12.16.2024 – expect similar

expect similar
scenario unfold as
layer decouples

The atmosphere has changed little today with warm, moist conditions in place. Conditions tonight into Tuesday morning will be largely be similar to those found this morning where widespread fog and stratus were common along the coast. Expect a similar scenario to unfold tonight as the boundary layer decouples, but there is a large number of discrepancies on the timing and coverage of stratus and eventually fog as much depends on the amount of mid- level clouds that some guidance members suggest will develop. If an expansive area of mid-level clouds forms, this will tend to lower to dense fog threat. For now, the forecast has been trended closer to the more pessimistic guidance given the mostly favorable conditions in place and the anticipation of stratus transitioning to fog via stratus build-down. Areas of dense fog were highlighted for most areas south of I-26, but refinements to the fog forecast will most certainly be needed later tonight as additional data are received and observational trends are established. A Dense Fog Advisory may be needed for some areas later tonight. Lows Tuesday morning will range from the upper 40s/lower 50s well inland to the upper 50s/near 60 at the beaches.

National Weather Service Forecast Discussion for the Savannah area at 321 PM EST Mon Dec 16 2024.

I guess I expected more from when the weather service said, “Expect a similar scenario to unfold tonight as the boundary layer decouples, but there is a large number of discrepancies on the timing and coverage of stratus.”

12.14.2024 – would you meet again?

would you meet again?
delighted to catch up in
the future … as friends

My regular Saturday morning reading includes a few minutes with a Guardian feature titled, “Blind Date”, where two people agree to meet at a local restaurant and then answer questions about their experience.

Often my comments focus on the place where the couple meets as the British restaurants often have great names.

Today’s restaurant was The Tamil Crown located at 16 Elia St, London N1 8DE.

The menu includes:

LARGE PLATES
Aubergine curry (ve) | 12.5
Mango Sambar (v) | 11
Coconut prawn moilee | 16
Thanjavur chicken curry | 13.5
Chettinad lamb curry | 14
Robata lamb chops | 35
EXTRAS
Buttery, flaky roti (v) | 3.5
Coconut pilau rice (v) | 5.5

That’s Pounds by the way, not dollars.

I don’t want to bother with The Google but I wonder what prawn moilee or buttery flaky roti is.

Then there are the participants answers.

Today the first response of the young lady in the Blind Date was:

What were you hoping for?
To meet the love of my life. Failing that, a good story for my next date.

Sadly her last response was:

Would you meet again?
I’d be delighted to catch up with him in the future, as friends.

They must have been some synergy at this date as the young man’s last response was:

Would you meet again?
I’d be happy to meet again as friends.

12.11.2024 – decided i would 

decided i would   
settle down and just become
a sweet inspiration

in my younger years
before i learned
black people aren’t
suppose to dream
i wanted to be
a raelet
and say “dr o wn d in my youn tears”
or “tal kin bout tal kin bout”
or marjorie hendricks and grind   
all up against the mic
and scream
“baaaaaby nightandday   
baaaaaby nightandday”
then as i grew and matured
i became more sensible   
and decided i would   
settle down
and just become
a sweet inspiration

Dreams by Nikki Giovanni, from Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1968

IN a convocation speech after a campus shooting at Virginia Tech where she was teaching, Ms. Giovanni said:

Nikki Giovanni said: “… We know we did nothing to deserve it. But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS. Neither do the invisible children walking the night awake to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory. Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water …”

Of the speech, she would later say that she also sought to express the idea that really terrible things happen to good people: “I would call it, in terms of writing, in terms of poetry, it’s a laundry list. Because all you’re doing is: This is who we are, and this is what we think, and this is what we feel, and this is why – you know?… I just wanted to admit, you know, that we didn’t deserve this, and nobody does. And so I wanted to link our tragedy, in every sense, you know – we’re no different from anything else that has hurt….

This is who we are, and this is what we think, and this is what we feel, and this is why.

I just wanted to admit, you know, that we didn’t deserve this, and nobody does.

Settle down and just become a sweet inspiration.

Famously she said once, “Sometimes you write a poem because damnit, you want to.”

Ms. Giovanni died Monday, December 9th, Twenty Twenty Four.

12.9.2024 – all men kill the thing

all men kill the thing
they hate, too, unless, of course,
it … it kills them first

The Crow and the Scarecrow

Once upon a farm an armada of crows descended like the wolf on the fold. They were after the seeds in the garden and the corn in the field. The crows posted sentinels, who warned them of the approach of the farmer, and they even had an undercover crow or two who mingled with the chickens in the barnyard and the pigeons on the roof, and found out the farmer’s plans in advance. Thus they were able to raid the garden and the field when he was away, and they stayed hidden when he was at home. The farmer decided to build a scarecrow so terrifying it would scare the hateful crows to death when they got a good look at it. But the scarecrow, for all the work the farmer put in on it, didn’t frighten even the youngest and most fluttery female. The marauders knew that the scarecrow was a suit of old clothes stuffed with straw and that what it held in its wooden hand was not a rifle but only a curtain rod.

As more and more corn and more and more seeds disappeared, the farmer became more and more eager for vengeance. One night, he made himself up to look like a scarecrow and in the dark, for it was a moonless night, his son helped him to take the place of the scarecrow. This time, however, the hand that held the gun was not made of wood and the gun was not an unloaded curtain rod, but a double-barrelled 12-gauge Winchester.

