Saturday, October 3, 2015

A Potentially Historically Funny Post



Right now I am drinking a cup of potentially life-threatening coffee in my potentially life-threatening living room. There are potentially dangerous winds outside, and any one of them could shatter a window, sending shards of glass into the room that could lodge in my heart and kill me. Or else tiny pieces of broken glass could land in my coffee cup and I could drink it and that would be that. At least according to the writers at Huffington Post, who see the potential dangers in everything and say so in their headlines.

For example this morning, the expected and downright hoped-for hurricane not making its way to the East Coast is turning out to be quite a disappointment to all those weather forecasters who live for these situations. Still, they manage to spin it to sound bad, saying things like, "Even though Joaquin is very unlikely to make a direct hit on the U.S., rich tropical moisture will still be involved in the soaking setup in the East." Well, at least that!

Here's how it usually goes: It starts with a bit of wind somewhere, which is then termed a potential tropical disturbance. Even ordinary rain can lead to saturated soil which in turn leads to potential flooding, which is always life-threatening. That graduates into a potential tropical storm, then a potential Category 1 hurricane, and if all goes well, a true Category 4 hurricane the likes of which nobody, nowhere has seen for lo these many years. The jackpot would involve words like "serious, severe, destructive, dangerous," and, the most revered of all, "historic."

The thing I don't get is this: Isn't everything historic once it happens?

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