We don’t have cable or regular TV, but we do have access to our local live CBS affiliate, KIRO (aka channel 7 as I grew up knowing it) via our Paramount subscription through Amazon Prime Video. So every so often I try to watch the news that way to see what mainstream priorities and coverage of stuff looks and sounds like these days. There are a couple of super hot blondes on it. Like I think I’ve got it bad for the weather”girl” (man I grew up with some bullshit, didn’t I?). But I digress …
Here’s the thing; I hate it when the local news doesn’t know local things that every local person should know. ESPECIALLY if they want any credibility as a source of reliable, factual information.
Growing up the thing that would drive us nuts was when they’d pronounce “Duvall” (a small town neighbor just north of our even smaller town) incorrectly. They’d pronounce it like the actor Robert Duvall, with the emphasis on the last syllable (doov-ALL). But people who grew up in Duvall and Monroe and our town all pronounce it DOO-vall.
That wasn’t the only one they’d mispronounce (and we do have some doozies in Washington, like Seiku, Sequim and Puyallup) and maybe they’ve gotten better about it (and/or enough new people from California have taken over and overruled everyone pronouncing things the old local ways), but yeah … annoying.
So anyway, I’m watching the news the other night about our big windstorm(s) and apparently it’s a news-worthy phenomenon these days that LEAVES COME DOWN off trees in the fall, especially when the wind blows (who knew?!?). And when you overdevelop land like people have been doing and cut down so many trees that only a few are left exposed to the brunt of the wind, TREES FALL DOWN.
So the news people visit houses that trees have fallen on, like this one guy in Woodinville, and they show a downed FIR tree, and with an ominous voice say “... like this PINE TREE” (emphasis is my own) but it’s a fucking FIR tree not a PINE TREE omg why would anyone trust any shit that you’re saying.
We do have pine trees in Washington, but mostly in Western Washington they are FIR trees. People just -- ugh. It’s like the only evergreen tree they know the name of is PINE but man they are so different. You can’t learn to identify and distinguish between even the top three or five (fir, cedar, spruce, hemlock, pine)?
How do these people GET these jobs?!? Like oh “your source for LOCAL news and nonsense” you don’t even know what the most common plants are here and you can’t tell the difference between one kind of salmon and another, one kind of crab and another, a mussel from a clam? How is anyone supposed to trust your expertise in local matters?
Oh yeah, it’s not about expertise or reality or truth … it’s about spoon-feeding people what the most people want to hear: that nature encroacheth on your little enormous senseless grotesque immodest poorly-built boxes of ticky-tacky. That rain ruins your alcoholic weekends on the water terrorizing orcas with your sea-doos and destroying any peace and quiet with your reckless motorboating.
No wonder these dumb fuckers are always on TV and social media complaining about the rain like ohhh wow what a disappointment PRECIPITATION instead of sunshine. Move back to California. Set yourselves on fucking fire. Go to that shithole of corruption and brutality that is Arizona. Get the fuck out of here, dummies. The FIR trees need RAIN, not more houses to fall on. The trees aren’t the ones threatening your houses … your houses are threatening the trees. Get some birth control. Leave some forestland. Go away, you lazy simple-minded non-learners.
Sorry I got a little off track here. I just kind of lose my mind when I think of neighbors who are like "I hope we cut all the trees down around here so our gutters won't be clogged anymore by pine needles". Except they are FIR needles, and you are a dumb ass regardless.
