We're havin' a heat wave

It doesn’t take a meteorologist to tell you it’s hot out there. Generally walking in the open sunlight is an easy way to get a bearing on how sweltering the late spring weather has been. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that the news media feels the need to dedicate at least a reporter, photographer and either a solid segment of footage or a decent clip of column space to explain what even the most ignorant know: It’s goddamn hot.

But for some reason, that doesn’t stop news directors and editors from dedicating all the precious newsroom resources to these ludicrous stories. Take WTEN, which didn’t even bother to start their Monday evening broadcast with news. They simply hopped right into the weather and ran with it for five minutes into the six o’clock report.

WNYT didn’t manage much better with John Craig’s report: Heat waves are tough on road crews. Gee, what tipped you off? Was it the fact that they’re laying molten asphalt in the baking sun? Still, the station at least had the common sense to start their nightly news out with news, instead of the weather, which is still the weather even with the hyper-dramatization most anchors have been giving it lately.

Fox 23’s Paul Merril pretty much reached the same conclusions as Craig; namely that it really is quite nice to work in an office with air conditioning, rather than behind a char-grill or on a city road crew. The cash-strapped CBS 6 Albany didn’t even bother to muster a weather story this morning and instead ripped off a wire story for their morning broadcast. It is day four of the heat wave, for those of you suffering heat stroke.

And then there’s print. Charging forward to take the lead was the stalwart Saratogian, which offered “tips on how to beat the heat.” Unfortunately, these tips pretty much rely on advising people how to avoid heat stroke. In other words, stay out of the heat and drink lots of water, advised State Health Commissioner Richard Daines.

Beat the heat with cool showers and baths, Daines goes on to explain. Or maybe go to the public pools at the state-owned park down the street? What a novel idea, it would have been to take a dip at the Spa State Park’s Victoria Pool over the weekend. With day-time temperatures hovering in the high 90s, chances are pretty good the state probably could have made a few bucks on the deal.

But the rumor is that park Manager Michael Greenslate is so fed up with the antics of Louise Goldstein’s Save the Victoria Pool Society that the opening is purposely delayed out of shear spite. It’s really the only explanation for the historic pool remaining closed each year as the mercury climbs. The pool remained closed through a similar heat wave last year, when word from the state was that it was impossible to find life guards for June because kids are still attending school.

The message has changed a bit this year, with Greenslate insisting the date was pushed back a few days because school schedules are running later this year. Translation: swelter in puddle of your own sweat, Louise Goldstein; I’m the captain of this ship and no amount of prodding is going to open this pool before the last weekend in June.

So summer will be ushered in with one of the city’s leading summertime amenities closed to the public. But that’s alright. The rest of us will have the evening moaning of the nightly news to cool us down will this park pissing match continues.