duck-shaped pain

2000-11-07
People In Parkas Out In The Snow plus Election Day Special

(WARNING: All Colorado content ahead. It's okay if you people from other states and countries skip this one.)

It might snow here today. It's hard to tell � it's cold enough to snow, there's dark clouds brooding over in the west, yet all I can see from my window is blue sky. So if it snows, it snows. If not, it will do it another day.

It snowed in Denver this weekend, something which is not in the least bit unusual. You wouldn't know this by watching the local news, however. All snowstorms must be covered as if snow was completely unexpected, as if it had never snowed before. Actually, considering the large influx of newcomers to the DenBoulMetroPlex in the last few years, maybe broadcasting the equivalent of A Beginner's Guide To Snow is a good idea. Still, all local TV stations love to cover stories where they can somehow incorporate footage of one of their reporters standing in front of something into the package. It could be someone standing in front of the courthouse, in front of a burning car, in front of a toxic waste spill � it doesn't matter, as long as they give the impression that they were THERE! AT THE SCENE!

Snow provides way too many opportunities for live standups (which, I think, is the proper jargon for TV-reporter-out-on-the-scene-standing-in-front-of-something, if memory serves me right. But I could be wrong. [1] ) � but the one they always seem to reply on too much is the shot of someone standing on a highway overpass, overlooking miles of blocked traffic and/or snowplows at work.

The banter is always the same:

ANCHOR: "Bob, is it showing out there in Genessee?"

BOB: (looking cold, sort of frazzled, wearing Official Station Logo-Emblazoned Parka) "Sure is! Looking at the amount of snow accumulating on this railing here, [2] we much have five inches!"

And it goes on and on:

ANCHOR: "Now we'll check on our northern bureau. Susan, how's the weather up there in Fort Collins?"

SUSAN: (also cold, also parka-clad) "Brrrrr!"


I am so glad that the election is going to be over today. I am tired of it, and I am especially tired of one thing in particular � campaign ads made specifically for the Western Slope.

Now the reasons why there are such ads are numerous, and I don't know if I have the stamina and know-how to explain them (hence the disclaimer � I figure the three? four? readers out there from my home state will understand). Needless to say, living over here is much different than living over there (there being anything east of the Continental Divide) and these ads reflect that.

I hate them. They're all so knee-jerky and urge you to vote or against something-or-other for reasons based basically on fear or revenge.

One specific type of fear, to be precise:

"Vote YES on 24 � if you don't, the Front Range is going to come after our water!"

Never mind that this may or may not be true: that's the essential conflict, pared down into one inflammatory statement. We have 80 percent of the state's water over here. They have 80 percent of the state's population over there. Add to this years of neglect, resentment and economic doldrums, and you'll see why people get so whipped up to protect our one natural resource, the one thing we can use as leverage to get things we want.

(I think this might actually be the worst explanation of this ever written. Sorry. I ran out of coffee this morning�.)


[1] My limited knowledge of this stuff comes from the few TV-related classes I look back in journalism school. I hated TV classes � they were always filled with people whose deepest wish in life was to anchor someday. And I could never get broadcast writing style down pat, anyway.

[2] Why this is always used as the standard unofficial TV news measurement of snow, I'll never know.

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