Showing posts with label Midwest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Midwest. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Blizzard warning

4:06 p.m. -- starting to snow hard

The more the forecasters keep forecasting, the higher the snow totals keep going in these parts.

When we started our day today in Omaha, we were expecting a winter storm. Maybe 6 inches of snow.

Sometime along the way, that turned into a blizzard warning, and now we might get up to 10 inches of hard-blowing snow which, come to think of it, sounds a little kinky the way I just put it. A little more than an hour ago, it was just raining.

Now it's not.

Good thing I'm an artiste with a snow shovel, which is a skill not every -- OK, almost no -- Louisiana boy possesses. Perhaps I'm a real Midwesterner now, after 24 years.

By the way, in the Gret Stet, what we know in Nebraska as a "blizzard warning" is commonly referred to as "instant frozen death." Not an understated lot, those Louisiana folk.

Film at 11.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Get on the stick


Hidey ho, neighbors!


Welcome to the Iowa State Fair!


Here, food comes on a stick. Even food that wouldn't seem to be particularly stick-friendly.

I'm guessing PBJ on a stick is heavy on the PB and light on the J.


In Iowa, even salad dressing and juice come on a stick.


Not to mention origami.


Look, even Cajun "cheeze" comes on a stick, cher. I think Cajun cheeze must be cheeze that you roll around in "garlik" and "kayenne" pepper and call it "Cajun" -- a
nd "cheeze."

I wonder whether "cheeze" is to cheese what "krab" is to crab.


But if you think "cheeze" on a stick might give you a heart attack on a stick, you certainly can opt for salad on a stick.


Or perhaps some fruit on a stick.


Or . . . you could just go for the original stick food.

I won't tell your cardiologist.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Camelot vs. Camenot


Some states are kind of like Camelot. Others might make Borat feel right at home.

As far as I can tell, that's what the Camelot Index boils down to. It's the mother of all rankings, measuring the state of states' economies, public health, education, crime rates, "government prudence," and societal health -- encompassing things like home ownership, incarceration, out-of-wedlock births and the like. Then the staff at Federal Funds Information for States averages all the rankings to create the composite ranking.

This year, you'll need a warm winter coast if it's Camelot you're seeking. Apparently, King Arthur has moved Queen Guinevere, the knights and the round table to . . . North Dakota. New Hampshire's second, South Dakota third, Nebraska fourth, while Wyoming rounds out the top five.

Borat, meantime, hearts Louisiana. Word is he's been spotted in a Bourbon Street gutter. And it's likely he'll come down with a social disease while a New Orleans cop picks his pocket.

WHEN YOU live in a top-five kind of place -- Nebraska, for example -- the response to lists like the Camelot Index is pretty uncomplicated. Basically, it's "YAY!"

On the other hand, people in, say, Louisiana have lots of options. One is shame, but nobody likes feeling ashamed all the time, so one might look for other emotional and intellectual options. For instance, you could get good and mad.

Denial is another option, unless you might prefer its cousin, dismissiveness. Then again, you might prefer paranoia . . . because all them eggheads and snobs are out to get you, you know. That's definitely disturbing, until at long last you wearily give in to resignation.

Finally, we have my favorite two reactions -- and, trust me, they're about to be yours, too -- a whacked-out, bad-is-good kind of defiance, which invites the very best kind of black humor. That's what we saw just today in back-to-back comments on the New Orleans Times-Picayune's story about how the Gret Stet, in virtually every meaningful statistical way, still sucks:


LOL doesn't even begin to cover it. Well played, "whodat-70816."

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Dr. Suck's weather tales


I do not like tornadoes Sam-I-Am; I do not like them worth a damn.

Would I like them here or there?

I would not like them here or there. I would not like them anywhere. I do not like tornadoes worth a damn. I do not like them Sam-I-Am.

Would I like them when I'm home? Would I like them in a dome?

