OSAMA BIN LAWSON

January 2, 2002. A family huddles in front of their television set, anxious to get news about an approaching snowstorm. A storm that will ultimately dump over half a foot of snow in their area, shut down numerous schools and businesses, and leave drivers to deal with ice-covered roads for days afterward. Hoping to get an accurate forecast, the family turns to Channel 13 and its straight-laced chief meteorologist, Jeff "White Bread" Lawson. As Lawson speaks, the family listens with anticipation.

"We do have a serious weather system approaching," Lawson acknowledges, "but more on that later in our broadcast. First lets take a look at the forecast for Afghanistan."

Afghanistan??? Yes, Afghanistan.

Our military actions in that country have headlined the news since they began in October, as rightfully they should. But as in the Gulf War before it, these overseas events have somehow crept into the weather segment of the news. How and why, you ask? There’s no reasonable explanation. Was the weather team feeling left out and neglected? That can’t be the case, or else these daily forecasts would be accompanied by Afghan coverage during the sports wrap-up, too. To borrow a byline from Bruce Rader, Scott Cash’s cohort on Channel 10, "lemme take ya to the Kabul Coliseum, where a public execution is already in progress!"

But wait, maybe there is value in these forecasts. Never mind that the military handles its own weather forecasting and plans its strategies accordingly, and that today’s troops aren’t facing anything remotely like what the soldiers who froze to death during the Korean War were up against. Perhaps this is a perfect opportunity for the folks back home to e-mail their loved ones deployed in Afghanistan and make them aware of upcoming weather changes. "It’s gonna be cold one tomorrow, honey. Make sure to put on that red sweater I packed before you hit those front lines in the morning." Or, in the case of an unseasonable warm up, "Be sure to wear that t-shirt I got you at Target. You know, the one with the company logo on it." Now that’s love.

Or perhaps Channel 13 is profiting from these forecasts. Maybe they are being beamed overseas and marketed to Afghan television stations. As they are dubbed into Arabic, an extended version complete with Middle-Eastern weather quips is added to make the forecasts more appealing to the native population. "It’s going to be a blazer out there today, so you may want to think twice before throwing on that second veil," or, "It’s rather brisk, so you may want to wrap an extra towel around your head as you, ahem, head out the door." Pretty clever, Jeff.

We can’t even get an accurate forecast for outlying areas like Franklin and the Outer Banks, yet Lawson is going to give us the outlook for Kandahar and Kabul. Going to go out on a limb and predict that the temperature in Mazar-e Sharif won’t even reach 50, even though your competition over at Channel 3 has projected a balmy 53? Willing to donate your next paycheck to charity if your entire viewing audience doesn’t even care? You get all your numbers from the National Weather Service anyway, Bozo.

For the sake of argument though, let’s say a handful of people out there are interested in the weather in Afghanistan. Why, even then, with a dangerous weather system bearing down on us, would you continue to bother with this crap? Were the producers on you to keep the viewers watching, stringing out the news for as long as possible before getting to the local forecast. It’s totally absurd, Mr. Lawson. You’re all about ratings.

By the way, Jeff, what’s with all the extra lip gloss lately? Hoping to appeal to that lucrative Oceanview market, I’d venture to say.

Jeff Lawson. More predictable than the weather.