10.11.2024 – any home you want

any home you want
even get stucco – oh how
you can get stuck-oh!

In the 1929 movie, Cocoanuts, a satire on the depression era Florida land boom, Groucho Marx extols the state of Florida saying …

You can have any kind of a home you want. You can even get stucco. Oh, how you can get stuck-oh!

Grouch has another line saying, “Florida folks, land of perpetual sunshine. Let’s get the auction started before we have a tornado.“

The weather has been much on folks minds of late.

Mark Twain was supposed to have said, ” … everybody talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it.“

But Respectfully Quoted says that the saying is: “Generally, but perhaps mistakenly, attributed to Mark Twain. It has never been verified in his writings. Many quotation dictionaries credit Charles Dudley Warner, a friend of Twain’s, with this remark.”

It seems that certain folks with a voice on social media not only think that people can do something about the weather, they HAVE DONE IT and what they have done is use the weather to impact the upcoming election.

At least that’s what they say and say it so often that according to the article, How could hurricane misinformation affect the US election? by Rachel Leingang in the Guardian, Friday, 11 Oct 2024:

Chuck Edwards, a Republican representative from North Carolina, put out a lengthy release debunking a series of rumors about Fema, search-and-rescue efforts and weather manipulation. Fema’s response has had “shortfalls”, he said, but “nobody can control the weather”.

“I encourage you to remember that everything you see on Facebook, X, or any other social media platform is not always fact,” he wrote. “Please make sure you are fact-checking what you read online with a reputable source.”

Nobody can control the weather.

How about that!

A member of the United States Congress had to say that in an official release from his office.

Nobody can control the weather.

Friends and neighbors, we live in troubled times but oh for pete’s sake.

In my 20 years of working in online television news, I have known countless weather professionals.

I admire them all for both there dedication to the job and their mastery of their field.

I cannot tell you the number of times these folks told me about the emails they would get asking, ‘Can you tell me what the weather will be next June? I am planning an Outdoor Wedding,’ or ‘Why did it have to rain during the baseball game? Why didn’t you stop that?’

Folks at home and at sea, if someone, anyone, ever comes to your door selling weather, beware.

Like the houses Groucho was selling in Florida, you could probably get any type of weather you wanted.

You could get stucco weather … Oh How you could get stucco!

About selling weather, Mr. Twain did say this.

Yes, the weather is bad, and if I were dealing in weather it is not the brand that I’d put up in cans for future use. No, it is the kind of weather I’d throw on the market and let it go for what it would fetch, and if it wouldn’t sell for anything I would hunt up some life-long enemy and present it to him.

Come on people.

Is this not the bridge too far even for those folks?

As Sheriff Andy Taylor once said, ” … act like you got some smart.”

10.10.2024 – no, it will be great

no, it will be great
sand in hair, shoes, sandwiches
and then in our mouths …

No, it will be great. We’ll get sand in our hair. We’ll get sand in our shoes. We’ll get sand in our sandwiches and then in our mouths. We’ll get sunburned and windburned. And when we get tired of sitting, we can have a paddle in water so cold it actually hurts. At the end of the day we’ll set off at the same time as 37,000 other people and get in such a traffic jam that we won’t get home till midnight. I can make trenchant observations about your driving skills, and the children can pass the time sticking each other with sharp objects. It will be such fun.’

The tragic thing is that because my wife is English, and therefore beyond the reach of reason where salt water is concerned, she really will think it’s fun. Frankly I have never understood the British attachment to the seaside.

From The Complete Notes by Bill Bryson, Doubleday, London, 2000.

Watching what’s left of Hurricane Milton head out over the Atlantic Ocean from Hilton Head Island.

I walk along the ocean shore on my lunch break when I can.

Yesterday as Hurricane Milton approached the Gulf Shore of Florida, the day here was gray and gloomy.

Not a day for the beach.

The local park with the pirate ship jungle gym was full of kids in shorts running and screaming along with Dads in shorts watching while juggling cell phones and Moms in shorts, sitting on benches, wrapped in beach towels, wondered what happened to their sunny beach vacation.

The next day the sun was out.

Those families packed up and hit the beach.

But the sun was out.

There was a rip current going south that would sweep anyone off their feet.

But the sun was out.

The red flag was up.

But the sun was out.

The wind whipped along the beach sending sand flying in mini tornadoes about 6 inches about the shore, sand blasting everything in its path.

