William Langewiesche Explains Meteorologists

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who divide people into two kinds, and people who don't.

In the latest issue of "Vanity Fair", William Langewiesche discusses the cultural and historical background behind Weather Modification, and contrasts typical meteorologists with meteorologists who dig Weather Modification. (William Langewiesche discusses his discussion here, but the original text appears to be only available in the hard-copy Vanity Fair.) Langewiesche discusses Chinese Weather Modification in particular, but his comments are broadly, internationally, applicable.

Of course, I fall squarely in-between both camps, having been both a typical meteorologist, and a meteorologist who digs Weather Modification. I like singing and dancing (if not drinking) through the night. But my fuzzy classification still doesn't seem to help much: it's as hard as ever to find spawning opportunities:

Meteorology is a miserable job. To be an ordinary meteorologist you have to want to spend your life watching the weather slide by, unable to do anything about it, and subject to public scorn every time you get the forecast wrong. To endure this life it helps to be a social misfit, awkward as hell, and, incidentally, uninterested in mating with the opposite sex. So weak is the natural drive among ordinary forecasters in China, for instance, that the one-child policy should be suspended at underperforming C.M.A. offices, and staffers fined for refusing to give "dating" a try. I have nothing against the Chinese. The fact is that meteorologists everywhere are weenies in the extreme. They are twerps. Dweebs. Instrument tappers. Professional virgins. The moral is that you should never give your child a toy weather station - not if you want them to pass along your genes. Weather modifiers, however, are a different breed. In Ürümqi they enjoy dancing and singing and drinking through the night. There is evidence they enjoy mating too. After all, these are vigorous souls, unwilling to watch the weather slide by, whose impulse when spotting certain clouds is to penetrate them and seize control. At that point the party stops. In a world of weenies they are the action heroes, the alpha dogs, the hunters and providers.