First Looks category archive

Mike Gruss, writing in my local rag, points out that the clean-up costs from Irene look to be quite high, despite it’s not having been another Hazel.

He then points out a storm is not an entertainment event and should not be so judged. A nugget:

Those who complain that an overhyped Irene underperformed are the same people who can’t distinguish a real natural disaster from a fictional movie.

If it’s on TV, to them, it’s all equal. That’s how Hurricane Irene, despite ruining cherished comic-book collections and newly installed air-conditioning units, became a box-office bust.

Afterthought:

After an informal survey of some of my friends (the persons who showed up an the TWUUG dinner), it appears that the Weather Channel was the primary hyper.

The local media coverage was fairly sane. Some of it was lame, but it wasn’t hysterical.

Addendum, Later that Same Day:

The Feral Genius comments from her post in Connecticut:

Which brings me to Hurricane Irene, which (despite warnings to the contrary) turned out to be an extremely minor storm, here in my little corner of Connecticut. And by “my little corner,” I specifically mean “my small city block, and the one next to mine.” Beyond that, though, the river overflowed its banks, and less than a mile in every direction were homes and businesses without electricity; roads either coated in mud from temporary flooding, or completely washed away, leaving flooded ravines where the roadbed used to be; a building that collapsed directly into the river less than ten minutes’ walk from my front door.

(snip)

In conclusion: despite the catastrophe unfolding in Vermont, the millions still without power on the East Coast, the dozens dead and all the other damage caused by Hurricane Irene, I personally suffered none of the ill effects the media warned me about. Thus, this was a minor fizzled-out nothing of a storm, and the warnings about it mere hype and bullshit. ’Cuz it’s all about me. Only me.

Charles Madigan muses on punishments from God at the Chicago Trib. In the process, he encapsulates much that is wrong with the religious (sic) right.

A nugget (emphasis added).

Hurricanes are not sent to punish us. They are forces of nature created by weather patterns in the Atlantic over near Africa. And earthquakes that crack the Washington Monument are not warnings from heaven about budget deficits or gay people or even those damned Democrats.

Plates shifting, as plates have always been shifting. That’s what earthquakes are all about.

I think it is blasphemous to suggest we can know the mind of God, or even to assume that whatever God is, it is all about us. I am quite certain that God does not punish evil here on Earth because there is so much of it that goes unpunished, so much of it that is rewarded, in fact.

They need to hire back a few of those copy editors.

The curmudgeon columnist in our local rag gets one right:

A major hurricane was buzzsawing toward the East Coast, predicted to come ashore somewhere along the North Carolina coast (early hysterical reports had this as a Cat 4 storm) and where does our hero (Jim Cantore, Weather Channel person–ed.) head?

First he went to Rhode Island. Later, he inched closer to the action in Battery Park.

(snip)

Yep, the biggest storm in years was aiming right at us and we were nothing but a postscript.

Until I read her column, I’d never heard of Jim Cantore. I find the Weather Channel even more boring that Lifetime.

It’s like the old weather broadcasts from the early days of cable, in which a camera kept panning automatically from a thermometer to a barometer to a anemometer, only with more talk noise and less information.

Afterthought:

My brother recommends Stormpulse if you want to track tropical storms with minimal hype and maximal data.

The storm seems to be over in these parts.

Minimal damage except for

• Two fatalities in my state (one poor guy had a heart attack while boarding up his house, and an 11-year old was crushed to death when a falling tree destroyed the family apartment), the
• Almost a half-million Virginians without power, who now have no choice but to talk with their spouses, significant others, and housemates, and the
• Flooding in the low-lying areas (exacerbated by the non-existent global warming because sea-levels are two feet higher than they were 80 years ago).

We were fortunate not to experience a power failure, so we got to watch the coverage on the telly vision (which did little to restore my faith in telly vision news*–there was lots of filling time with babble) and talk amongst ourselves, which we seem to be able to do.

It could have been a lot worse.

I’ve experienced real hurricanes. I know.

_______________________

*I will say that the telly vision news here is saner than the telly vision news in Philly, but that’s sort of like saying that eating grits and red-eye gravy is better than eating straw.

It’s been raining all day. The center of the storm is still about three hours south (about 50 miles) of here. It will arrive just in time for high tide, exacerbating the flooding in susceptible areas.

The rain has picked back up after a pause and the wind has increased significantly, but the storm is no longer maintaining hurricane force winds except perhaps at the side that is well out to sea.

The mail carrier is making his delivery here right now.

Commemorating six years of electronic drivel in almost 11,000 individual droplets.

Midnight.

The rain is starting.

With any luck, it will put out the fire in the Great Dismal.

Have to refill the propane tank and clear the decks.

At the Chicago Tribune, Rachel Marsden is troubled by the focus on the sex lives of the Republican presidential wannabes.

Much of what she says has merit; sexual propriety does not correlate with governmental competence. Here’s a snippet:

“Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?” asks the ad, placed by the Ron Paul-backing “Committee Against Sexual Hypocrisy” — a “group” consisting of a single guy by the name of Robert Morrow. Morrow encourages the public to call or email him so he can “help you publicize” your experience if you are a “stripper, an escort, or just a ‘young hottie.'”

The American and world economies are circling the drain, and already some are suiting up to play “Indiana Jones on the Trail of the Family Jewels.” Before the expedition moves any further along — and you can be sure that it will — I’d like to provide some handy guidelines for political sex-life vetting.

She continues to offer some remarkably vapid guidelines for reporting on politicians’ sex lives.

They would, for example, forbid reporting on Dwight Eisenhower’s long-term relationship with Kay Summersby, while disqualifying serial philanderer John F. Kennedy from office.

She also ignores the “why” of the attention to the “family values” of Republican pols.

The Republican Party asked for it with their blowhard crusading hypocritical moralism.

Few things fill a foley-o of pages more than titanic hypocrisy taking a wide stance athwart the Appalachian Trail.

Off to drink liberally.

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered northwest of Richmond, Va., shook much of Washington, D.C., and was felt as far north as Rhode Island and New York City.

The sliding closet doors rattled a little.

My friend’s workplace, which is an old wooden building constructed in the 1920s, shook enough to get her to hang up the phone and head for the stairs.

I was near the center of a quite noticeable quake once. I told the story here.

Via Frank Chow.

Afterthought:

This explains why my call to Richmond dropped. Now it’s “all circuits are busy.”

Addendum, Later That Same Afternoon:

The Richmond Times-Dispatch rounds up Virginia’s earthquaking history.

Addendum-Dee-Dum-Dum:

Thoreau comments:

P.S. I eagerly await some fundie televangelist explaining that this is God’s punishment for being too tolerant.

Hunting For Pro-Science Republicans
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The scientists can’t be believed,
And scholars sure leave them aggrieved.
Don’t trust any source—
That’s the GOP course:
Calling facts they don’t like ill-conceived.