“White Dog on Snow” – The 2021 Freezeageddon – we are missing this girl this year.
This holiday season started off as normally as it could. But then. The super-winter-weather-bomb cyclone event named Elliot (like a winter Hurricane) – the swooping down of the Arctic Vortex like this has caused havoc for millions of people this holiday:
That is where it is today – and let’s just say people in places along the yellow and above that are freezing their asses off or buried in snow today.
So, as you might expect, this is doing a big number on the US power-grid. Thanks to the tracking by the good folks at United States Power Outage Map – you can see for yourself at any given moment. Today’s winners are North Carolina, Tennessee, and Maine, with South Carolina and New York as runner-ups. Our famous Texas ERCOT grid, which promised full capacity is apparently still not there yet – oops. To be fair, part of Texas is actually in the MISO grid, but you would never hear the “dear gubner of Texas” say that out loud.
Today’s power outage winners – a high level view of who is in and who is out of power on the morning of Christmas Eve 2022. Yesterday it was awful as Elliot has moved eastward across the USA – leaving freezing cold temps and/or precipitation for some.
Current 10:47 AM look at where Santa has been already and where he and his sleigh are headed next…according to the Google Santa Tracker https://santatracker.google.com/
Again, Google’s Santa Tracker gives us the view of where Santa is at the given moment on Christmas Eve having already begun his journey over 24 hours ago… Looks like he is over Russia at this hour. We’re not going to explain why “Vladdie P” isn’t getting a visit. That’s just obvious. But all the good children will certainly have the magic of Christmas wherever possible. Let’s hope that Santa encounters no issues as he works his way west to complete his journey! He has lots of experience, so we would expect that he knows the ropes, despite the climate change woes.
For us here, it is small gatherings with family and friends. Colder than usual. No precipitation. Just riding the waves of memories of Christmases past and per my usual I hope for Peace on Earth and for people to get along better than they have been of late (and I’m talking about the whole wide world, not that I’m doing anything but feeding my hopes into some sort of pleading prayer stream…).
OK, I was excited about something, but not sure what Dad was thinking!
I am moved to write when I get to this time of year. Lots of the flowing memories and anxieties that come with the celebration of what this is all about.
Sweet Jesus
I am thankful for the gifts of the people in my life. For those who have left us, I am grateful that at least I had them in my life for the period of time that was meant to be a part of my role in this ongoing theater of life on Planet Earth. I am missing my people who are not here. Every year I miss them all the time. Guess this is just part of living…
The year started as it usually does. New Year’s day. Another birthday. Friends birthdays… and as always, new possibilities for the new decade.
As we experience in winter, it brings shorter days. Struggling with the gray days. Seeking the sunlight as much as possible when they present themselves – sometimes we’re lucky and get stretches of brightness.
Glorious High Clouds
Breathing fresh cool air is wonderful, but I get a bit freaked out when we have crazy tornado weather in early January, and the flowers are blooming, and the birds who normally act okay are flying into windows and not coping well with the unexpected near-summer temp days that string themselves intermittently amongst the “normal” for winter days. Strange? A bit.
But, it has happened before, maybe, but not in our lifetimes so much. We maybe weren’t here then. I looked up the history… but the fires. Those are truly what is the most concerning. That and the knock-on effects. The droughts. All the stuff we living in a “privileged first world country” don’t see, that I have seen and you can’t “un-see or not remember” what you see that looks like that. You can’t, if you have any empathetic bones in your body… Or any sort of wired-in alarms within your soul.
What we see and witness is being blasted out every minute of every day. Citizen witness-reporting. Citizen scientists commenting. We observe the culture. The culture of our childhoods is not the culture of today. It is change. “Life is change. How it differs from the rocks…” BUT… guess what? Rocks change all the time. They move, oblivious to the life standing on them, or growing around them…
Rocks, shells, wood, sand… seaweed – elements recomposed.
The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system’s mass cannot change, so quantity can neither be added nor be removed. This means that your fine automobile was something else at one time, and now has been recomposed into your fine automobile until such time that it, and all its parts, are dismantled and again go through the process of returning to the earth or being recomposed into something else.
