Helios Airlines Tragedy Clues Emerge

Boy, this sounds really awful (BRAMP! BRAMP! BRAMP!):

Reports emerging from Greece portray the unfolding of a grim cockpit comedy, the captain and first officer confused by the sound of a pressure alarm while struggling to communicate. The German captain and Cypriot first officer -- the latter described in some articles as "young" and "inexperienced," which may or may not be meaningful -- did not share a common language and had difficulty understanding one another in English. Both allegedly passed out before the significance of the alarm could be determined. The cause of the initial pressure malfunction, say anonymous sources, was a control knob faultily installed by maintenance staff during the previous evening's inspection.

With respect to the communication conflict between pilots, it's natural to suspect a training problem -- a young carrier with insufficient means to recruit or adequately train linguistically compatible crew members. English is the default and official language of worldwide civil aviation, shared -- in varying degrees of eloquence -- by pilots and air traffic controllers in all but the remotest corners of China and Russia. ... Weakness in fluency is sometimes a problem between controllers and pilots -- several years ago, the near collision of two 747s at Chicago's O'Hare was blamed partly on confusion over taxi instructions, American controllers barking critical orders to Chinese and Korean crews -- but rarely do you hear of dangerous misunderstandings between pilots themselves.

A pressurization knob left out of place by a mechanic, while clearly negligent (apply above questions to maintenance personnel), should not entail a fatal catastrophe. From what we know, the misinstalled knob led to a faulty (perhaps even nil) rate of pressurization, in turn triggering an aural cockpit warning as the cabin reached the equivalent of 10,000 feet. Nothing deadly just yet; there was still plenty of time to troubleshoot and possibly rectify the entire problem.
Unfortunately, the pilots misinterpreted the alarm, believing it to be an errant sounding of the takeoff configuration horn. On the 737-300, both systems share the identical claxon, with a critical caveat: On the ground, the noise means wrongly deployed flaps or slats; in the air, it means the cabin altitude has exceeded 10,000 feet. (Either way, the alarm serves as something of a last resort, with the presumption that crews will have, nine times in 10, noticed and corrected things beforehand.)

Boeing, maker of the 737, acknowledges the potential for confusion, but the use of duplicate alarms is not unheard of, and crews are trained to know, or certainly to seek, the difference. With a token bit of 737 experience myself, I have to chuckle morbidly when reading of the Helios pilots' reaction. I vividly recall a simulator session not so long ago, during which our instructor had programmed a gradual depressurization of the cabin, setting off that very same alarm during cruise flight. All was quiet and uneventful until BRAMP, BRAMP, BRAMP, the speaker screamed. The captain and I sat there for a moment staring at each other. "Why the hell is the takeoff horn going off?"

It wasn't, of course, and after a few moments of scanning the instrument panels, including the pressurization controls, we found the actual culprit. (Wrongly aligned knob or not, separate indicators display the existing level of cabin pressure at all times.) During previous exercises involving a rapid or sudden decompression it was common to hear, and properly interpret, the same horn. Without the accompanying cues, however (a simulated explosion or other violent breach), the sound was confusing. A leaky outflow valve, a balky door seal -- any of several malfunctions can bring about a slow, insidious decompression. Usually they are detected and addressed before the blaring has a chance to start. But, as I experienced firsthand, not always.

...If the takeoff configuration horn is sounding when you're at 30,000 feet, stop for a minute. Maybe it isn't the takeoff configuration horn. Snoop around and see. Do not, on the other hand, assume you know what's happening and begin to dig for a circuit breaker in order to silence the warning. That's what the Helios pilots attempted to do after consulting with their maintenance department via radio. While the captain was up looking for the right breaker to quell the noise, his unpressurized jet continuing to climb, he succumbed to hypoxia and passed out. Already impaired, the first officer lost consciousness soon thereafter. On automatic pilot, the plane ascended to 34,000 feet and kept going all the way to Athens, a way point along its route from Larnaca, Cyprus, to a planned destination of Prague, Czech Republic. Over Athens it entered a preprogrammed holding pattern until eventually running out of fuel.