I do not like them when I'm home. I do not like them in a dome. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere. I do not like tornadoes worth a damn. I do not like them Sam-I-Am.



WHICH IS WHY
today's Omaha World-Herald weather story is really harshing my mellow:
The Omaha, Lincoln and Norfolk areas face a high risk of potentially deadly weather Saturday that could include fast-moving, powerful tornadoes, strong winds, hail and heavy rains.

National forecasters issued the unusual alert Friday, saying a brewing storm system places 5.5 million people and several major cities at high risk — including Omaha, Wichita, Kan., and Oklahoma City. The risk is expected to begin in the late afternoon and continue until after dark.

Isolated severe thunderstorms also could drop tennis-ball-sized hail, heavy rains and kick up winds of 50 mph to 60 mph, said Josh Boustead, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office that serves eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.

Not everyone will see storms, but those who do could see severe ones, he said.

The timing of Saturday's threat means storms are likely to begin firing as tens of thousands of people leave the University of Nebraska's spring game at Memorial Stadium. Before that, there could be lightning, he said.


(snip)

Boustead said it will be hard to predict exactly where the storms will pop up, and officials are warning that any storm that develops could rip along at frightening speed.

Weather officials say they believe this is the earliest they've issued such dire warnings since April 2006. Those preceded a major tornado outbreak that began April 6 in an area from Oklahoma to Nebraska and headed east for two days. More than 70 tornadoes were confirmed and more than a dozen people died in Alabama and Tennessee.
THINK kind thoughts about the Plains. Think kind thoughts about our rains.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

These parts, back in the day

It was a different time in the great Midwest.

Farmers were farmers . . . and radio was radio. You get a picture of that from the Oct. 28, 1946 edition of Broadcasting - Telecasting magazine.

Yet. . . .

Yeah, this is the Midwest I know, all right. Things change, but this part of God's good earth doesn't change completely.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Simply '70s: The tornado of '75


Thirty-six years ago this month, it was Omaha's turn to be devastated by a major tornado.

It wasn't a good year. What became known hereabouts as "the tornado of '75" followed by four months (almost to the day) what became known hereabouts as "the blizzard of '75."

Both extreme-weather events became Omaha touchstones for "just about as bad as it gets around here."


ABOVE is a 1985 TV report on the 10th anniversary of the great storm -- the F-4 twister, not the paralyzing blizzard. We'll call that the "short version" of what befell Omaha on May 6, 1975.


THIS IS what we'll refer to as the "long version" of Omaha's tornado horror story, produced back in the day by the City of Omaha.



IF YOU really got into those 16-millimeter Encyclopedia Britannica educational films in grade school and junior high, you'll love this. Lots of useful information, but it's kind of like a filmstrip, only without the "Booong!"



You may be too damned close when. . . .

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


This KFOR-TV storm-chasing crew's first indication it might have been just a little too close to a killer wedge tornado Tuesday came . . . when?

Not only should you not try this at home, you shouldn't try this professionally, either. This is one case when "killer video" almost really was to die for.

As it were.

As this recent outbreak of deadly weather so painfully points out -- again -- you have to have guts to live in Oklahoma. That's not a football insult coming from this Nebraska fan, either.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

God help the Midwest

The Storm Prediction Center, a weather service division, said a repeat of the deadly April outbreak across the South could be setting up, with a possible large outbreak on Tuesday and bad weather potentially reaching the East Coast by Friday.

"This is a very serious situation brewing," center director Russell Schneider said.

-- MSNBC

Monday, May 16, 2011

You know you're in the Midwest when. . . .


At first glance, you'd think this weekend picture indicates that national book retailers have found it necessary to make certain, uh . . . adjustments to profitably operate in the great American Midwest.

Is what I am saying.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

As red as the driven snow


It's a windy, snowy and frosty night in Omaha, where the Midwest fades out and the wild and woolly Plains take hold.

