Monday, April 11, 2011

News ... and weather

Since the beginning of the "Arab Spring," the popular unrest that is unseating so many sclerotic autocracies (mostly ones previously "allied" with the United States, to our shame), I've been getting much of my news from the online Al Jazeera Live Stream, also available and functional as a iPhone app. The Qatar-based TV channel simply provides farther reaching, often better informed, and less celebrity-infused information than CNN or even the BBC.

For example, yesterday after church, we came home to find that parking was impossible in my neighborhood because something was causing block-long lines of people outside the community college building. What's going on? we asked. These people were Peruvian citizens, casting their expatriate votes in the Peruvian presidential election. (Expat US citizens do this too, usually at embassies.) For more information about a faraway event that impinged on life, I went to Al Jazeera and found good coverage. This is news that I want when I need it.

But I have to admit, what I just love about AJ is the weather. They've got the style of cliched local TV weather casters down pat.

There's a slightly arch guy ...
male.jpg

And there's a brassy woman ...
female.jpg

Apparently some things are universal.

2 comments:

BST said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Belisariusorb said...

I like AJ a lot, despite its hammering from those who think it a tool of Islamic radicals. These people clearly think Sir David Frost of Frost/Nixon fame is allied to Osama Bin-Laden.

Though it does have a pronounced anti-Israeli bias, if you take that as read, the remaining pieces are well-presented and highly professional.

Most of the journos are old BBC hands, and for a Brit it's actually quite homey. David Frost et al make it quite nostalgic of BBC in the 1970s.

For mid-East insider coverage it simply cannot be beat.

As for the hackneyed weather folks, I think weather guys the world over are supposed to be like that. But I like hearing what the weather is like around the world.

I hope they get more distribution outlets in the US, so that other US viewers can judge for themselves as you have.