In my last post I asked a question about who writes the words for severe weather warnings and now I think I’ve found the answer. And although this video has nothing to do with weather warnings I think it identifies either those who write those weather instructions or those who think they can follow them.
Now in case you’re confused about what country this is
It’s NOT Iran, Korea or France.
It’s Australia!
And while I don’t claim to be the smartest person around I at least know I can’t follow instructions that contradict each other and where some of this country’s best allies are. And on a good day I can even name all 7 continents and know Australia is 1 of them.
Finding videos that show Americans saying and doing stupid things isn’t hard. And not knowing geography or politics aren’t the only things covered in some of them. I found videos where people didn’t know how many sides there were on a triangle (3) or what happens when you cut down a full sized tree and get it to fall into the bed of a pickup truck.
They actually did this on purpose and were surprised at what happened to the truck.
Now I think it’s a good thing we Americans can laugh at ourselves when we do some pretty stupid stuff. And I know we’ve all done things without thinking it through. However I’m amazed at the number of “stupid American” videos available online especially when I couldn’t find many for the citizens for other countries.
I guess the point I’m trying to make with these last 2 posts is that while I’m proud to be an American I do think we have some problems. And 1 of our problems is we don’t think.
So to close this article I’m going to give you something to think about:
If someone drowns during a flash flood was it:
Their fault because they didn’t climb to higher ground.
Their fault because they were trying to climb to higher ground and they should have followed the instruction to stay in their car.
Their fault because no matter what they were doing they didn’t follow the instruction to “Don’t Drown.”
Please leave a comment and tell me what you think.
In fact I’m the 1 person in my family that pulls out the direction sheet or pamphlet to follow the directions for putting things together. I read them and I try to interpret them so we can get things put together the way they’re suppose to go.
But just like those assembly instructions that come with misleading and untranslatable steps I’ve found it difficult and sometimes impossible to follow the instructions given by our local television station during severe weather warnings.
For instance:
Last night we were having extremely bad storm with heavy rain, winds up to 60 mph and a tornado watch. And of course our local TV stations were running their warning messages constantly across the bottom of the screen.
The first problem I had was with actually reading their instructions. I read them the first time I saw them and then tried to check them every few minutes to see if they’d been updated. After about an hour I caught myself ignoring them all together. I asked my family if they’d been reading the warnings and they said they read the 1st one and hadn’t checked them since.
Since I’m sure the goal of the station is to actually keep everyone informed with up to date information I’d suggest they do something to remind us viewers to check the message when it’s been updated. I doubt that my family is the only 1 that incorporates that message border as part of the picture in their brain and then just ignores it. Maybe the stations could change message color or put in a 30 second break or something that could tell us to read the message again.
Now the second problem I had was with some of the instructions given inside the warning messages. These instructions included:
“If you’re driving turn around and don’t drown” - First I’d like to say that anyone driving in a heavy rainfall where you can’t see the front of your car and the winds are gusting up to 60 mph, you shouldn’t be driving. Secondly, if you are driving in that type of weather you better not be watching TV let alone reading messages.
“During flash flooding climb to higher ground” - This is good advice if you happen to be an able bodied adult and there is higher ground suitable for climbing where you are. However I’ve lived in places where you couldn’t climb to higher ground unless you were an expert rock climber and now live where there’s either no higher ground or hills with very loose dirt. Since I usually have small children with me I doubt I could climb a rock cliff or scramble up a slippery and unstable hillside while carrying or dragging 1 or 2 kids with me. And I for 1 am not leaving them behind! So to be safe, we get to higher ground when there’s a warning and before any flash flooding has occurred.
The combination of these 2 messages: “Stay away from electrical appliances” and “Stay tuned for further weather updates” - Is it me or do these 2 statements contradict each other? Isn’t a television an electrical appliance? Since I can’t do both I do what I can by staying away from my electric kitchen appliances, my laundry appliances and my computer. Of course that doesn’t mean that someday I won’t be killed by television while staying tuned to watch weather updates.
Now sometimes I do stay away from all electrical appliances and don’t stay tuned for weather updates because sometimes we lose power and because we use a satellite TV service. Now it’s not my fault that I didn’t stay tuned when we lose electricity. You can blame the power company for that 1. And it’s not my fault when we don’t have television service since the signal can’t always get through the bad weather. Like last night when we lost service for a couple of hours while we were experiencing the worst of the storm.
Maybe instead of telling us to stay away from electrical appliances and to stay tuned they should tell us to stay away from electrical appliances and tune our emergency transistor radio to a local station for further weather updates. We could actually follow both of those instructions and even get information about when power might be restored.
Well those are my thoughts about some of the stuff the TV station writers say in their severe weather instructions. If you think I’m right or wrong please leave a comment to let me know.
To Your Success, Susan
P.S. By the way, if you happen to know who did it on the Mentalist last night please leave a comment and tell me. We lost our signal before the last 15 minutes of the show and would really like to know if it was the husband, the lover, the ex-secretary or someone else we hadn’t seen yet. Thanks
While doing some online research last week I came across a speech that was given in January 2009.
I found this quote to be very interesting considering who said it. In fact I was so amazed by who said these words in a formal address I read it to several members of my family and asked them to guess who said it.
None of them came even close so I’ll give you a hint; it wasn’t a Politian, an actor or a newsperson however it is someone just about everyone knows about.
Can you guess who said this quote?
“I think the real challenge … actually, the real opportunity … is much bigger. And it is this … how do we come out of this difficult period in our history as a stronger America? Are we going to end the national embarrassment of 47 million uninsured and finally make health care in this country affordable for working men and women? Are we going to end our addiction to foreign oil and put our country on an economically and environmentally sustainable path through alternative sources of energy? Are we going to end the shameful slide of our education system and offer our children the knowledge, training and opportunity they need and deserve? Are we going to solve the immigration problem in a way that secures our borders, respects the rule of law and shows a deep compassion that families deserve?
If we as a country want to get through this time … and position ourselves to prosper and lead in the years ahead, then we need to tackle the hard issues. And there is no better time than right now. To those who say that now is not the time for health care reform, for a new energy policy, for higher quality schools, for comprehensive immigration reform … I say you are wrong.”
Remember - It’s someone you know about that’s not a Politian, an actor or a newsperson.
Did you guess?
Want to leave a comment and share your guess before you find out who said it?
Rather than tell you who said this quote I’ll let you read the entire speech so you’ll know I didn’t take it out of context. You can both read the quote and find out who said it in the speech “Changing How We Change America.”
Now that you know who said it please feel free to leave a comment and express your thoughts.
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