A night like this, here in the rolling hills of eastern Nebraska, reminds one of being a Who, safely stowed away in Horton's icebox. A day like the one preceding this February prairie night reminds one of . . . being a Who, safely stowed away in Horton's icebox.

With the light left on.

Horton, by the way, never defrosts his icebox. He probably should take care of that.

He probably will . . . this spring.


WHENEVER I MENTION life in the Gret White Nawth to family and friends back in Louisiana -- particularly the unrelenting rituals of the dead of a Nebraska winter, like braving the blowing snow . . . dressing in many layers . . . shoveling the snow . . . reshoveling what's drifted -- the reaction is nearly universal. Horror is what it is.

People think I'm nuts. People think the North Pole must be pretty close to Omaha, and that nobody in his right mind is gonna live at the damn North Pole.

And regular snowfall is a sure sign of God's wrath upon the terminally stupid.

Of course, this reaction comes from a state where the last white Democrat will change his party registration to "R" by 2013. That is, if the world doesn't come to an end in December 2012, all life extinguished by a rogue glacier sliding southward from somewhere near . . . Omaha.

Maybe St. Paul. All dem places up Nawth is all de same, cher -- cold, cold.

Frankly, I think the Republicanization of my home state somehow may the be source and the sustenance of the Southern horror at all things cold and snowy. Snow, after all, is socialist.

Think about it: It matters not a whit whether one has the finest, most meticulously manicured lawn in the entire upper Midwest or whether yours is a yard ravaged by crabgrass and unsightly patches of dirt the same shade of dingy brown as a 1950s Soviet apartment block. When the snow comes, it's all the same.

IT'S A PATENTLY leftist redistribution of beauty -- No Yard Left Behind. Every yard is covered by a uniform, regimented blanket of socialist snow.

The finest yard is brought down to the proletarian level of the most humble, and the most meager of lawns is -- via some sort of meteorological affirmative action -- lifted up to the same level as that of a McMansion.

Snow ain't white; it's pink. As in "pinko."

Not only that, ice is a communist plot, too, socializing the placement of asses over heads without regard to socioeconomic status, skill, income, educational achievement or race or national origin. A broken bourgeois foot is pretty much the same as a pretzeled proletarian one.

Stuff like that really pousses the cafés of the class-conscious capitalists back in the Gret Stet.

Likewise, the Northern embrace of socialist ice -- like that of pinko snow -- renders useless the advantages of a solid, upper middle-class Cadillac Escalade over that of a poor-white-trash '82 Chevy Caprice.


While the Escalade may get started quicker on an icy surface, neither it nor the Caprice will fare any differently trying to stop at the traffic light at the bottom of a long hill. Arguably, the advantage here goes to the cash-strapped mope driving the Caprice -- if he T-bones, say, an Escalade . . . so what?

ASSUMING liability coverage, the Caprice driver is out nothing but a crappy old car. The bourgeois pig in the Caddy is out . . . well, he's out the monetary difference between a heavily depreciated, really expensive Caddy and what it costs to replace it with a brand-new one. You could buy, like, six '82 Caprices with that.

Remember, it ain't "black ice" that's your problem, Buster, it's "Red" ice.

And the dictatorship of the Gret White Nawthun proletariat laughs at your pretentious capitalist illusions of superiority, Bubba.

Monday, January 31, 2011

The day before February


Greetings from the upper Midwest, where it's a few minutes from February.

The weather outside is frightful; the coffee inside's delightful. I didn't have a chance to stick a digital camera out the door to take a dark, grainy video of what's going on here in the Gret White Nawth, so I swiped this off the Internets.

It's kind of like this, only without the tidal wave and Empire State Building. As a great philosopher once said, "Dem tings happen."

So does wintertime in Nebraska.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Right of the great divide


If you care to look at what kind of political climate we're facing these days, look no further than Rep. Steve King, western Iowa's crazy-uncle congressman.

In 2008, King -- a three-term representative for whom the description "incendiary" may well be an understatement -- won with 60 percent of the vote. Tuesday, he won with 68 percent.

