Nuance

I've been loosely following tropical Storm Dean for the past few days. (Living in Charleston will make you do things like that.) While reading all the little news-feed snippets online, i've noticed something: we like our weather forecasters just a little jargony. Read what weatherperson "Anna" has to say from some random Florida newsroom:

Dean is moving into much warmer water, which fuels a tropical system, and shear is beginning to relax. A strong ridge of high pressure is steering the storm west, and that westerly direction looks to continue as it enters the Carribbean as a hurricane Friday night. Sea surface temperatures in the Central Carribbean are in the mid to upper 80s, and the storm may become a Category 3 with more than 110 maximum sustained winds by Monday morning.

A little technical sounding, no? And she even started all that with a folksy "Folks," but still managed to segue nicely into the tech speak. Too bad the rest of the "regular-joe news" isn't more like that.

What all this has made me think of was that sad moment during the last campaign for president--the campaign that took place prior to the two-week break before this campaign for president. It was the moment when Skull-Head Kerry was made fun of by all the football players on Bush's side when he suggested that a situation was "Nuanced."

(And here's a quick aside for you...I fancy myself a potential top-notch campaign advisor. Had i been able to procure such a post, here are two examples of my brilliance: for Hillary Clinton's campaign i would suggest a leak to the press that "she enjoys a little glass of whiskey in the evenings. Neat." Rather than trying to soften her up like they've been doing, I think this would set her up as a real hard-baller. My other idea was back there with Kerry's campaign. My top suggestion would have been a simple campaign slogan:

Kerry. For a President With a Skull for a Head.)

Anyway. It's such a shame that we like something as important as our real news and our presidential candidates monosyllabic. That's all.