Lifestyle
Can the hurricane TV reporters come inside now? Please?
Sean Rayford/Getty Photographs
Once I noticed a tree department fly into The Climate Channel’s intrepid anchor Jim Cantore, simply as he was struggling to face up towards intense winds reporting from the center of the storm throughout Hurricane’s Ian’s landfall Wednesday, I could not assist a fleeting, horrible thought:
Possibly now they will cease doing this.
As a longtime Florida resident, it is a sight I have been pressured to endure for a few years, as I scour TV information protection for details about my dwelling throughout a hurricane: Reporters standing in excessive winds and pounding rain, shouting their observations in regards to the expertise of being inside a lethal storm to an viewers of thousands and thousands.
Cantore gave the impression to be among the many most daring of the correspondents I watched provide this type of reporting Wednesday, which included skilled and completed journalists like Invoice Weir on CNN, Kerry Sanders on NBC and Steve Harrigan on Fox Information Channel.
The storm surge from Hurricane Ian is the “loopy variable right here proper now,” says @BillWeirCNN from Punta Gorda, Florida. “That is precisely what local weather scientists have been warning about for a very long time.” https://t.co/qPONcBnBLv pic.twitter.com/aJDunN7Uzc
— CNN (@CNN) September 28, 2022
Reporting for The Climate Channel, Cantore is a storm chasing legend and he did not disappoint throughout studies on Ian, holding onto a road signal whereas the wind bent again a cease signal. He shrugged off the hazard as soon as he regained his footing, heading to a safer spot to proceed his reporting.
YouTube
I get why this occurs. Not solely are these highly effective visuals, however they assist break up the monotony of watching a slow-moving storm ship the identical form of harm to communities all throughout Florida’s Gulf Coast. Hurricane protection can tackle an terrible rhythm; the meteorologist affords an outline of the storm’s progress, native officers speak about efforts to safeguard their communities, reporters on scene gaze on the wind and rain and doc the destruction.
And also you hear the identical warnings: Do not stroll or drive by means of flooded areas. Do not count on emergency companies to reply till the storm passes and winds die down. A more moderen slogan, which I heard repeated by a number of meteorologists and information anchors like a mantra: “Cover from the winds; run from the water.”
Watching an individual stand in the midst of the maelstrom provides drama to a sadly predictable scenario. And, as one among my extra unconventional social media followers famous, it could possibly really feel a bit like watching a NASCAR race, the place you each concern and are attracted by the likelihood that you just would possibly see one thing horrible occur in actual time.
We do want journalists on scene to witness how a storm like Ian dismantles communities in Florida. However do these reporters actually need to danger their lives standing out in open rainfall and wind gusts? Watching a little bit of Shepard Smith’s CNBC present, I noticed him report on Ian by speaking to a longtime Florida meteorologist – now retired – and residents in affected areas who have been indoors. I did not really feel like I used to be lacking a lot.
Anderson Cooper’s CNN present featured a report from a journalist from at a Florida station noting he was capable of stand within the parts as a result of he was subsequent to a sturdy hearth station. Nonetheless, it is robust to ship a message that folks in affected areas ought to hunker down at dwelling, when TV channels are full of footage of reporters out within the driving storm, declaring hanging climate moments.
I wasn’t within the hurricane as this was happening; I had traveled to Atlanta from my dwelling in St. Petersburg after a compulsory evacuation was declared, terrified of getting caught in a flood with my 13-year-old canine. So the TV studies have been a lifeline to pals, household and my neighborhood; I actually did not need to see somebody get significantly harm in a spot that I like doing one thing nobody in a hurricane ought to be doing.
That is an outdated debate and one the TV information business appears to have already determined. Cantore stumbling on a tree department will not be sufficient; till a reporter is significantly injured doing this type of reporting, it is going to proceed. And I’ll all the time want they have been extra cautious.
Lifestyle
A High Stakes Obstacle Course, for Dogs
The dogs in the event, which has typically been dominated by Border collies, are grouped by height rather than breed, creating a more chaotic vibe than the rehearsed perfection of the regular dog show.
Lifestyle
Pearl Jam Guitarist Mike McCready Falls Hard Offstage During Guitar Solo
Pearl Jam’s guitarist fell hard off a stage while the band was performing in the Great White North — and the worst part is … the whole thing was caught on video.
Mike McCready was seen rocking out during his band’s recent Vancouver show — where he was in the middle of a guitar solo for “Porch.” He was feeling the music as he made his way confidently towards the crowd … but it seems he lost track of the stage.
Check it out … unfortunately, Mike makes a misstep and tumbles off the stage, disappearing from sight. It looks like a brutal landing too — ’cause the guy was definitely not expecting it.
Mike gets pulled back on the stage by a nearby roadie, giving a slight shake of his head before continuing on. His recovery was pretty impressive … as he continued on with no problem — but kept his distance from the edge of the stage for the remainder of the song.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
It isn’t surprising the moment went viral … as Pearl Jam’s stop in Vancouver was totally sold out last week.