In February, he was being glib about the guy who flew his plane into the IRS offices in Austin, Texas. Two years before, it was this:



AND THE good people of western Iowa like him just fine, according to today's Omaha World-Herald:
King is a staunch conservative known for eyebrow-raising comments. He expects the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives to lead to his becoming chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. He is the senior Republican on the subcommittee.

He said Tuesday he wants to introduce legislation reducing and eventually ending federal aid to so-called “sanctuary cities” if they did not change their policies.

“We have a number of cities in our country that, essentially, forbid their law enforcement officers from gathering information on illegals,” he said. “We need to put an end to it.”

Cities — including Seattle, Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco — have adopted ordinances banning city employees and police from asking residents about their immigration status. King described Des Moines as a “de-facto” sanctuary city where the practice is in place without an ordinance.

He also called for ending automatic citizenship for what he called “anchor babies,” children born in the United States to illegal-immigrant parents. Doing that would likely require changing the U.S. Constitution.
WHAT DEMOCRATS have to deal with isn't that King is a nut and attracts like addle-minded zealots. What Democrats have to deal with is that lots of normal people in the country's breadbasket keep electing a bomb-thrower like the congressman from Iowa's 5th Congressional District.

That they regard him as "normal" enough to represent them, and see Democrats as unfit.

What Democrats have to ask themselves is why they are so alienated from normal Midwestern folk -- angry, fearful, marginally knee-jerk and increasingly deluded folk, to be sure, but not particularly lunatic ones. Dismissing folks like Steve King's Iowa voters, deriding them as bigots and nuts, may be satisfying for the Democratic base, but it still amounts to pissing in the wind.

The difficult question that some Democrats need to ask themselves, but won't, isn't
"Why is everybody but us so crazy?" The pertinent question, instead, is "Why do people find us significantly more frightening than somebody like Steve King?"

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars . . ." etc., and so on.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Pigs do it . . . dogs do it. . . .


Back in the olden days of Midwestern radio, a "Barn Dance Frolic" was a hillbilly-music program that aired Saturday nights on WHO out of Des Moines, Iowa.

Today in American high schools, including all across the great American midriff, what you see on the dance floor might also be described as a "barn dance frolic." As in,
"Pigs do it, cows do it, even dogs and sheep do it . . . OH MY GOD, BILLY AND MARY ARE DOING IT IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE SCHOOL!"

Well, not exactly. Genitalia remain covered, and the kids call it "dancing."


AND RIGHT HERE in River City, the Omaha World-Herald is talking about how it's giving high-school administrators fits:
The dance style known as grinding — pelvis to pelvis gyrations, typically with the boy behind the girl — has grown popular at high school dances, but several school administrators say it's indecent.

With homecoming season in full swing at Omaha-area high schools, administrators are employing a variety of tactics aimed at cleaning up dirty dancing.

“Every school needs to stop this,” said Jonna Andersen, principal at St. Albert Catholic School in Council Bluffs, who cracked down for this year's homecoming dance.

Andersen warned students ahead of time that they must dance face-to-face, and if they didn't, the music would be stopped. Letters went home alerting parents to the rules, and administrators enlisted help from the homecoming court to encourage students to abide by them.

School officials were concerned about how students might respond, and planned to stop the dance if they didn't comply, she said. But the dance a week ago ended up well-attended, students followed the rules, and they reported having a good time, Andersen said.
ONE MIGHT say that if Catholic schools are having to tell their teenagers that dancing like you're doing it "doggie style" is morally problematic and not decent for public consumption, something has gone horribly wrong with Catholic catechesis and moral training -- both at school and at home --in the preceding decade.