In addition to a level of incredulity over the egregious and ultimately fatal misinterpretation of the aural alerting system, we're left with a litany of obvious questions: Why were the pilots not able to spot the improperly installed controller knob during their preflight checks? Why did they not catch the lack of increasing pressure during initial climb -- whether on the instrument indicators or simply by feeling it in their ears and sinuses? Why did they fail to draw a connection between deployment of the main cabin oxygen masks, an indication of which was made clear by a cockpit annunciator, and the ongoing siren? Why didn't the maintenance staff, in contact with the pilots over the air, offer a clue as to what might be happening? And when the ceiling masks came popping from their holsters, why didn't the flight attendants summon the pilots' attention, further hinting at the fact that something considerably more dire than a disobedient takeoff alarm was unfolding?

...The crux of this accident isn't about a failure to understand English, it's about why two qualified 737 pilots, regardless of what languages they spoke or didn't speak, were incapable of deciphering the cause of a yelping cockpit alarm, and why nobody was able to help them.

...Consider also the series of breakdowns, from the tangible mistake of a misrigged instrument to the subsequent garble of procedure and protocol. None of these things, independently, was enough to kill. Eventually, as the miscues compounded, the bottom fell out. We've seen this pattern before, and one hopes we'll learn from it.

"42nd Street" Rehearsal Video

Melody Davi's feet get some air time on Elmira, NY's WETM TV-18. According to her father, Tony:

If you can open this, take a look at their first rehearsal on stage last night. It is really more of a walk through since it is the first time using the stairs but it gives a good idea what is going on behind the scenes. Mel is in front in the dance with Billy and then when you see one person tapping, those are her legs.

Hurricane Katrina, in 2005 ....Or Iowa, in 2004?

Here are several pictures from a set making the rounds on the Internet. I put in a request to see who took these pictures, when, and from where. Now, my second-hand contact says they aren't from Hurricane Katrina at all, but from Iowa in 2004. But it's still quite vague, the details on these shots. Nevertheless, I don't care that much: it's the photos themselves that speak volumes.

One advantage of (having once lived in) the dry American Southwest is that thunderstorm cloud base is usually so high that the storm clouds can often be seen in great, picturesque detail. Even though storm clouds east of the Mississippi River are typically much larger, cloud base is so low that they often can't be seen clearly, and so the effect isn't as picturesque.

With a big storm (or a hurricane), violent, humid updrafts are located very close to drier, violent downdrafts. With good visibility provided by a low sun angle (this is presumably near sunset), the effect is to allow great views of amazingly violent processes - much better than what you see even in the American Southwest.

As a meteorologist, I have to say these are the best pictures of 'wall clouds' I've ever seen. Wall clouds are the wall-like clouds that appear to be lower than typical cloud deck. They are caused by violent updrafts of very humid air, air that is more humid than its immediate surroundings, but which is moving upwards so rapidly that it doesn't have time to mix with its immediate, drier surroundings. In violent thunderstorms, wall clouds usually signal big trouble - the location from where funnel clouds will descend. The drier, descending air all around the wall cloud permits the wall cloud to be seen. In fact, I never imagined wall clouds could have such clearly-visible vertical extents as these wall clouds do!


Here she comes!


You open the Venetian blinds, see a skyscape like this, and all you want to do is shut the blinds!


Awesome wall cloud!


A better view of the awesome wall cloud!


The sky is looking increasingly ominous......

Storm Pictures, Attributed!

Aha! Those fabulous storm pictures are indeed from the Midwest!:

Storm chaser Mike Hollingshead hasn't been paid or given credit for the photos that have appeared in the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Brazil, among other places. Furthermore, the photos of tornadoes in Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa are being passed off as Hurricane Katrina pictures.

Many people received the photos in their inbox. They've been sent thousands of times. Hollingshead has link after link on his Web site to all of the other sites, chat rooms and e-mails where his pictures have appeared.

The pictures were mostly taken in 2004. All were snapped within a few hundred miles of Omaha.

Hollingshead takes the pictures for a living, and about nine months ago, he started getting e-mails from other storm chasers telling him his pictures were appearing around the world.

"People started selling them to magazines like Weatherwise, then a Dutch magazine about weather, then to newspapers and TV shows," Hollingshead said.

He said he tried to correct the Web sites, but it just kept spreading.

Old Man Of The Sea

Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, wrote a bluff and hearty editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (available on their OpinionJournal service), regarding the five stages of crisis management, as applied in this case, to Hurricane Katrina. The editorial makes interesting reading, on its own terms, about the limitations of large organizations in dealing with calamities.

