Water is wet. Occasionally, it freezes.

[captainsblog]

We finally got our first OMGSnowpocalypse of the season, about as late in the "winter" as I can remember it ever coming around here.  The radio and TV stations went total gaga over it for the entire day before, and unlike several previous false alarms, this one essentially started on time around 4-5 a.m. and has continued as scheduled right into the mid-afternoon. Twice this morning, Ebony headed for the back door, took one look at the snow blowing sideways, and said, "Nah, I'll hold it in, thanks."

Naturally, I've been out shlepping through the stuff twice already, with a third trip on the horizon- wherever the hell THAT is behind the whiteout. In my first run to and from downtown, from 9:30 to just about noon, I did not see a single state or municipal plow out. You'd think they'd be out in full force since there hasn't been a single hour of overtime for the entire season. On the other hand, the Blithering Idjits were out in abundance, having completely forgotten how to drive in the stuff, "sideways" turning into the default for many of them. The 290 got shut down on both ends at various times of the morning, and I detoured around a bit to get home, going slow, safe and sane.

And this isn't even the "lake effect," which can produce snow in feet rather than inches. That is projected to begin arriving shortly, but to be drifting mostly to the south of here.  In the meantime, we did get our first driveway plow-out of the entire winter, and the streets have improved (north-south ones looking much better than the bigger east-west arterials around here, probably because of the way the wind is blowing).

Yet before anybody starts dropping F-bombs on Al Gore? By Monday, it's supposed to be back to almost 40F again.

----

Maybe the only more obvious "news" than "Buffalo Experiences Snow in the Wintertime" would be a headline stating, "Journalists Should Not Perpetuate Intentional Falsehoods." But that is almost exactly what a blogger for the New York Times had to be told, several hundred times by readers and his executive editor, in response to his posting this:

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.... 

[For]example: on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

Is it even necessary to ASK this question? Apparently it is, because so many of these Faux News liar-lines do go unchallenged, and eventually metamorph into Everybody Knows That kinds of "truths" that a large segment of this country simply "believe" because they "heard it" someplace. 

To their credit, the guy's cred got challenged, by many readers but also by his boss, whose reactions are chronicled in this followup to the original post.

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I agree with the comments to the second post, which when I checked this morning were mostly "Are you kidding? The answer is STILL yes, jackass."

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

A bunch of the profs here (my dept does Journalism as well as Media/Cultural) were disgusted by the NYT blogger. *sigh*

[tilia-tomentosa.livejournal.com]

Send some snow my way, please!

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

The cost of the dry ice is usually prohibitive for your distance, but I'll see what we can do.

Assuming any's left after Monday that I don't turn into snowballs to toss at our birdfeeder-raiding squirrels;)

[tilia-tomentosa.livejournal.com]

It seems to Be Americans Complaining of Squirrels Day for me on LJ. :D