The old farmers used to call them storms, or “nor-easters,’ or “Canadian Howlers,” just ask Captain Ahab, but the corporate media pundits have a favorite new name, the bombogenesis storm.

I notice the weather channel pundits are pushing their many news alert options, for just $15 or $20 a month, you can be alerted instantly to any sign of rain, snow, heat, flooding or stormy weather.

I can hardly imagine a quicker way to drive myself made than get bussed all day long about the End Of Days. Some of these storms are truly serious, and it is good to be warned about them, but “bombogenesis” isn’t, to me, about weather, it’s about the never-ending intrusion of Corporate Values and Corporate speak into our lives.

The National Weather Service did what everything thought was an outstanding job predicting the weather, and in the age of climate change, it is essential to  have sane and rational people advising us about the weather as a public service, and not just another corporate scheme to take our money and exploit our fear and vulnerability.

The National Weather Service is cutting hundreds of employees this year as a result of the President’s wish to cut the federal workforce. The Weather Channel, which specializes in drama and hysteria and terrifying Apocalypse maps in many colors, added hundreds of employees in recent years.

There are big storms, and they are dangerous, and they make a ton of money for the hysterical and alarmist corporations that have taken over our weather as well as our culture, workplaces, family stores and restaurants, movies an books.

“Bombogenisis” is the presentation of corporate-speak-for profit, not accurate weather. The very name suggests a nuclear-scale explosion or catastrophic even, and as bad as these storms are, they are not that.

This morning, I went onto the National Weather service forecast site, which is free,  and read this; “…strong storm system to affect the northern Mid-Atlantic into the Northeast with multiple hazards….”

Widespread snow, rain and strong winds developed overnight as a winter storm  rapidly developed over the Norheast,” said the weather service, and northern Mid-Atlantic regions.” Heavy snow across portions of New York have already exceeded a foot in a few locations with more forecast today.” They NWS said there would be about 5 to 8 inches of snow in my area.

By contrast, the Weather Channel promised a “punishing” apocalypse, warnings and watches, “major” flooding and many feet of snow. “Hours and hours of damaging winds, power outages will be a big deal, and “dangerous” snow and “damaging winds.” This a very dangerous storm, we were told, almost unprecedented. Be careful.

Honestly, it was just an outrageous example of the marketing of hysteria and fear. No wonder we are all on edge.

The breathless End of Days forecast was accompanied by video of drowning drivers in previous floods, destroyed homes, drowned dog. It was a different forecast in a different tone, generalizing wildly and offering a steady stream of accidents, flashing lights in police cards, rescues in streams, and of course those news alerts delivered continuously to your phone for just pennies a day, as if the doomsday forecast wasn’t enough.

Wherever you lived, you would take away an almost frightening sense of urgency and peril, where you faced danger or not.

What has happened here? Climate change is real, and superstorms are dangerous.

Isn’t this what government is for, to protect us by calmly and professionally offering us information about the weather that was not hyped up to draw viewers and money and offered calmly and clearly in good faith so we can make our own decisions about what to do?

The odd truth is the National Weather Service site is easier to read and more helpful. I actually could see my county outlined right up there so I know exactly whats coming here. And it is radically different from the conclusions I might reach from the Weather Channel or the other cable news weather outlets. These for profit sites need to terrify all of us, no matter where we live,  to justify their ad rates by drawing anxious viewers.

If you think about it, those animated maps, bristling with rain, snow, lighting and wind symbols, are almost completely useless if you just need to know what the weather would be in your neighborhood.

The modern corporation is like a shark, they are never still, never content, there is never enough profit or necessary loss. They just keep trawling for money and inventing new and often false need. How many of us really need continuous emergency weather alerts. Don’t we spend enough time on our smartphones:

My county in upstate New York is not in danger, the coast of Massachusetts is. Most of the Northeast – the vast majority – is facing a nasty nor’easter, not the end of the world. Check it out for yourself.

It is actually possible to get an accurate forecast without wanting to shoot your animals and crawl into a bomb-proof bunker. And your taxes are already paying for it.

The NWS has been doing this for well over a century, and no one has complained about their work or professionalism. The greatest public service would be to add more jobs to the NWS and take some away from the breathless videographers on cable. Merchants of doom under a different name.

Why, I wonder, have we turned this important function over to just another money-grubbing corporation?

What exactly, do our tax dollars to go pay for, other than expensive furniture and first-class flights for government officials, or the big lie that cutting government will be more efficient and save us money, rather than take it away.

Really?

What is the new role of government, anyway? To sublet our safety, culture and lives to the Corporate Nation. It is sad to see the kids of Parkland learn this lesson, one that so many have learned before them. There are very few things in our country that come before money, including our lives and safety.

To me, the Weather Channel and its spawns are just louder, more colorful, much more hysterical, and profoundly less honest and responsible than the National Weather Service. I think that’s the truth of it. People get addicted to bad news, they tend to glide over the good.

The National Weather Service meterologists are quite good enough for me, and I need to know about the weather, I live on a farm. They do not try to scare the hell out of me or sell me things. They use words, not dizzying cartoons.

This perversion and corporatizing of weather alienates us from the earth, turns the environment into a dangerous and destructive thing. Rather than helping us respond to the great changes that create “bombogenisis’ – and what an opportunity these storms are to do that –  our new “weather channels” are content to take our money and keep us frightened.

This all comes under the category of a simpler life. We waste so much, we buy so much that we don’t need, we  have trivialized the very air and weather we share, we have lost touch with nature and Mother Earth.  We explot her every day by turning her into just another profit center.

Pope Francis: “Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet they also shield us from direct contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences.”

Weather is important. For many of us, it is our primary connection with Mother Earth, our common home. She deserves better than this crass marketing of  “weather.”  “True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data,” wrote Pope Francis, “which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution.”

He must have been watching the weather channels.

The bottom line up here where I live is that we will get some wet snow and high winds, and most of the snow will be gone by Sunday, melted by rain and warmer temperatures. We will batten down anything that needs to be battened down and set out the candles. Tomorrow we will all be here, cleaning up the cars and most likely going out to eat.

I know it’s a very different and serious story in some coastal areas, but I really wonder what the oddly-dressed hysterics and dramatic actors with “up” – and grim – voices are offering  people who the National Weather Service can – and does –  offer for free and with greater accuracy and integrity. They don’t need to scare people for money.

Because it’s the National Weather Service that gives the Weather Channel it’s information about storms and forecasts, although you might  not recognize their storm from the one you are likely to see tonight.

This reminds me of my friend Glenn, a farmer who used to live near the first Bedlam Farm. “I can offer weather alerts for free,” he said. “I’ll just stick my head out the window and put up a red flag for bad weather, a blue one for sunshine. I do it every day. No charge.”