Welch's editorial is written in the familiar, exaggerated over-confident, cheerily sloppy way that men of Big Business seem to prefer to write. For example, he doesn't check his facts too closely:

Yes, there has never been a natural disaster of Katrina's magnitude in our history. An entire city has been devastated, hundreds of lives lost, and hundreds of thousands of people displaced. In terms of impact, only an extended catastrophe like the Great Depression can compare in scope.

Actually, disasters of this scope HAVE occurred before: Salon compiled a list of the Top 10 killer disasters, and so far, Hurricane Katrina is just number 10. This list doesn't include big property disasters, like the 1930's Dust Bowl, Mt. St. Helens in 1980, the Mississippi floods of 1993, or the even bigger floods of 1927. Perhaps in the long run, Welch may be right, once everything is totalled up, but he's a bit out-on-a-limb at the moment.

Nevertheless, I can't come down hard on Welch: he makes me smile. He introduces his editorial with that familiar stock character, an 'Old Man of the Sea' type, a man wise to the ways of Mother Nature:

Our last day in Nantucket this summer, we bumped into a crusty old islander we know, a sea-hand who has seen his share of hurricanes. We asked him about the storm bearing down on New Orleans. "Probably just another overhyped Weather Channel event," he mused. We saw him again the next day, a few hours after the storm's landfall, and he repeated his take, this time with relief. We agreed--the pictures on TV weren't that bad.

Welch inadvertently reveals his 'crusty old islander' as being uninformed at best, or an idiot at worst. On Saturday, August 27th, two days before landfall, while Hurricane Katrina was still far out in the Gulf of Mexico, it required just one glance at the satellite picture (I even blogged about it) to reveal that the storm had, overnight, morphed from a run-of-the-mill minor hurricane into one of the largest, strongest hurricanes ever observed by humankind anywhere, an awesome, thrashing killer that would level anything it even approached. Perhaps the Weather Channel didn't make that point sufficiently clear at the time. Perhaps people were in the first stage of crisis mangement that Welch identifies: denial. In any event, it's quite clear now how powerful Hurricane Katrina was. Maybe even that 'crusty old islander' learned a thing or two from the experience!

The Buck Doesn't Stop With George Will

George Will's recent editorial regarding Hurricane Katrina, and the problems of the poor, appalled me. Will's chutzpah is incredible: he blames the problems of the poor, and by extension, their vulnerability to Hurricane Katrina, to that old bogeyman - you guessed it - liberals!:

The idea that Hurricane Katrina would change the only thing that matters -- thinking -- perished even more quickly, at about the time Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a suitable symbol of congressional narcissism, dramatized the severity of the tragedy by taking a television interviewer on a helicopter flight over her destroyed beach house. "Washington rolled the dice and Louisiana lost," she said in a speech on the Senate floor that moved some senators to tears. You can no more embarrass a senator than you can a sofa, so the tears were not accompanied by blushing about having just passed a transportation bill whose 6,371 pork projects cost $24 billion, about 10 times more than the price of the levee New Orleans needed. Louisiana's congressional delegation larded the bill with $540,580,200 worth of earmarks, one-fifth the price of a capable levee.

Will's part of the blame game ignores lots of factors, like the historic role of race in determining the settlement patterns around New Orleans. In addition, the nation's spending priorities have largely been under the control of conservatives for many years now - since 1980, actually. For years now, even during the Clinton Administration, liberals have not had that much influence over determining what pork gets into highway spending bills, or what the priority is on levee maintenance, but conservatives have had that influence, and continue to do so.

Will's complacent ignorance is amazing. Referring to statements by Illinois Senator Barack Obama:

He might, however, care to note three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal.

Has Will ever heard of health problems? Or extended periods of unemployment? It's very easy in America for married and unmarried people of all ages to fall into poverty!

Will is not content to blame liberals, but rather blame the victims as well, even if many of them are children, or the elderly:

Liberalism's post-Katrina fearlessness in discovering the obvious -- if an inner city is inundated, the victims will be disproportionately minorities -- stopped short of indelicately noting how many of the victims were women with children but not husbands. Because it was released during the post-Katrina debacle, scant attention was paid to the National Center for Health Statistics' report that in 2003, 34.6 percent of all American births were to unmarried women. The percentage among African American women was 68.2.