Think about it. What this does not address is that during the times of decomposition, transition and recompilation multiple processes are at work – natural processes or human processes – but then, think again – humans are “natural” unless… and then the possibility arises that humans evolved from “something else” that joined with a natural being and a number of theories come from that. Religion. Science. Lore. Extremely compelling ancient evidence that points to early in human existence, beings having the ability to view from high distances – the evolution and migration is quite well documented in rock records, as well as in ancient texts – even if those are cuneiform on rock scrolls – and in artwork in caves – interesting depictions.
Fascinated by timelines stacked on top of one another of what happened simultaneously on the earth, these continue to change as new discoveries are made.
Geology and geophysics – the science says: Rocks shudder under the weight of oceans and other rocks. Driven by energy coming from the core of our planet. Soft squishy humans and other animals are affected. We are supposedly the “intelligent” leaders and stewards of the orb. Despite this tag, sometimes we don’t act like it. Earthquakes can surprise people living in areas where faults have not been identified – this can introduce catastrophic outcomes. Geologists and geophysicists and their sub-professions are humans, first, scientists – and the “tools du jour” are what enables them to make discoveries.
1920’s Geologists
We measure – we alert – we sometimes do not get the alert in time. Kind of like ants, we are… milling around. We try. We work at improving all the time. But we’ve lost our abilities to get along in the process.
Have we not taught our children that getting along is important? Self-focus is not. We really cannot afford to not share and consider our impact on others. Each time you toss something away, it’s on its way to entering that process of decomposition – a long process indeed.
Being a good citizen of the planet is about looking after others everywhere. It is about considering the impact of being cruel and how it will, no question, come back to haunt you – at least it will if you have a conscience and morals. The selfish politics rising in popularity over the last decade and a half, is not healthy for our continued existence in the end – it will destroy us. Guaranteed.
Teach our children and grandchildren well. Like the song of the sixties tells us to do. But, extending this to all of our family members, and young friends – teach our nieces and nephews that our planet and everyone are worth getting along.
Please. Where you do technology, balance with hand-made art. Where you listen to digital music, get out a guitar and a drum – or a ukulele or a banjo! Sing out loud! Read books! Real ones with pages! Draw pictures of what you see. Never forget how to do those things by hand and that the digital representations are just that… representations.
Should have captured a photo the other day of the remarkable map that we could observe using satellite imagery and radar – oh. my. gosh.
There’s a thumbnail below of the storms – but, we’re not through the “season” yet… Last year, another Cat 5, Hurricane Michael, visited in October, chasing on the heels of Florence, involving some of the same damaged areas, still recovering from just under a month before – 16 storms in 2018 – 3 Cat 1’s, 3 Cat 2’s, 1 Cat 4, and 1 Cat 5, in addition to tropical depressions and tropical storms that fell into the total list before the season ended – the last one being the end of October, but not making landfall.
The prior year, 2017, was a “doosey” by all accounts, having 18 storms in the Atlantic – 2 incredibly damaging Cat 5’s, 2 incredibly damaging Cat 4’s – Harvey producing the historic record for total rainfall, doing incredible amounts of damage – still not completely determined, two years out – the recovery will continue for years.
With Irma, and Maria, Jose – all battering the USA and it’s territories, the costs are continuing to stress the economic resources – not to mention Mr. Crazy, whose influence as president and decider in chief, has altered the resource direction by his idiotic priorities. Let’s say that $282 billion and counting does a number on the resource pool. 2018, so far, is shaping up to be over $50 billion, and it’s only the first week in September.
Storm severity seems to trend higher in August-September and October for some reason, so the big numbers may be forthcoming, but let’s hope things calm down.
Multiple tropical storms churning in the worlds oceans. Powerful storms. Another “Category 5” storm rips apart – literally destroys – a vacation spot visited by many for decades – which reset everyone’s frame of reference and definitely created a paradigm shift.
Crazy weather – dangerous storms more frequently forming these days…
This is not the stuff of disaster movies anymore. It’s real life.
Essentially a couple of islands on the the east side of The Bahamas are no more in terms of life as people knew it. Like bad yard work, just mowing without any tidying – it’s an awful thought that NOTHING exists much there that isn’t destroyed. No modern anything.
