Age? Sure.
Cabin Fever? No doubt a factor.
The growing realization that so much of life is nonsense? That could be the root cause of cranky.
The older I get, the more I get Andy Rooney. The reasons why the visage of a cranky old man has achieved iconic status almost worldwide have been revealed as the years have come and gone.
Watching coverage of the Chilean tragedy, I couldn't help but notice there was more emphasis placed on the tsunami that could result from the earthquake than on the death and damage we already knew did. Perhaps it was due to the ease with which a series of huge waves heading towards Hawaii can be covered effectively, what with several TV stations there to engage and all.
The coverage was good, no mistaking that. Good, solid information delivered in a timely fashion by network anchors and local anchors and reporters on the islands of Hilo and Hawaii.
Then it came time, as it inevitably would, for someone to step up and explain the dynamics of a tsunami; how and why they form, how they move, what they might and might not do.
"Let's now go to meteorologist Lisa Isotopi for just what it is we're looking at here. Lisa..."
Lisa commences to posture, reaching outside meteorology, now assuming the guise of a geologist, a seismologist, an oceanographer, and a hydrologist as well. Brakes on, put it in Park, set the emergency, we need a reality injection here.
The old saying, "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bull." comes immediately to mind. That saying, as is above, is allegedly the verbatim from W.C, Fields, not the more scatological version that has emerged through the years. Why feign a high standard of
false propriety when, really, we all know that bull is neat and tidy for bullshit. (Although classifying it as usually vulgar, Merriam-Webster does indeed recognize the word, giving it legitimacy.)Why is it that staff meteorologists assume the role of de facto earthquake and tsunami experts? Any connection between meteorology and the other disciplines mentioned is loose at best, non-existent at worst. Why pretend they're all one and the same happy scientific family?
Admittedly, here in the US, our National Weather Service is a bureau of NOAA - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which climbing to the top of the food chain, is part of the United States Department of Commerce.
In view of that, how come you don't trot out meteorologists to, let's say, discuss the GDP, or explain economic analysis in layman's terms, or even do daily updates on the 2010 Census. Never happens. What should also never happen is these people, expert in one field, presenting themselves as expert in another, when they are simply and undeniably not.
Dazzle or baffle. Whatever works, it's really all you need to know...