Mike will have a chance to redeem himself, since Pearl Jam is on a big tour this summer. The rock legends are taking their new record, “Dark Matter,” on the road … with their next stop in Sacramento, Calif.
After a few dates in the U.S., Pearl Jam is heading overseas with planned stops in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Spain and Portugal. The tour will wrap up in November in Australia — with one of the dates already sold out.
Here’s hoping those dates have a little less gravity and a little more even flow.
Lifestyle
My Octopus Teacher's Craig Foster dives into the ocean again in 'Amphibious Soul'
The film My Octopus Teacher tells the story of a man who goes diving every day into the underwater South African kelp forest and forms a close relationship there with an octopus. That man — the diver, and also the filmmaker — was Craig Foster, who delighted millions of nature lovers around the world and took home the 2021 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Now in a new book, Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World, Foster describes the entire ecosystem of the Great African Seaforest at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, and the transforming role it has played in his quest to seek wildness. As the book’s amphibious title hints, Foster is as much (maybe more) at home in the ocean as he is on land.
Foster’s incredible engagement with seaforest creatures comes through beautifully in this account. Every day for months, he recounts, he “visited the crack in the rock where a huge male clingfish lived,” and the fish became quite calm in his presence. “Returning to the same places, watching for subtle changes, and continuing to ask questions replenishes my curiosity,” he writes.
Foster’s profound tie to place reminds me of birders who closely attend to nature in their own yard or local park. Indeed, Foster underscores that any of us can find wildness where we live: “We can all develop a more playful relationship with nature, whether that means collecting crisp leaves or smooth rocks to use in our artwork or watching the squirrel perform acrobatics outside our window.”
Nature’s healing power is a focus for Foster and an immensely personal one. Before he had any thoughts of My Octopus Teacher, he was burned out on long grinding hours of film-making work. He found relief in cold immersion, both in the ocean and in a home-made box containing icewater. Later though, after the immense global attention to the octopus film and therefore to him, he suffered from insomnia so pronounced that some nights he managed only 10 minutes of sleep. His body and mind were breaking down and felt a strong pull to find his way back to the wild.
To become fully immersed in the story of his quest for wild healing, it’s necessary to go with Foster’s flow and accept his constant, near-mystical reverence for “our ancestors.” I read with a wild-seeking heart his belief that modern-day humans can recover an ancestral link to wild creatures — but also, inescapably, I read with an anthropologist’s sensibilities. Is it possible to replicate “humanity’s natural state?” Is there a singular way to describe our ancestors’ experiences with animals? Given the long sweep of human evolution, which ancestors exactly?
Might there be a hint of romanticizing the past here? Foster writes of “our nonviolent origins” and adds that it was “only with the advent of agriculture that the reciprocity with the wild that we’d enjoyed for some 300,000 years began to break apart — and with it, our psyches.” Yet there’s serious anthropological scholarship that argues warfare began 200,000 or 300,000 years ago, far longer ago than the start of agriculture around 12,000 years ago.
A stronger thread in the book is the powerful connection to nature that comes with tracking. At first, I thought Foster meant looking only for animal tracks in the dirt, mud, or snow, but his definition is more comprehensive, and eye-opening: “any clue left by any creature or plant, sand or rock.” Running water also may leave a track, or lightning hitting a tree.
For an amphibious soul, the height of joy comes with underwater tracking: Foster taught himself to see tracks of mollusks in the sand atop the back of a stingray, or an octopus’s predation marks on a shell. How magnificent to see the undersea universe in such detail! Once again, Foster broadens out from his own experience to encourage the rest of us: “Just start small and chip away,” Foster advises. In addition to looking for ground tracks, “seek out marks on plants, trees, rocks, or walls.”
Foster’s writing is rooted in his own learning from an array of mentors, including Indigenous individuals, and in a wish to share and spread his joy in nature. A spirit of generosity suffuses the book.
It’s probably thanks to an octopus that Amphibious Soul is out in the world. Foster invites us now to recognize the intrinsic value of the Great African Seaforest ecosystem as a whole — and of all ecosystems that enshrine wildness.
Barbara J. King is a biological anthropologist emerita at William & Mary. After writing about animal grief and love, and how all of us may bring about greater compassion for animals, she is now writing about cats for her 8th book. Find her on X, formerly Twitter @bjkingape
-
Education1 week ago
How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours
-
Politics1 week ago
Australian lawmakers send letter urging Biden to drop case against Julian Assange on World Press Freedom Day
-
World1 week ago
Brussels, my love? Champage cracked open to celebrate the Big Bang
-
News1 week ago
A group of Republicans has united to defend the legitimacy of US elections and those who run them
-
Politics1 week ago
House Dems seeking re-election seemingly reverse course, call on Biden to 'bring order to the southern border'
-
World1 week ago
‘It’s going to be worse’: Brazil braces for more pain amid record flooding
-
Politics1 week ago
'Stop the invasion': Migrant flights in battleground state ignite bipartisan backlash from lawmakers
-
World1 week ago
German socialist candidate attacked before EU elections