Given that most African Americans are middle class and almost half live outside central cities, and that 76 percent of all births to Louisiana African Americans were to unmarried women, it is a safe surmise that more than 80 percent of African American births in inner-city New Orleans -- as in some other inner cities -- were to women without husbands. That translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males, and that translates into chaos in neighborhoods and schools, come rain or come shine.

Forgive me, if you will, if I never care again about conservative priorities. If conservatives can't be bothered to extend a quick helping hand to African-Americans whose lives are in immediate jeopardy, people from whom they expect services when on vacation in New Orleans, like hotel-room cleaning (then whom they pay a pittance), particularly when those same workers have already been taxed for the service, then conservatives have exiled themselves from their own community - why should I care any longer what they think?

Conservatives underestimate what active, engaged government can do. Big Government can't do everything, or even many things, but it should do those things it can, like work closely with state and local governments to ameliorate natural and man-made catastrophes, as well as ameliorate poverty, which Big Society programs have done well, despite Will's calumnies, for many years now.

Making A Connection

Nora Ephron wonders if Cheney and Bush had a falling out. Which reminds me of something Digby wrote last year, about how Bush was bound to break free of his minders once he won a second term - 'Let Bush, Be Bush,' so to speak - and then NO ONE would EVER tell George W. Bush what to do, ever again - including that good, old (moping) SOB, Cheney!

Famous Bush Apologist

Christopher Hitchens, finally getting a clue, from Hurricane Katrina.

Under The Gun

The "Cabaret" cast moved into the Varsity Theater, yesterday evening (a day later than we are accustomed to for shows). The set looks fairly simple, and my costume changes are (mercifully) easy to handle in this show. Nevertheless, there's room for improvement of the show itself. It's always odd to finally move around on the actual stage, and to work under show-like conditions: people stepping on toes, forgetting lines, forgetting props, getting distracted by bright, shiny objects. Tonight will be better.

Has Anyone Seen Mousy?

Last seen ascending over Berkeley:

Mousie, it should be pointed out, is not a live mouse but a 3-inch-tall stuffed mouse. That does not make Mousie any less real to Caroline, who has treasured Mousie since the day nine years ago when her dad brought the toy home from a business trip.

....The tale began to turn gray last week. During a birthday party for her kid sister on Sept. 1, Caroline tied a pair of helium balloons to Mousie and began pushing her around the house, partly to give her rodent friend an aerial view of his lodgings and partly to find out how many balloons it takes to float a mouse.

But someone left her bedroom window open and, as Caroline watched in horror, a sudden gust carried the floating Mousie out the window, past the maple tree in the backyard, over the rooftop and gone.

Caroline and her mother began running down the street, trailing the floating mouse, until it drifted past the Claremont Hotel and over the East Bay hills.

"I don't think he wanted to see the world," Caroline said. "He wasn't that kind of mouse. But he's seeing it now, whether he wanted to or not."

...Caroline checked the weather report for that day and learned that the wind was blowing eastward, at 15 mph. She checked with the balloon store and learned that the balloons were premium grade and can last a week or more. She figures the mouse could still be flying, somewhere over Ohio by now.

The family is coping, mother and daughter agreed.

..."This whole thing is a tragedy," Caroline said. "I know it's not a real mouse. I know there are bigger tragedies, like the hurricane. But it's a tragedy to me."

"Cabaret" Tech Week Begins

DMTC is now moving into tech week rehearsal for "Cabaret." Things have been pretty busy, with rehearsal, and also with DMTC Board activities. Normally, we'd be in the Varsity Theater already, but we actually move in there tonight.

Last night, working in the rehearsal space, W.H. fell (extent of injury unknown), as also apparently did W.C. (I had just left, so I missed it). That smooth concrete floor is unforgiving: in fact, it's unsuitability for serious theater work was the first thing I noticed when I entered the building for the first time in 2000, and it's been nothing but a menace. It will be nice to leave that floor behind, when we finally leave for the Hoblit.

