Tornadic Activity

I feel bad about the deaths of the "stormchasers" out in Oklahoma. I mean, any death is tragic, certainly, and these men were out there with good intentions of reporting on the tornado and contributing to scientific research on those killer storms.  Mike Bettes, whom we've all seen on The Weather Channel, was tossed around along with his crew in their Storm Chaser vehicle that same Friday night, and later told the Today show that he felt weightless as the car was taken airborne by the wind, and feeling that he might be breathing his last earthly breaths.  Bettes says he's not sure he wants to get any closer to a raging storm than most people want to be to Ted Nugent, speaking of violent, uncontrolled forces with a lot of hot air involved.   

But it's none of my beeswax if people choose that path in life.  What I am shaking my head over is the debate that took place on Facebook on pages where the deaths were discussed.            And it wasn't just that so many people sitting at home or wherever positioned themselves as instant experts on the matter and expressed pure disdain over what anyone else said. This is known as the "I'm right and you're wrong" school of debate, even though the rightness of some of those participants was slightly besmirched by statements such as "you should do some resurch (sic) before you say anything."  

No, none of that was as bad as this one fellow, who had this to say to a fellow writer who said that maybe going out in a car and getting right in the middle of a raging tornado might be a trifle too risky:  "Why don't you do us all a favor and die in a fire?"   

And this was not the only vitriolic statement by any means.     I started reading these comments trying to figure out whether this stormchasing activity is worthwhile on balance.

I finished, not knowing how to feel about either stormchasing or a sizable segment of our fellow countrymen.