Despite his strong showing at the straw poll, you didn't hear any major coverage of him. It was kind of absurd.
I feel almost like that weirdness has somehow crept over the rest of Texas. There's a major disaster happening right now, and the top story with picture on the NY Times site is about sports medicine? It is at least at the top of the CNN National news page just now. There was nothing on the AP or Reuters almost all day yesterday. There was coverage of rain from the tropical storm rolling over Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama but not any coverage of the wind that fanned fires over Texas until late in the evening.
I get that there are disasters everywhere, every day and it would be hard to make anyone pay attention to all of them or to ask people to care. But after multi-day buildup coverage of Hurricane Irene and what felt like the 24/7 news focus on that storm for a week, I find myself wondering if everyone just went on vacation after that. The miserable drought doesn't make for exciting television, but one might think dozens of fires and skies blotted out by smoke might.
Texas desperately needs help fighting these fires. Governor Good Hair is too busy campaigning, so he isn't around to declare an emergency and call the National guard or anything. (Though I heard he might decide to fly home today. edit - apparently he will skip tonight's debate, but stuck around for some ridiculous town hall) Obama is off touring New Jersey. We don't even get Anderson Cooper!
In the face of the scary things happening right now (gigantic fire that has leaped over the Colorado river to burn at least half of Bastrop state park and hundreds of homes to the ongoing fires and new fires from Dallas to Amarillo) this is a really petty sort of concern. But it stuck in my mind.
Anderson Cooper, if you visit I'll bake you a pie.
I feel almost like that weirdness has somehow crept over the rest of Texas. There's a major disaster happening right now, and the top story with picture on the NY Times site is about sports medicine? It is at least at the top of the CNN National news page just now. There was nothing on the AP or Reuters almost all day yesterday. There was coverage of rain from the tropical storm rolling over Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama but not any coverage of the wind that fanned fires over Texas until late in the evening.
I get that there are disasters everywhere, every day and it would be hard to make anyone pay attention to all of them or to ask people to care. But after multi-day buildup coverage of Hurricane Irene and what felt like the 24/7 news focus on that storm for a week, I find myself wondering if everyone just went on vacation after that. The miserable drought doesn't make for exciting television, but one might think dozens of fires and skies blotted out by smoke might.
Texas desperately needs help fighting these fires. Governor Good Hair is too busy campaigning, so he isn't around to declare an emergency and call the National guard or anything. (Though I heard he might decide to fly home today. edit - apparently he will skip tonight's debate, but stuck around for some ridiculous town hall) Obama is off touring New Jersey. We don't even get Anderson Cooper!
In the face of the scary things happening right now (gigantic fire that has leaped over the Colorado river to burn at least half of Bastrop state park and hundreds of homes to the ongoing fires and new fires from Dallas to Amarillo) this is a really petty sort of concern. But it stuck in my mind.
Anderson Cooper, if you visit I'll bake you a pie.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 05:21 pm (UTC)Yeah.
My roommate's mother emailed me to keep an eye on things like drainage because she saw a huge storm heading in our direction and I emailed back to say that while I saw the storm on radar too, all we were expected to get was high winds. (I looked at the video and the storm had been basically rotating over Louisiana for the previous two hours, and it didn't get any closer to us than that later either.) I enjoyed the winds because they made the heat more pleasant, though the fire we had in our area was less fun. But no damage to homes from the fire here.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 05:34 pm (UTC)The wind felt good yesterday morning.
I'm glad you're safe from fires so far.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 03:05 pm (UTC)