Of course, one also might say that's obvious, so why bring it up? I dunno, maybe it's because "obvious" stroked out and died about 20 years ago.
Back to the story. . . .
Although it's nothing new for young people's dancing to alarm the older generation, Lincoln Southwest High School Principal Rob Slauson said the current trend in dancing goes “way beyond” the days of Elvis Presley gyrating his hips on stage. The students are “simulating sex,” he said.

“We're talking about a situation now where the young lady is facing away from the man, and at times she's putting her hands on the floor, raising her rear end,” he said.

“And in some dances, the girls are wearing short skirts and the guys actually pull the skirts up while they're dancing. And then there's contact between her groin area and his groin area.”

Chaperones have a difficult time policing the dances when students form a circle in the middle of the dance floor and the adults can't see what's going on, he said. High school dances can attract more than a thousand students.

Slauson said he warned students about their dancing before last year's prom. Although the situation improved, they still resisted, he said.

School officials last June decided to step up their response and prohibit guests from other schools at Southwest's dances, with the exception of prom. It's easier for school administrators to discipline their own students than those from other schools, he said.

Slauson said the policy was a “shot across the bow” to let students know the administration was serious about cracking down.
METHINKS "shots across the bow" aren't going to touch on the larger problem -- including what these school administrators are going to be dealing with next year as their student bodies continue to marinate in this sort of cultural stew.

(NOTE: The first "how to" video probably is safe for work. The following teenage application of "grinding" principles definitely isn't -- in fact, it's what we Catholics call a "near occasion of sin." I wouldn't advise watching any more than necessary to get the idea of what kids find acceptable on the dance floor.)




MY FIRST reaction to this stuff is "They have to teach dry humping?"

My second reaction is that what ordinary folk used to consider public indecency -- and still would be considered sexual harassment in the workplace -- is what kids today consider "normal," which pretty much is the end of the line of what we consider
(or at least once considered) "civilization."

Folks, this isn't just another instance of kids "pushing the envelope" and scandalizing the old folks. That ended somewhere short of dry humping.

This is flat-out simulated sex, and the only place to go from here is the real thing.

In public.

At your kid's high school.

Perhaps with your kid.

SO, DON'T GIVE me that crap about Boomers scandalizing the folks with the bump, and bobby-soxers scandalizing great-grandpa by doing the jitterbug. Nobody ever found condoms on the floor after the high-school hop back when TV would only show Elvis Presley from the waist up.

The condoms-on-the-floor thing came from this MSNBC story in February.

What we're dealing with here is mass abandonment of human dignity -- the continuing objectification of human beings, if you will. When you're "grinding" little Susie on the dance floor, you're not enjoying the company (or the beauty) of a wonderful girl with a sparkling personality and winning smile. Instead, you're getting what jollies you can in public with a butt and a vagina -- albeit covered
(for now) -- that happen to have a torso, head and legs attached.

For young women, substitute the appropriate male "features."

(Please. Don't give me that bull about it being "not sexual." I'm not an idiot, and I understand the physiology of, and the stimuli involved with, sexual intercourse.)

Back about the time of the fall of Rome, in a Christmas homily, Pope Leo I reminded the faithful of who and what they were:
Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.
THAT'S JUST so much history. Leo the Great has been dead for millennia, and now so is dignity.

And judging by the cultural evidence surrounding us, we even regard ourselves as nothing more than exceptionally intelligent farm animals. Who engage in "barn dance frolics."

If I were a school administrator, I'd be tempted to break up the "freak dancing" with the strategic application of a cattle prod.

It's the only thing animals understand, after all . . . and it's not like the kiddies could complain that I was offending their dignity. That, they -- we -- discarded a while back.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Now, a word from our contestants


If you think you're having a bad day, think again.

You could be a participant in the cattle judging at the Nebraska State Fair, trying to send out telepathic waves to everyone you encounter -- mental images that impart a simple message:

Eat mor chikin.

Because for a cow at the state fair, if you win,
you lose.

ON THE other hand, life at the fair ain't exactly a bowl of cherries for the sheep, either.

They get paraded around. They get stretched. They get lambhandled by teenagers.

