growing up in the midwest, i have experienced my share of severe weather. i have come acustomed to news interuptions during primetime television to warn of impending danger. as a fan of the show 'friends,' i have come to realize that the final episodes of the season are in danger of being pre-empted when severe weather strikes. it's just the way it is. tonrnados come through at 7 p.m. cdt on thursdays in the spring. like i said, i am used to this. as long as it is a life threatening situation. interupt to tell me it's raining hard, and i will drive down to the station and start throwing things. make sure it's a serious, life threatening storm before you cut into regular scheduled programming, please.

now. last week. the kansas city area was hit by several tornados. i am in no way understating the power and severity of these storms. needless to say, that one of these tornados came through at, you guessed it, 7 o'clock, thursday night. they had been saying all day that there would be a strong likelyhood of tornadic activity. even the local talk radio shows that day were discussing why and when the weather guy should cut in. "if i miss 'survivor' because of a tornado...i'm gonna kill someone." one caller said so eloquently. there had been talk all day. so i wasn't surprised when the weather guy cut in at 6:59. after a few minutes, i had accepted the fact that i wasn't going to get to see my show. as i said, that's the way it is. but now, i started realizing that this particular weather guy...was an idiot. by the time 10 minutes had passed, he had said exactly ONE thing, about 17 or 18 times. he also kept telling the people of nearby lawrence to "relax, stay calm, it's not going to hit you" like he was talking to a boy scout troop around their first campfire. (lawrence, by the way, WAS hit by the tornado minutes later) as i became increasingly irritated with him...i decided to abandon this channel and see what else was on. not surprisingly, the next channel was also covering the storm, which had, by now, grown increasingly stronger and closer to the metropolitan area. okay, now we have a definite reason to cut in. as i watched the other channel's helicopter chase the tornado toward the city, "this is getting serious" i thought to myself. my apartment was out of the path, but when you start recognizing things on the tv that are getting hit...it becomes serious. as my thirst for information grew, i flipped to the local cbs channel. of course, they were covering the storm as detailed as the others. i had to think of my poor, radio buddy and his crushed dream of watching 'survivor,' and wondering how he was coping. but, they weren't saying anything new. i had exhausted the abc and cbs affiliates, i was NOT going to go back to the yahoo on nbc..."let's see what fox has to say about it." as i flipped to the fox channel, there was no storm coverage. "what? how is that possible?" i thought. "the thing is coming right into the city." well, i suppose the good folks at fox found it to be more newsworthy to NOT pre-empt their coverage of 'THE MISS DOG BEAUTY PAGEANT.' i mean what's more important, people, honestly? a severe storm posing threat to property and life, or doting over a pomeranian from nebraska named kiki? at this, i quitely stood up, turned my tv off and went and played in the hail.

i suppose they had the right, but it makes me sad to think of the state of our media that even local stations fall in line with the jackassery that is network programming.