Indecisive Ophelia

Current NOGAPS model shows Ophelia moving into the Wilmington-Camp Le Jeune-Cape Lookout, NC area on Wednesday morning, and stalling there well into Saturday night, before heading NE towards New England. Even though Ophelia is a fairly small storm, having it linger directly overhead for days at a stretch will likely mean lots of flooding for this area...

Progressive Blogs Rule!

Isn't this interesting!:

Two years ago, Instapundit had an audience three times larger than Dailykos. Now, Dailykos is the equal of nearly the entire conservative blogosphere, and five other progressive blogs, Talking Points Memo, Eschaton, Crooks and Liars and AmericaBlog, all have audiences larger than Instapundit, which remains the largest conservative blog in terms of audience size.

In a media and political world dominated by conservatives, the blogosphere is emerging as a rising island--soon, perhaps, a continent--of total progressive dominance. As we progressives begin to turn the tide all over the country, it should be noted that the first place where the tide began to turn was on blogs. The revolution really wasn't televised after all.

Daily Show Humor

From Daily Kos:

Jon Stewart: The president has vowed to personally lead the investigation into the government's failed response to Katrina? Isn't that a job perhaps someone else should be doing?

Samantha Bee: No, not at all, Jon. To truly find out what went wrong, it's important for an investigator to have a little distance from the situation. And it's hard to get any more distant from it than the president was last week.

"Ophelia Is A Peculiar Cyclone"

It should be hurricane now, but wind strengths are still a bit sub-par. The NOGAPS forecast keeps budging Ophelia's loop farther and farther north: landfall is now estimated to be Tuesday, in the Myrtle Beach, SC vicinity, with the storm heading almost straight north - Raleigh, NC; Virginia, New England.

A puzzle is why the storm is forecast to move so far north - presumably it's that mid-latitude trough tugging it north, that the following ridge can't counterbalance. The trough will also shear away a big part of the storm while it's completing its loop, which should be an interesting process to watch. In any event, Tampa, FL appears to be in the clear from this storm.

"My Goodness, Susy!"

"We almost became Muslims! I want Jesus!"

Jack T. Chick smacks down pesky Muslim evangelists (courtesy of the friendly folks at B3ta).

"Cabaret" Update

We will apparently be performing "Cabaret" at the Varsity Theatre, in downtown Davis, as has been the usual custom for DMTC shows: even the rental rate for the facility will be the usual 12% of the ticket sales.

In other news, Wells Fargo is contributing $10,000 to underwrite Young Performer's Theater (YPT) shows. Yay!

And construction on Hoblit Performing Arts Center - continues!

Went Late To Luna's...

So I missed Gil Rodriguez's performance, but he seemed happy. Everyone will sure miss him!

Google Purge

Gabe, our librarian, sees this in the news:

The new project, dubbed Google Purge, will join such popular services as Google Images, Google News, and Google Maps. As a part of Purge's first phase, executives will destroy all copyrighted materials that cannot be searched by Google.

Gabe continues: "Thank goodness! I've always felt that I would never get all that stuff cataloged. Now Google will make it simple and easy for me. My favorite item":

As a part of Phase One operations, Google executives will permanently erase the hard drive of any computer that is not already indexed by the Google Desktop Search.

"At long last! Finally, life is simpler, and far easier to contain. Messy humans!"

Superdome Video

One of the misfortunes of my having cancelled all cable television earlier this summer is that I never saw any video regarding Hurricane Katrina. Crooks and Liars has posted gripping video from Fox News of Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera just about losing it. Excellent television - for the history books.

Plus, paramedics describe their experiences.

Loop-Da-Loop

Tropical Storm Ophelia forecast for today shows a steady strengthening to hurricane status in a day or so. The storm will move NE, out over the ocean, but then stall, loop around, and likely move in on the coast, but exactly where is uncertain.

Today, the NOGAPS model shows the loop as being fairly tight, which should bring Ophelia marching directly up the Savannah River Valley, starting Wednesday morning. Still, exact movement is still shrouded in mystery, and Ophelia could still move across the Florida peninsula instead, and regenerate in the Gulf of Mexico.

New Theater Delay

Well, it looks like DMTC is going to eat a little crow here. If I understand correctly (my information is second-hand), some electrical switching equipment will be slow to arrive, and sheet rocking can't fully proceed until the equipment is installed. In addition, not all the sheet rock is yet available - our efforts to secure sheet rock donations came up empty, and so the massive purchase order for all the sheet rock didn't go out until fairly late. According to Steve Harrison, the contractor, sheet rocking will likely not even start until the day before the opening of "Cabaret" (scheduled for Sept. 19th): even miracle-worker Steve can't sheet rock such a large space in just a day!

