The Weather Channel’s Dr. Stu Ostro writes: “Did you know that Hurricane Camille made landfall on the same night as the final night of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair?” I sure didn’t. And that night was 40 years ago this week. Ostro even has the New York Times front page to prove it:
Heh. Love the story placement. Three columns and a photo for the end of a rock festival (okay, a very culturally significant one, and located in the newspaper’s state — but still); one column for the second-strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, a Category Five monster that killed 259 people, caused $1.42 billion in damages, and produced 200+ mph wind gusts. Damn NYT hippies. 🙂
I would argue that history has bourn out Woodstock as being the more significant historical event that occurred that day, thus justifying the editorial decision. Also, considering the era getting “art” to go with the hurricane story would have been rather challenging.
However, what it perhaps more interesting is that neither story managed to take the traditional position of “lead story” for the day. The right half of the paper is cut off so we don’t even know what that story was.
I suppose this thread is as good as any to post some more unintentional self-parody:
Quite Possibly the Strongest Case Ever Made Against Single-Payer Health Care, By Advocates of Same, in a Song