But the sun was out.

Umbrellas and beach tents were anchored by cinder blocks.

But the sun was out and the families hit the beach.

It will take more than a rip current, a red flag and a sandy breeze to keep those Moms from their sunny beach vacation.

I can hear those Moms as they packed up.

No, it will be great.

We’ll get sand in our hair.

We’ll get sand in our shoes.

We’ll get sand in our sandwiches and then in our mouths.

We’ll get sunburned and windburned.

And when we get tired of sitting, we can have a paddle in water so cold it actually hurts.

It will be such fun!

At least they were already on the Island.

10.9.2024 – it was really quiet

it was really quiet
yesterday into evening
so that’s the good news

Another reporter on the ground in the areas threatened by Hurricane Milton is Jay Gray of NBC News. Speaking on MSNBC a couple of hours ago he said there was at least some “good news” in that people appeared to be heeding the warnings.

He told viewers:

If there’s any good news here, we toured Fort Myers beach yesterday [and] it looks like people have listened to those warnings, that they’ve moved to higher ground, moved out of the area. It was really quiet yesterday, and into the evening. And so that’s the good news.

However he said that one person sheltering told him “the tough part now is waiting, watching and then seeing where the storm hits and what it may leave behind.”

From the article, “Hurricane Milton live updates: millions in Florida told to leave their homes amid threat to life warning” in the Guardian,” 10/9/2024.

It was really quiet yesterday, and into the evening.

And so that’s the good news.

The tough part now is waiting, watching and then seeing where the storm hits and what it may leave behind.

The goofy part?

That is the GOOD news.

My daughter was without power a good part of the week after Helene.

She was without internet or phone access.

She was without clean, fresh water.

Yesterday she told us, the traffic lights were going back … UP.

Not on, mind you, not that they were without power.

But, back up, because they had all been knocked down.

But what can you expect.

She lives in that hurricane alley target town of … Augusta, Georgia.

It was really quiet yesterday, and into the evening.

And so that’s the good news.

The tough part now is waiting, watching and then seeing where the storm hits and what it may leave behind.

10.8.2024 – good luck kisses you

good luck kisses you
quick, flies away – bad Luck sits
and brings her knitting

Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls,
Long in one place she will not stay;
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.

But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays, – no fancy has she for flitting, –
Snatches of true love-songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.

Good And Bad Luck by John Hay as printed in The Norton book of Light Verse edited by Russell Baker, New York, Norton, 1986.

At age 23, John Hay, graduate of Brown University and native of Illinois, was selected to be one of the two men who made up the entire White House staff of Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Hay used that line on his resume to create a career in Government as a diplomat, Ambassador to Great Britain and Secretary of State in the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt administration.

I was interested to read the other day that during the Civil War, Mr. Hay took a break from the White House in January, 1863 and went to, where else, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

The Hilton Head / Port Royal Sound area had been built into a base of Military Operations for the Union forces in the area and a 1,000 bed hospital had been built on the beach.

The imagery of the words in this short poem of Mr. Hay’s was too good to pass up.

10.7.2024 – if you read between

if you read between
the lines you understand what
someone really means

According to the Collins Online Dictionary, the phrase, “to read between the lines” means:

“If you read between the lines, you understand what someone really means, or what is really happening in a situation, even though it is not said openly.”

In his article, “Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake“, Mr. Sidney Blumenthal outlines some examples of how to read between the lines of Mr. Donald Trump.

Mr. Blumenthal writes:

When Trump says immigration, he means race.

When he says crime, he means race.

When he says communism, socialism, or Democrat, he means race.

When he says America is declining, he means race.

When he says “American First”, he means race.

When he says blood, he means race.

When he says poison, he means race.

When he says race, he means Black people.

When he says race, he means Hispanics.

When he says race, he means Muslims.

And when he says race, he means other white people, too, some less white, less pure, less clean, less acceptable depending on their ancestral origin, than others.

When he says race, he means the replacement theory.

It seems that half of America would understand and agree with what Mr. Blumenthal is trying to point out.

It seems that half of America would understand what and agree with Mr. Trump is trying to say.

You know what scares me … bothers me the most?

The idea that I am clinging too that this election will settle anything.

I think of Mr. Lincoln and his call to the the better angels of our nature.

Those angels left town a long time ago.