I Love Suffering!

Matt Drudge is licking his lips over the suffering to come. He's vomited up the following headline in anticipation of the impending Dennis disaster:

EXTREME: WIND GUSTS TO 185 MPH!

But he's not alone, and he's not doing anything new. Every year, TV networks spend oodles on every pixel of CHANNEL FIVE STORM TEAM graphics and HURRICANE [insert name]! This year, the entire Weather Channel crew look positively randy at the prospect of covering the big dramatic storm that will no doubt cause tens of millions of dollars in damage endless interviews with stoic or sobbing survivors, hours of faux empathy and decades worth of dramatic shots in front of the ocean with palm trees bending in the background and a courageous reporter shouting into the microphone as he's buffeted by wind and rain.

Tabloid techniques like that bother me, but what sickens me is the excitement some people exude at the prospect of gawking at another proverbial car wreck. I understand the human desire to look at a wreck that just happened, but I don't understand why any non-psychopath would seek out wrecks that are about to happen, hoping to watch them as they unfold. And since that's not practical with cars, that's where the metaphor fails. Still, can you imagine following drunk drivers around, hoping to catch one in a collision?

UPDATE: The Drudge headline is gone. Guess I should've gotten a screen shot. Sorry; you don't have to take my word for it.