They get poked, pulled, prodded, gawked at and ogled.

All they want to say is
"Hey, you @#&%+*$! Go pick on somebody your own size! Some creature with opposable thumbs and a discernible IQ! Leave. Me. Alone."

But can the sheep say that?
No, they can't.

They try, but all that comes out is "BAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

And you think you're having a crap-o day,
huh, Bunkie?

IN THE WORDS of that great philosopher Travis Tritt, "Here's a quarter. Call someone who cares."

We are Midwesterners. We have perspective. Now, get away from me before I make you march behind the draft horses. Blindfolded.

And barefoot.

IT'LL HAVE to be next year, though, for the state fair has ended its 2010 run at its new home out in Grand Island.

Pray for Bossie. And for Beauregard, too.

And remember . . . eat mor chikin.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Stay South, young man!


Omaha, Nebraska -- a snowy hell.

Its citizens hang on to the tattered threads of their sanity as the wintry apocalypse proceeds apace. It's ice cold out. Worse than ice-cold out. It's worse than Greenland out. As cold as the South Pole out.

And it's snowing. It hasn't stopped snowing for a month now. Nearly 3 feet of the white plague is on the ground.

We're all going to die. But no one will find us until spring -- if it comes this year -- because we will have been drifted over. Goodbye, cruel world.


TAKE HEED, Californians! Listen up, Texans! If you are looking to escape the Sun Belt hell of your own making, this is not the place. We have hell of our own -- snowy hell.

If you come, you will freeze and die.

Take this friendly advice, you Southerners in search of Heartland charm and Midwestern wholesomeness. American Gothic froze over after Grant Wood died of frostbite. In other words, "Stay South, young man!"

Horace Greeley said that before he died of frostbite, too. And then his desiccated carcass was blown away by a tornado when June came around.

REALLY, you people don't want to come here. This land is only fit for hardy Nebraskans; we're used to this stuff.

The preceding message has come to you courtesy of the Keep Nebraska for Nebraskans Committee -- M. Favog, treasurer.

Friday, December 25, 2009

I-I-I-I'm d-d-d-d-d-d-dreaming
of a w-w-white C-C-Christmas


It's brutal out there -- a full-blown Plains blizzard.

So far, though, God's whole "Enough! Be still and be at peace" initiative through better meteorology is going OK this Christmastide. After a busy day posting the Christmas edition of 3 Chords & the Truth and shoveling the walk and driveway several times, I'm a good kind of tired and remarkably unstressed.

Maybe that's because the blizzard has taken away all the wild expectations surrounding the holiday. It has been stripped to its essentials . . . and so have our lives, for just these few days.

FOR US, at least, the rush to get presents wrapped, etcetera and so on, has been diminished. Holiday entertaining, too.

Today was a day of getting done what needed to be done, managing to get to Christmas vigil Mass while the getting was . . . possible . . . and then making a pot of our traditional Christmas Eve chicken-and-sausage gumbo for a late-night supper for two.

Even though the simple act of getting to Mass involved the driveway-shoveling equivalent of a forced march, it was all good. And the snowy drive to church, truth be told, fell under the category of Things Guys Like.

IN OTHER WORDS, a good challenge. And I don't think God minded that I showed up to Christmas Mass in snow boots and two pairs of sweatpants.

You don't shovel in finery, is what I'm saying.

But now it's really late, I'm exhausted, and it's time to go to bed. Tomorrow -- today now -- is another day, Christmas Day, when we will continue to be still as we scramble to beat back the elements howling outside the door. And suit up to shovel away enough drifts for the poor dogs to go outside and do what dogs do.

JUST CALL me Nanook of the North.

Merry Christmas from snowy, blowy Omaha, by God, Nebraska.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Let it O! Let it O! Let it O!


Chances are, this time of year means downtown Omaha looks something like a winter wonderland.

