Take your siren and stuff it

Originally written and posted here 10/12/06, the following essay was called to mind today by the mindless, endless, ever-more annoying sirens of downtown Newark. Assuming there were a tornado in the area, which there isn't, it would be so very advantageous for our saviors in city and county government to turn that damned thing off so we - who are not in the least feeble-minded (as they assume) - could listen for the approach of a tornado. Yes it would. Anyway, here's what I've always thought about those who work the tornado thing for all that's in it - for them ...

Among the unforgettable stories Bill Cosby tells is the one about his childhood love for radio horror shows. He’d sit in a darkened room, feel exquisite terror at the likes of The Squeaking Door and, trembling with anticipation, he’d yell at the radio, “Scare me!”

Laughing with us about our fears is okay. Using our fears to entertain us, as does Stephen King, is also acceptable. Pure foolishness, though, is our willingness to allow bureaucrats and media to jerk us around by playing on fear.

They have us pegged as a mindless bunch with a perverse desire to be frightened, a desire on which news departments prey with considerable diligence. Trolling for better ways to scare us — and fill vast blocks of media time and space — “news” people focus on weather because it’s easy and always available. Unfortunately, weather, no matter what it is, can be always be used as the basis for some incredible threat.

It almost never snows unless its potential for havoc is snaked across the bottom of the television screen.

It rarely rains without dire warnings of flood waters. Watch out for the heat! cold! humidity! puddles! (Yes, puddles: A “news caster” warned that “they may be deeper than they seem.”)

And, terror of terrors, you can bet the midwest will hear tornado warnings all summer.

The National Weather Service and its media hangers-on have gone berserk. Weather has become a tool for ratings, and every would-be media star milks it to a trembling audience.

To shore up our anxiety, we have positioned on public dole legions of bureaucrats whose purpose is to give new depth to our fear of any weather. They’re called “Emergency Management Agencies” or “County Disaster Services Agencies” or some equally ominous name, and mostly what they do is try to scare hell out of people.

Take, for instance, the fuss about tornadoes. It is a fact that tornadoes are totally unpredictable. A tornado can appear from the sky any place under certain conditions, and it can touch down or not. Once down, it can quit almost immediately, or leave a long and totally unpredictable swath of death and destruction.

But enter bureaucracy to save us. It has a way of dealing with this. It simply sets off incomparably annoying sirens at the merest hint — or rumor — of a tornado. Often, sirens go off because of unconfirmed tornado sightings many miles away. This is our command to run to the basement.

This is bureaucracy at play in its most irksome format. The matter is nearly beyond repair, however, because no matter how frequently sirens warn of non-tornadoes, the fact that weather bureaucrats have pulled our chain is always passed off as a “story” with blindness and apparent approval.

Bureaucrats can with certainty expect to read in the next day’s paper such drivel as: “In Newark, the mournful wail of tornado sirens could be heard through the slashing rain and growling thunder.” (The headline over this article, by the way, said: “Tornado report proves unfounded; Warning sends residents under cover.”)

Or, “At 10:34 p.m. Thursday, Ramey, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Columbus, made the call, and 108 sirens across Franklin County began to wail.” Weather bureaucrats know, if nothing else, how to create a flood of ink, especially if it’s a dull day at the cop shop.

Lots of folks probably snatch children from their beds and huddle in closets and basements. It must be rather exciting for parents, though their kids may forever live in fear of rain, thunder, and wind.

The climate since Bill Cosby’s childhood has changed. Now, you no longer have to go to a darkened room to catch a frightening radio show. You can just turn on the TV, open a newspaper, or even go to bed. You don’t have to yell, “scare me!” because you’re sure that idiots in the media and government will give it their best shot.

It is a fact that it always rains, snow piles up, and the wind blows. It is also a fact that whether or not a tornado is about to get you has always been unpredictable and still is.

Better we go back to The Squeaking Door, put a lid on bureaucrats, tune out the media, and get some sleep.