Crippled Weathermen

It’s around this time of year that I start thinking about the cripple state of the union. Have American cripples made any progress in the last year?

So I spend a lot of time watching weather reports on the news. Because everyone knows that the best way to analyze who’s who among American minorities jockeying for higher social status is to analyze our television weathermen/women.

Because for some reason, weatherman/woman seems to be the entry level pop culture celebrity job for people who aren’t your standard, automatically-trustworthy, white males. I mean hell, in America, even an overweight person can make it big doing the weather on television. Let me rephrase that: In America, even an overweight MAN can make it big doing the weather on television. I’ve seen overweight weathermen but I’ve never seen an overweight weatherwoman.

But there are weathermen who are overweight and not even white to boot. Wow! Talk about tolerance! The only other time you see overweight people on the news is when there’s a story about obesity. And then we see them on what’s referred to in the technical language of television news production as “the fat ass B-roll montage.” Every television news operation seems to have one of those, just in case a story pops up about obesity. It’s so rude. And how is this montage created? I guess a producer barks out to a camera crew, “Go out and shoot a bunch of pictures of people with fat asses!” Are those whose asses are shot then asked to sign a release? And why is this montage even necessary? Stories about republicans aren’t accompanied by B-roll of white guys lighting cigars with $50 bills.

Anyway, America has evolved to the point where we trust overweight people to bring us the weather report. Sometimes you see overweight sportscasters, but usually they’re former football players, in which case they have a good excuse for being overweight so we forgive them.

But I’ve yet to see an openly crippled weatherhuman. I check back this time every year just to see if anything has changed, but so far nada. I even watch The Weather Channel. I hate watching The Weather Channel because it seems like every time I turn it on there’s a show about tornados. I don’t know who the hell these people are who enjoy watching shows about tornados. They must say to themselves, “Boy it’s been a rough day! All I want to do is pop open a brewski, put my feet up, kick back and be reminded of the random viciousness of the universe.”

The weatherhumans on The Weather Channel are black and white and male and female and some are a tinge overweight. But there’s no trace of a cripple. Not even a whiff. Now granted, there might be a don’t-ask-don’t-tell thing going on. It’s possible one of them has a wooden leg but they aren’t the type that goes around shoving it down people’s throats.

But as far as my naked eye can see, there are still no crippled weathermen. Some say cripples have made enormous strides. But I say show me the proof. Show me a weatherman.