From March 6, 2013

Meanwhile, at and beyond The Wall. By the by, to those not in Maryland: The weather called for a snow storm (nicknamed The Snowquester) that was supposed to paralyze the DC Metro Area. Work was cancelled. Schools closed. It... rained. A bit of slush. Tada.

Wednesday, March 6

I woke up on Day 60 questioning whether or not to head to class.  The forecast had predicted a buttload of snow.  So, I headed to my front door where luckily I ran into my room mate who informed that classes had been cancelled (HURRAY!!!) and that we were without power (CRAPP!).

Not having class is pretty awesome, but being confined to your apartment without internet, heat, electricity is like prison.  You realize how dependent you are on these things in your day to day life.  What did people do back in the day you couldn't dick around on Youtube or Facebook?  Reading books - whatt?  Also, I realized I couldn't cook anything since the electricity was out and our stove was electric.  So it would be a can of salmon for all three meals unless I could find something outside.

After finally cleaning my room in 3 months (what else would I do without power?), I finally decided to make the trek to grounds where hopefully there would be power and internet.

I met up with Ali and Caleb to head to the Comm School.  The walk down JPA was an adventure!  Foot-deep snow, fallen trees that took down powerlines (that's why the power was out...), trees that fell on cars...  Luckily, I had my snowboots, so walking through the snow wasn't too bad.

 We decided to head to the Corner to get some food.  I was not about to eat salmon for the whole day...

Unfortunately, we found everything was closed and without power.  I asked the owner of Whitespot, who was out shoveling snow, if he knew of anything open.  "Everyone's without power," he replied.  "But if anyone did have it, they'd make so much money..."

Perhaps he had an epiphany after that because I later heard that White Spot was soon open.  They used candles and a gas stove to cook the burgers... haha

But of course it's all "rumor."  It was kind of funny hearing the rumors for restaurants that were open or not.  Dining halls are packed.  Rumor has it that Boylan will open at 4 p.m. tonight.  Power won't be back for a whole week...

We decided to try out the hospital for food, figuring that they would prioritize power returning at the hospital after all.  So after finishing my E-comm homework, we made the trek to the hospital where we ran into Issa and Michael and a few other OYFAns who had had the same idea.  haha....

Later, I decided to stay there with Glenda to do a bit of work in the library.

Around 7 p.m. or so, I learned that the power had returned to JPA.  HURRAY!

Today we look at what happens when hyperbole meets group think meets “journalism”.

The Nixon administration gave us the Watergate scandal.  The Watergate complex in Washington DC was the scene of an attempted burglary of Democrat National Headquarters by devotees of the Keystone Kops to obtain confidential campaign strategy on the Democrat nominee who couldn’t have won the election if Nixon had spotted him California, Texas and New York.  It led to cover-ups, bribes, perjury and all matter of political chicanery, and eventually the resignation of Richard Nixon and imprisonment of many of his cronies.  It is fortunate for the press that the break-in occurred at a place with such a pliable name.  Watergate sounds like something that holds back the floodwaters and flood it did. 

  Since Watergate, the media love to attach “Gate” to any political scandal.  We have had Billygate, Contragate and Monicagate to name but a few.  Even the press has had their turn with Memogate.  Remember Dan Rather?  Most recently we should have had Benghazigate, but apparently the average American voter thinks Benghazi is the guy who played the villain in the movie Road House.

  The granddaddy of all overstatements is Armageddon.  Thanks to all that Mayan calendar nonsense it was a top pick in 2012 and has led itself to various unrelated matters, such as Taxmageddon.  If there is a multi-car traffic accident on a major U.S. highway, you can bet that some sage will describe it as Carmageddon.

Our latest bogeyman is the sequester and it has already started to appear in various other contexts.  The recent blizzards have been referred to as the “snowquester”.  Teen-agers will no longer be grounded.  They will be age-specific sequestered. 

We presume it is the glut of cable news outlets and the concomitant competition that drives the media to play every negative occurrence as the end of the world.  We are well past the days when news was reported.  It must now be aggrandized and marketed.