Look out Mark, here comes Fay

It will be interesting to watch the media during the coming week.

The 2008 Summer Olympics has been the lead story every night on the NBC Nightly News. Little doubt, since Brian Williams and most of NBC's A-team staff are in Beijing. And the performance of the American Olympic team has been for the most part spectacular, and always courageous. Mark Phelps is about to dethrone Mark Spitz as the champion swimmer of all time, and deserves all the accolades. The lip synching controversy and questions about the ages of Chinese gymnasts have been duly reported, then rendered subservient to the sports. Families are together again in front of the TV, they say, dashing to the fridge during breaks. NBC is waving the American flag this week, and smiling all the way to the bank with ad revenues.

And literally half a world away, off the south coast of one of the worlds last remaining bastions of Marxism, a small tropical storm churns off to the west. Meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center and elsewhere glance at the Games during breaks in analyzing the stream of data now starting to come in on the storm. At the moment, the West Coast of Florida seems the likely target, possibly as far north as the Big Bend area.

(A side note: Such a sharp right turn was predicted for the "K" storm of 2005, but happened a day later than predicted. On the morning of August 26, landfall was predicted for Destin, Florida. Twelve hours later, the Louisiana/Mississippi border was the center of the cone. Let not your guard down just yet.)

With the "A" team positioned antipodally from the action, will anyone notice if a small Category 1 or 2 storm lands in Florida? My prediction: CNN, homebased in Atlanta (which stands to benefit from reservoir-replenishing tropical rains on the current storm track) has the most resources nearby to cover any landfalling storm. If this storm turns out to be major, young reporters could get their big breaks doing what they got in the business to do: Report the news with attention to detail and fact and a minimum of analysis. While no one wishes a big one...good for them.