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.”
No Haiku For You 