That's especially so this snowy Christmastide. And it's about to get even more that way as we brace for the whitest Christmas we've had in years.

The weather service has issued a winter storm watch for most of the state for Tuesday night through Christmas eve. In central Nebraska, six to 10 inches of snow are possible. In eastern Nebraska, the storm is likely to begin with freezing rain followed by several inches of snow, the weather service said.

Wednesday “will see a whole variety of precipitation -- snow, sleet and freezing rain. It looks like a pretty ugly day,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines.

Snow and hard winds will continue through Thursday, with some flurries and frigid wind chills on Christmas Day.

But it's a little too soon to know exactly what's coming.

That shouldn't come as a surprise, given how this year's weather has unfolded. After all, climate scientists are perplexed by autumn's odd weather.

North Platte received more snow in October than it usually sees in an entire year. Across much of Nebraska, October and December have brought near-record cold.

With December's cold came a snowstorm that blanketed much of the United States and brought the nation's midsection to a halt.

Climate scientists say a couple of factors are upending the weather lately. But they hold onto hope for higher-than-normal temperatures in January and February.

“This could turn out to be one of those years when December ends up colder than January and February — at least, I've got my fingers crossed,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Halpert said a North Atlantic weather phenomenon known as the Arctic Oscillation has been playing havoc with the end of autumn.

The jet stream, he said, has shifted farther south than it normally does at this time of year, allowing cold air from Canada and the Arctic to drift down.

“We're not sure why it's doing this,” he said, though “we have some suspicions.”


TONIGHT, the TV weatherman said freezing rain (translate: ice storm) Wednesday changing to snow the afternoon of Christmas Eve, with "several inches" of accumulation by Christmas morning. This could mean we'll be walking -- not driving -- to midnight Mass this year. Or not. It depends.

What it does mean is we'll be pretty much snowed in this Christmas.

See, in a season where we're all prone to rushing around, getting busy, getting frazzled and "Christmasing" ourselves into a state . . . well, God has His way of saying "Stop! Enough! Be still and be at peace."

And, frankly, that the Almighty can do that while dressing our landscape in the finest white garments -- and making everything so jaw-droppingly pretty, especially at Christmas -- ranks among the most fetching of the Midwest's charms.


Sunday, June 22, 2008

Dear New Orleans: Up your Prozac dosage


The Katrina-shocked combox warriors of New Orleans are convinced America hates their city.

To tell you the truth, if their enraged, paranoid, lunatic rantings are what Americans get to see of the Crescent City, they might be right. And America certainly would have its reasons.

HERE'S THE latest rant -- referencing this post -- your Mighty Favog has gotten from one of the Noo Orluns Wrecking Crew (a title infused with multiple layers of meaning). It's from a Big Easy (HA!) blogger by the name of Schroeder:
Schroeder said...

Let's see what New Orleans has had to defend itself from. Let's see who's disgracely exploited the victims of one tragedy in the Midwest to vilify victims of another tragedy in New Orleans.

Here's Rush Limbaugh:

"I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois—I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property…I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can…whining and moaning—where’s FEMA, where’s BUSH. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America."

So, Rush Limbaugh "wants" to see murders and looting in the Midwest? Really? Wow, there's a real standup conservative. Not to mention, his accounting of the comparative damages would be laughable, if it weren't so despicable. Good Americans don't count the casualties and use them as tools of a partisan political campaign of defamation.

What's more, people in the Midwest are "whining" and there has been looting, and there has been the need to use troops to deter criminals. The reports of murders in New Orleans were exaggerated by the carpetbagging press which chose to sensationalize rather than fact check.

The scale of tragedy in New Orleans is on a par which no one should wish upon anyone. To vilify the proud American citizens of New Orleans and Louisiana, who's sons and daughters bled for this nation's freedoms as much as any from the Midwest or anywehre else, is a complete abomination, and the sign of a weak mind.

