The Boston Globe reports that long-time Boston television weatherman Don Kent has passed away.
For some thirty years, when New Englanders wanted to know what the weather forecast was, the ultimate voice of authority was WBZ’s Don Kent. Though he was not trained as a meteorologist, Kent was a self-taught weather expert and brought professionalism to a job that, as local television news became more and more formulaic in the 1970s, was so often used as “comic relief” or as an excuse to put a pretty girl in a tight dress on screen for five minutes to point at a map. Kent didn’t do goofy shtick, wear loud suits, or make happy talk. People knew that they could watch him on TV or listen to him on the radio and get a reliable forecast. These days, television weather forecasts dazzle with technology, though they over-sensationalize severe weather situations, but the model of using knowledgeable forecasters is a direct legacy of Don Kent’s career.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT.
Since you cannot click a [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and [...]
Thanks to Shelley for alerting me that last night’s edition of the local TV newsmagzine “Chronicle” featured Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, whom I blogged about recently in conjunction with the various atheist billboard campaigns around the country. I was busy helping Charlotte do her homework, so I didn’t watch the show, but WCVB’s [...]