Giant piles of rubble, likely burying alive people who could not get out of the way – TBD on the fatality count. We know that the number can grow from these disasters – largely people who do not have a lot of money and fancy resources, living the island life, surviving day to day as they always have for as long as The Bahamas have existed as a place where people live.
Lots of dangerous messes. Not even a way to start from scratch without a whole lot of effort – and think of this: forklifts, and big dump trucks that would help – there is no place to off-load them without building a dock or a ramp – those were also destroyed. The mother-of-invention has arrived. Let’s see if human invention and innovation kick-in… Depends on how badly or whether it is reasonable to rebuild – before the next monster arrives…
Just do the Wikipedia thing and review in short the history of this group of islands.
I visited The Bahamas only once – in 1985. Fun trip, but strange… interesting. I never had much desire to return, but, it wasn’t the fault of The Bahamas. It was mostly that the company and the experience with the fellow travelers and tourists did not set well. Didn’t get to stay long.
It was an expensive place to visit. Why? Because everything is shipped in that feeds the economy.
Tourism IS the economy. Perhaps if you throw in illegal drug trade, that might be a hidden sub-economy… Financial Services (the proverbial “bank account in The Bahamas”) ranking second, and Agriculture (yes, they do grow and export “tropical things” as their third most prevailing economic money-generator.
Oh and did I mention the casinos? Yep. Vegas Baby – it’s like that. Every island has a casino or hundred… It’s a thing. Part of why people visit there – maybe pay for their trip expenses or accommodations or meals.
But on the pleasant and fun side of the tourism equation – aside from the potential for staying totally intoxicated throughout a visit, if you are so inclined, scuba diving, water-skiing, fishing for giant catch, every water sport you can imagine – anything related to coral reef activities and crystal turquoise (or deep blue) water – that’s where you go (at least one of the places) to experience that.
The people there, by and large, are a mixture of indigenous and migrants from nearby islands and other places, particularly Africa. The Bahamians generally do not refer to “dissolved” multi-cultural categorizations – you are either “black” or “white”. As with other nations that have inhabitants with various skin-tones, whereby the darker are the majority, the white folks generally get nicknames. In the case of The Bahamas, white people get called “Conchy Joe”, in much the same manner as white people get called “gringos”, or other somewhat potentially sarcastic labels.
The original people who first inhabited the islands were Lucayans, according to the most up to date research. The islands were first inhabited best-guess between 500-800 AD. Research shows that likely these folks came to the various islands, potentially from other islands, originating from somewhere in northern South America – probably the eastern areas. Fascinating history of how these island populations evolved.
The whole laid-back atmosphere of the culture has evolved over time. Generous, graceful, and athletic – by and large- but, at times “polluted” by western cultural influences and the chasing of the almighty dollar – plus issues related to the fast-food trends – just like other places across the planet – the norms and influences, and the takeovers of countries…
Back to today, now the situation on Mother Earth is changing at an accelerated rate, and we are witnessing what happens to fragile areas when the seas get angry and super-storms develop. Anyone want to wager on whether there will become a Category 6 sometime in the next few years, as storms trend to be Category 5’s more often and push the upper levels?
As we have been warned, the economic impacts will be significant during the “adjustment period” to the new normal generated by the changing climate trends.
You throw in the ever increasing wild fires destroying whole towns, well… let’s just say that Mother Earth’s anger at her human inhabitants is coming out in many forms. Remembering that old commercial “You can’t fool Mother Nature” – it’s true… She’s no fool – and Mother Earth is her favorite grand-baby.
Like the Game of Risk, these “machinations” continue to destroy unique cultures as the civilization of indigenous peoples is driven by “big religion” efforts, “big plantation” AKA “corporitization” efforts, technology, social engineering (another nice word for exploitation, which is just another form of human aggression, takeover, and control) – all of these forms have been doing this, in some evolutionary format, since the dawn of humans on the planet – humans are “born to take” – despite the internal “guilt” instilled by God only knows what, in some cases – each human being has more or less the drive to acquire something.
But that, dear readers, is an entirely different discussion… for a different day.
For now, this tragedy, added to the tragedies of Puerto Rico, and other “destructed places in paradise”, is still unfolding and yet to be understood fully – and will not be for a very long while…