New Orleanians didn't help themselves? How else did they survive for days before your commander in chief proclaimed, "you're doing a heckuva job Brownie." They got into their boats and rescued babies and elderly. They distributed their own food supplies and water. They gutted each other's homes despite a complete lack of support from your commander in chief after he proclaimed that he would "do what it takes" to help this great city rebuild.

No one is more critical of Ray Nagin and Governor Blanco for their role in bungling the relief and recovery than are New Orleanians. But far more blame may be assigned to that two-faced liar occupying the White House. Bottom line: If George W. Bush kept his word, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

Last word: If you aren't here in New Orleans trying to understand and helping to rebuild after the greatest manmade disaster in this nation's history, then keep your uncharitable attitudes to yourself. May God strike you down for being such a wicked SOB.

HERE IS my response, though I must admit I barely knew where to start:

The Mighty Favog said...

Schroeder ,

You are a #&%@ing whack job.

With that kind of attitude, you're wondering why a lot of America would just as soon see Noo Orluns sink into the sea and leave them the hell alone?

Listen, I am your (well, at least New Orleans') friend. I was born and raised in Baton Rouge. My family has been in Louisiana since before "les Americains" were.

I now live in Omaha and, thus, have gained a hell of a lot of perspective about how others perceive N.O. and Louisiana.

I was TRYING to tell you perpetually enraged Defenders of New Orleans that you are harming your cause with your insane rants and uncharitable attitude toward suffering in the Midwest -- suffering you ought to empathize with.

But no.

Rush Limbaugh is a piss ant. He is unimportant.

Do unto others, Cap. Do unto others.

BTW, if you want to take up the "may God strike you down" banner . . . it would seem that God got to y'all first. If that's how you think the Almighty rolls.

Damn lunatic. Good grief.

Here's a little advice for you from Robert Burns:


To a Louse

Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her-
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it-
The verra tapmost, tow'rin height
O' Miss' bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' grey as ony groset:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum.

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss' fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't?

O Jeany, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin:
Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

How New Orleans defends its 'honor'

Here's how some in the Big Easy "defend their honor" as New Orleanians:

Take handgun. Insert into mouth. Squeeze trigger.

I'M SORRY, but for New Orleans' "honor defenders" to look at the immense suffering in the American Midwest and perceive nothing more than a grand opportunity to say "Hey, look! They suck, too!" is -- How shall I put this? -- whiny, trashy and pathetic.

It will gain them so many friends.

Here's one example of what surely will be a winning public-relations strategy:

Then, there’s the fact that eighty percent of New Orleans evacuated with just 48 hours notice after Katrina turned north instead of going to Pensacola. This was the most successful private evacuation in American history, implemented without any federal contingency plans for disasters, despite four years between 9/11 and 8/29 for George W. Bush — the “war president” — to prepare for another attack on an American city.

How many people evacuated from the Midwest? Oh, they were busy stacking sandbags to protect their homes and crops. Did they deserve their tragedy for staying behind?

Then we could talk about the high percentage of New Orleans homeowners who had flood insurance compared to the national average.

Or maybe those Midwesterners wouldn’t have been subjected to God’s wrath if they didn’t allow homosexuals in their midsts.

It’s at about this point that I might conjure the memory of those poor Boy Scouts, but that wouldn’t be decent. By now it should be apparent to any self-proclaimed conservative out there that blaming the victim is pretty nasty business if turnabout is fair play — this is really repulsive territory. We shouldn’t even have to go there, but we will defend our honor as New Orleanians if the rest of the nation doesn’t smack down Rush Limbaugh and all of the other intolerant
[expletive deleted] around the country who are repeating the same bull [expletive deleted].
YOU STAY CLASSY, New Orleans. Mighty big talk for a city that's just a Category 2 hurricane away from real oblivion . . . as opposed to the "Well, maybe we'll rebuild it . . . we'll see" slow-motion oblivion you're dealing with now.

And you know what? Some of us would consider that a catastrophic loss for the country.