Oh my.
I have struggled with television this week. I have basic cable so it's possible that the news channels that aren't included in my cable package have done a good job of covering the devastating storms of the past week. I haven't found that to be the case on the main networks.
According to the most recent article posted on the Associated Press website, "At least 297 were killed across six states in Wednesday's outbreak." The same article also noted that "The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states." I remember that. I was eleven years old and saw tornadoes cross the horizon just before heading to the basement in the house where I grew up in Elizabethtown, KY. Brandenburg, KY experienced significant devastation and loss of life in that sweep of tornadoes and Louisville's parks still show some signs of the damage wreaked by those winds.
How is it, then, that preparation for the Royal Wedding along with coverage for the actual wedding has preempted any significant coverage of the storms through the south this past week? I don't begrudge Will and Kate their pomp and circumstance or the generous outpouring of support and well-wishes from around the world. I do struggle with the fact that in the midst of a weather catastrophe whose scope is still unknown, the primary television news outlets of the United States of America have barely cut into their planned royal coverage this week.
Are we Americans truly so shallow that we have driven this news cycle away from this significant loss of life? Are we so easily distracted by glitz and glamor that we would rather watch a discussion of whether or not a royal kiss measured up to the expectations of the crowd? Again, don't get me wrong. I did watch this morning (I did not set an alarm to get up early, I simply watched after I woke up) and I did appreciate seeing the marriage ceremony with the inspiring music and Anglican liturgy. I just wish the news in the U.S. had remained the news and that our focus, as Americans, might have remained on the crisis on our own shores rather than on a patriarchal, fantasy-inducing - if beautiful - wedding in London.
I have struggled with television this week. I have basic cable so it's possible that the news channels that aren't included in my cable package have done a good job of covering the devastating storms of the past week. I haven't found that to be the case on the main networks.
According to the most recent article posted on the Associated Press website, "At least 297 were killed across six states in Wednesday's outbreak." The same article also noted that "The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states." I remember that. I was eleven years old and saw tornadoes cross the horizon just before heading to the basement in the house where I grew up in Elizabethtown, KY. Brandenburg, KY experienced significant devastation and loss of life in that sweep of tornadoes and Louisville's parks still show some signs of the damage wreaked by those winds.
How is it, then, that preparation for the Royal Wedding along with coverage for the actual wedding has preempted any significant coverage of the storms through the south this past week? I don't begrudge Will and Kate their pomp and circumstance or the generous outpouring of support and well-wishes from around the world. I do struggle with the fact that in the midst of a weather catastrophe whose scope is still unknown, the primary television news outlets of the United States of America have barely cut into their planned royal coverage this week.
Are we Americans truly so shallow that we have driven this news cycle away from this significant loss of life? Are we so easily distracted by glitz and glamor that we would rather watch a discussion of whether or not a royal kiss measured up to the expectations of the crowd? Again, don't get me wrong. I did watch this morning (I did not set an alarm to get up early, I simply watched after I woke up) and I did appreciate seeing the marriage ceremony with the inspiring music and Anglican liturgy. I just wish the news in the U.S. had remained the news and that our focus, as Americans, might have remained on the crisis on our own shores rather than on a patriarchal, fantasy-inducing - if beautiful - wedding in London.
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