Dawn broke that morning with a sound like a thousand tin pans falling. This was the rebel yell of the crows coming down on field and garden like Jeb Stuart’s cavalry. Now one of the young crows who had been out all night, drinking corn instead of eating it, suddenly went into a tailspin, plunged into a bucket of red paint that was standing near the barn, and burst into flames.

The farmer was just about to blaze away at the squadron of crows with both barrels when the one that was on fire headed straight for him. The sight of a red crow, dripping what seemed to be blood, and flaring like a Halloween torch, gave the living scarecrow such a shock that he dropped dead in one beat less than the tick of a watch (which is the way we all want to go, mutatis, it need scarcely be said, mutandis).

The next Sunday the parson preached a disconsolate sermon, denouncing drink, carryings on, adult delinquency, front page marriages, golf on Sunday, adultery, careless handling of firearms, and cruelty to our feathered friends. After the sermon, the dead farmer’s wife explained to the preacher what had really happened, but he only shook his head and murmured skeptically, “Confused indeed would be the time in which the crow scares the scarecrow and becomes the scarescarecrow.”

MORAL: All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.

Published in Further Fables for Our Time by James Thurber Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London, 1956.

Denouncing drink, carryings on, adult delinquency, front page marriages, golf on Sunday, adultery, careless handling of firearms, and cruelty to our feathered friends.

There used to be a time when conduct might be called into question.

Confused indeed would be the time in which the crow scares the scarecrow and becomes the scarescarecrow.

12.8.2024 – insufficient to

insufficient to
make a recognisable
explosion, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

From the article, The most dangerous delivery truck? How a lorry-load of antimatter will help solve secrets of universe written by Robin McKie, science editor of The Observer.

McKie writes:

Antimatter is the most expensive material on Earth – it’s estimated it would cost several trillion dollars to make a gram – and it can only be manufactured in particle physics laboratories such as the Cern research centre near Geneva.

It is also extremely tricky to handle. If antimatter makes contact with normal matter, both are annihilated, releasing a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation. Only by carefully combining sets of powerful electrical and magnetic fields in special devices can antimatter be stored safely.

“That makes moving it around very difficult, though we are now close to making our first journey,” said Prof Stefan Ulmer, a scientist at Cern. “Antimatter has so much to tell us. That is why we are doing this.”

The prospect of a similar blast happening in real life is remote, scientists insist – the quantities of antimatter carried will be insufficient to make an explosion of any recognisable nature.

Three things here to point out besides that last paragraph being a wonderful assemblage of words.

One, I did not know that in Europe recognisable is spelled with a S and not a Z so here in the states recognisable is tossed by spell check.

Two, the work in question is being done at European Organization for Nuclear Research which is known as CERN. I have never understood that. (along with the world soccer organization being known as FIFA).

Three, I would like a little more information on just what makes, “an explosion of any recognisable nature.

When Enrico Fermi and the Manhattan Project folks set up the first self sustaining Atomic Reactor Pile, they were 99% sure it wouldn’t blow up and destroy all life within 100’s of miles if not the earth itself in an uncontrollable chain reaction gone uncontrollable.

They chose downtown Chicago for the test site.

Not until the Plutarkians came to strip mine Chicago in the 1990s did the city face such a possibility but the Plutarkians were defeated by the Biker Mice from Mars that lived in the scoreboard at Wrigley Field.

Still I feel my question is valid.

When dealing with antimatter … how big, how bad is an explosion of any recognisable nature?

Back in the day when I was in college there was an out break of measles and students who had never been vaccinated were advised to get a shot.

I thought about it and thought about it and thought, I had never been vacinated.

I called my Mom and she thought about it and thought about it and decided that in our family of 11 kids we had been exposed to measles but the last time someone had it, my brother Pete, she brought us all down to the Doctors who gave us Gamma Globulin short term protection shots and was told to get us all in for a vacine in about 6 months.

But with 11 kids, one thing happens after another and we never got back for our vaccine so Mom advised me to get the shot.

In line at the Student Health Clinic I was given a waver to sign

It said something along the lines of 1 out of 100,000 people MIGHT develop symptoms or have a reaction or get hit with Encephalitis.

In parenthesis the disclaimer read (A swelling of the brain).

Standing in line, I raised my head and yelled out, ‘Can I get anymore information about this SWELLING OF THE BRAIN?’

Everyone in lined ducked their heads down to look at the disclaimer.

The nurses all glared at me.

But I had an audience.

I then read off ALL the bad things that could happen and asked for more information as the line slowly move forward.

When I got to the nurse she leaned in and said to I wasn’t being very helpful as many of the people in line had a lot of anxiety about getting a shot, would I please SHUT UP.

I stood there.

Then I asked the nurse in a loud voice, “DID YOU EVER TALK TO ANYONE WHO DIED FROM A MEASLES SHOT?”

The nurse said LOUDLY, “OF COURSE NOT!”

And I said, “BECAUSE THEY WERE DEAD!”

And that nurse took that needle and jammed it straight into my arm.

She looked at me and grinned.

“You flinched,” she said.

All I want is a little more information on these explosions of an unrecognizable nature.