Doug explains El Nino

by Douglas Slayton


When you meet some person with whom you have nothing to talk about, invariably you will talk about the weather. When you talk about the weather lately all anyone ever wants to talk about is El Nino—partly because the media is telling you that it is important and partly because no one knows what it is. Lucky for you on both counts that you clicked some anonymous link that someone has shared with you for this piece because I will now explain El Nino. And maybe that stranger will think you are cool and call you back and maybe someday you will tell your children about how you met their other parent because you read a super informative article on a blog that otherwise actively repulsed you because of its continued lack of editorial direction.

Haha. Just kidding, no one will ever love you. Let’s get to the real reason you are here though: El Nino.

We live in an exciting time. The news, like your depressed friend you keeps messaging you on Facebook when you are trying to sleep in preparation for your big quarterly financial meeting in the morning, never sleeps. Because it never sleeps, there has to be a constant stream of content. But most of the time there is not much worthy of reportage. The news wants you to think that we live in exciting times, but really we do not. Everything is boring. You really should spend less time reading things on the internet and just live your life.¹ In order to support the new 24 hour news cycle, the big wigs in New York sell all that advertising time so that you will know about the latest toothpaste breakthroughs. In order to fill this space between commercials, news anchors are trained to improvise breaking “facts”. It has lead to recent trending topics like the “election”. Easily, the biggest story to come from this practice is El Nino. It began as a simple weather broadcast in upstate New York, but spun out of control when a different weather reporter from Boston saw the broadcast while eating a burrito and said, “I can do better than that!” And did he ever. This oneupsmanship has lead to a rash of news broadcasts warning the coasts of a storm, the likes of which have not been seen in several decades (two, two decades).

Where it is undeniable that this is a BIG storm, it is smaller than the secret storms that the media has been ignoring for centuries (two, two centuries). As much as I would like to discuss the media ignoring the real issues, like other big storms and littering, I can simply say this is a case of the media bias towards certain stories over others.

This leads into why no one knows anything about El Nino: because it is a fabrication. It is a series of loosely connected storms the media is wanting to be a bigger deal than it is, so they can charge more for the advertising during the reporting.

This is a clear cut case of the media using its power to fill their pockets with gold.

Douglas Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

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1 Editor's note: this is not true. Your life is incredibly boring and the internet is infinitely more interesting. Fuck you if you think you're too good for the internet. -CA^↩

Life Sans Politics

by Chancey Hector

Photo Courtesy of the Author

I don’t understand politics—not at all. Growing up, I was surrounded by friends and family who always knew who the Secretary of State was, or how the Senate works, or what a pork barrel is, but none of it rubbed off on me. Today, not much has changed; I still have no idea what senators do, I don’t know why the government is split into branches, and I still can’t tell you what a pork barrel is, politically speaking. All I can picture is a barrel with a lot of meat inside, which is of course silly and reveals just how little I understand the political world. That being said, not knowing much about politics has not been a detriment to my daily life. I can still cook, clean, drive, laugh, cry, and shop for knee-high boots without knowing who Joseph R. Biden is or what Sarah Palin does for a living.

My father’s eyes roll whenever we discuss current events. He reads the newspaper every day to catch a glimpse of the world’s happenings, and he can probably name the presidents of most countries in the world. He is on top of his political life. I, on the other hand, cannot keep up with the news. I have tried, and failed, to educate myself. The only thing I ever retain from watching Fox News or CNN is the weather report. Now that’s important information to have when you are planning picnics at the beach. Understanding Barack Obama’s political stance on immigration is not so tangibly useful—unless you are in the process of immigrating, which I am not.

When I think about it, I realize that perhaps it is thanks to this mysterious government that I am able to do all those things I like without concerns or worry. I imagine that thanks to import/export laws I am able to buy goods made overseas, and thanks to amiable treaties with neighboring countries I am able to enjoy low gas prices. I would surf on Google and see if any of my assumptions are correct, but the truth is that I am too busy to find out. I have a marriage, twin toddlers, rent and utilities, and a job that drives me nuts. My daily routine leaves me no time to investigate the political happenings of this country.

Not to be defeated by the complexity of the government, I turn to my best friend to gather information. He understands me, and knows that I will only absorb politics in a very diluted form, free of all the political jargon that floats around out there in the real world. He knows how to bullet-point the topics that we discuss, and he knows how to make it fun to learn—by inserting a lot of hip hop references into his stories, somehow. He makes light out of the depressing events that occur out there, outside of my small bubble of existence. He’s my personal version of The Daily Show. And thanks to his bite-size approach, I am able to glean a few important gems here and there, like the definition of filibuster and the history of Blue Dog Democrats. However, these factoids are soon replaced with more important information, such as the ingredients I will need to cook dinner tonight.

Dinner and laundry are more important to me than who has decided to run for the presidency next year (elections are next year, right?). My life cannot function without planned meals and clean clothes. One of my twins has a complete wardrobe change three times a day. Several times a week she routinely runs out of clothes to wear, so I have to run the washing machine twice a week to keep up with her. Sometimes I leave the news on while I cook or clean the house, but it’s all white noise to me. I don’t multitask; I can cook or listen to the news. I am not equipped to do both at the same time. But the beauty of it all is that I don’t have to multitask. I can focus on life at home while politicians focus on their life in Congress, or wherever else they meet and invent laws. I’ll do my job, they’ll do theirs.

In fact, I feel that the people out there in Washington are working very hard so that we don’t have to worry all that much. We have the option to participate in the elections but it’s not even mandatory! We can live peacefully and let the old men and women in charge of the country do what they think is best for all of us. We don’t have to know their names of even their agenda. We can pretty much coast on the outskirts of the political world and hope for the best. That’s all we can do, hope, because politics also have a dark side. There are corrupt politicians out there who do not have our best interest at heart: they want money and laws that allow them to keep it all, at all costs. Depending on who you are talking to, you will get a different list of corrupt politicians. It depends on what side of the spectrum you lie—Democrat or Republican, or Other. But so long as the good ones outnumber the bad ones, we should be pretty safe.

Politics may govern all aspects of my life, from the price of groceries to the price of gas, but I don’t know how it happens. And I will keep not knowing until things go awfully awry: the day my peeled baby carrots cost me $100.00 I will start paying very close attention to the confusing machinery that governs our country. Until then, I will spend my energy raising my children and being an attentive wife. I will keep coasting on the outskirts of the political world, and hope for the best.

Chancey is deeply committed to reminding the world that women are seriously just human. She also loves being French.