The Final Solution: R. Kelly and Climate Change

"Fake News” is Trump’s favorite refrain. But what about “Fake Weather.” Not to deny climate change, El Nino, the devastation produced by forest fires in California and flooding in the South, but weather has become an industry in itself. You have Accuweather competing with the Weather Channel and celebrity weather anchors like Al Roker on NBC and Lonnie Quinn and Elise Finch who are his counterparts on the local CBS station in New York. You can often find Lonnie Quinn shivering outside the CBS mobil weather center and one way or the other there's going to be drama in the offing. In the fierce battle for ratings, the curse of any weatherman or woman is mild weather with no chance of rain. An impending blizzard, a downpour, hurricane level winds and even hail make for good ratings. It’s the same paradigm that motivates the news. Sure everyone talks about peace and members of congress crossing the aisles to compromise, but such a state of affairs would put television news out of business. Remember "Gunga Din?" Now you have "Mueller Din," a low lying ambient feeling of institutionalized discord that’s something like the musak in one of those discount supermarkets. It’s terrible but the weatherman needs environmental catastrophes like their counterparts in local and national news require rapes, murders, kidnappings and the likes of an R. Kelly. The meteorologic equivalent of R. Kelly is a payday for anyone reporting on the weather.