I don't have time to post much today – I'm volunteering at the SWAT Roundup International competition. Don't know what we Civilian Police Academy alumni will be asked to do, but it should be interesting.
A question: I thought I'd veg in front of the television and watch some football. At game time, there were severe weather warnings as storm bands raced through the state, bringing tornado warnings and watches. The local networks chose to ignore the games and spent about an hour giving blow-by-blow descriptions of the radar readings, telling everyone that tornados are dangerous (duh). Over and over. And these were the weekend reporters, who were stumbling over filling air time with comments such as, "Now I'm going to push this button (which, of course, we couldn't see) and let you get a closer look." I guess they were feeling left out because we didn't have any major hurricanes, and they hadn't had a chance to use their fancy equipment.
So, how much information is 'too much'. I fully appreciate that tornados are dangerous. Is sitting in front of a television for an hour watching radar really going to help. What about those beeps and flashes and crawlers on the screen? The channel did have the game on—in a tiny window, no sound, impossible to read scores or anything else. Is bad weather such a priority?
I finally switched to the Fox Network which had the weather map in the lower corner of the screen and the game on the rest. They interrupted once or twice for brief updates when the National Weather Service had something new to say.
I'll let you know about SWAT tomorrow. I'm scheduled to volunteer again Thursday.
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