Daily Sundial

That’s hot!

No, I am not talking about the talentless Paris Hilton, nor her unfortunate pet. I am referring to the weather in Southern California lately.

Turns out, as the Anglo newsperson on TV said, the heat wave that’s scorching up the Southwest is getting a cool name: La Ni?a. I found this out as I caught the evening news before the start of Jeopardy tonight.

That’s hot!

Not.

The news report highlighted the fact that the usual cold winter is nonexistent. I guess it finally dawned on the news crew that there was something wrong with it being February and that there were no sightings of anyone wearing scarves, gloves and coats. I guess they also forgot that this is Sunny Southern California.

Sure, I am sitting inside an uncomfortably warm room and the heater isn’t even running, but why is this heat wave such huge news? Was it a slow news day?

I really would love to see a little more coverage on the aftermath following the words of Rev. Joseph Lowery, who called out President Bush and his administration during funeral services for Coretta Scott King, the late widow of Martin Luther King, Jr. It would also have been nice to see even more on the thoughts of former President Jimmy Carter, who noted that there’s still racism in this country during the same ceremony.

How about a little extra coverage of how L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca wants to segregate inmates because of the black-Latino fracases that have occurred recently?

Let’s not forget that there’s a huge story about how Sheraton Hotels in Mexico City are messing with human rights, how this corporation kicked a bunch of Cuban nationals out of one of its institutions just because of where they were from.

But that’s beside the fact. I continue to ask why this heat wave is so important to newscasters? I’d like to wiretap the conversations between meteorologists to see what the real deal is behind the heat. I’m sure Bush would like that, wouldn’t he? We can search for weapons of mass corruption.

According to the report, which was given by an anchorperson-not a meteorologist- there is a threat to the area because high winds from Santa Ana mixing with La Ni?a heat sets a high risk for wild fires. It compared this winter to last year’s, which saw high levels of rainfall because of El Ni?o.

I was dumbfounded by the words that I heard during the mediocre report – La Ni?a, El Ni?o and Santa Ana. We better watch out, otherwise this could lead to wild fires, oops … I mean El Fuego.

This is absurd, and I can’t believe people are wasting their time producing such garbage.

Allow me to go out on a limb here. Let’s pretend that there’s such thing as global warming. Imagine a place where large factories are burning up the good air. Or, imagine a place where trash is being swept under the “carpet,” which means into rivers, oceans and deserts. This place is actually our planet, but you wouldn’t know it by watching the evening news.

But, why would those responsible for producing the evening news want to go out on a limb? The truth is, they wouldn’t want to.

Julio Cortez can be reached at julio.cortez.294@csun.edu.