So, we are faced with three options - perform "Cabaret":

1. at the Varsity Theater;
2. in the warehouse space immediately adjacent to the New Theater (within the same building);
3. at the DMTC rehearsal space (the Clubhouse); or,
4. at another theater (maybe not even in Davis).

The first option is probably the best, but we first need to come to an understanding with the city regarding Varsity Theater rent. If an agreement can't be reached, Option 2 is probably next-best. So, we'll see what happens! In any event, New Theater construction IS proceeding, and rather quickly too, but just not quickly enough to meet the "Cabaret" schedule!

Patience! Our journey's end is in sight, but still just slightly out-of-reach!

FEMA Is Broken....

....because that is exactly how the Bush Administration wanted it. It's conservative ideology in action, folks!:

During the 1990s, FEMA was routinely praised as one of the best-functioning federal agencies. Its response to the Midwestern floods of 1993, the Northridge earthquake of 1994, and 1995's Oklahoma City terrorist attack are considered models of emergency response. By contrast, its performance during Katrina is almost universally acknowledged to have been abysmally poor. At first, FEMA's post-Katrina failure appears baffling: What happened to the once-great FEMA?

...Indeed, the White House's new response to the political disaster prompted by Katrina -- one in which officials are attempting to blame authorities in Louisiana, rather than in Washington, for the slow aid -- underscores the Bush philosophy. According to Haddow, instead of working with local officials to try to minimize the impacts of an impending storm, the White House has decided its best strategy is to keep its distance from people on the ground. That way if anything goes wrong, the White House can "attack, attack, attack."

...Haddow says that these requests should have been enough -- more than enough -- to prompt a full-scale federal response. Under the Clinton administration's FEMA, with Witt as the head, a storm of Katrina's magnitude would have prompted federal and state officials to actually meet in order to coordinate their response. "You were all working together to anticipate needs," Haddow says. "You're all sitting in the same room when the things happened -- the Midwest flood, the Northridge quake, the Oklahoma City bombing and all the disasters we responded to. We were in the same room together and nobody had to point fingers."

Close coordination with state officials was key to the Clinton administration's capacity to act quickly in the heat of a disaster, Haddow says. "We had a really solid partnership, so we received solid, timely information from the ground. Then we managed that information and turned it into a mission assignment." In other words, when people on the ground needed something, they knew who in the federal government to ask, and when the federal government had extra resources at the ready -- cops from Chicago, say, or water from Wal-Mart -- it would know where to send them. Contrast that situation to what happened after Katrina, when both Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, and Michael Brown, the FEMA director, admitted to several reporters that they had no idea that people were starving at the New Orleans Convention Center, even though the grim scene there had been played and replayed on television all day.

The Bush administration's distance from local disaster-relief officials is by design. From the moment Bush stepped into office, he's been determined to move away from the coordinated state/local/federal disaster-relief approach used by Clinton. Instead, as Joe Allbaugh, Bush's first FEMA dirctor, told a congressional panel in 2001, Bush wanted to pull the federal government out of the disaster-relief business and aimed to "restore the predominant role of state and local response to most disasters." The federal government became even less involved in natural disaster relief after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when FEMA's mission was shifted toward responding to terrorist attacks. In 2002, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security, and FEMA -- which Clinton had elevated to a Cabinet-level agency -- was made one department in the massive bureaucracy. As a result, although George W. Bush has a nickname for FEMA director Brown ("Brownie"), Brown enjoys far less clout under Bush than Witt enjoyed under Clinton, which Haddow says is an "incalculable loss of influence" for FEMA.

...And balance, Haddow agrees, is what's needed. "You gotta do both," he says. "You've got to fight terrorism." But you've got to respond to hurricanes and earthquakes, too. And when Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on the Saturday before Katrina struck the Gulf, he made a promise to residents that he would respond, Haddow says. "People died because they couldn't get it right," he says. "People died because they didn't deliver on their promise."

Winter Gasoline

California might temporarily relax the Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) limitation on gasoline, in order to help assure supplies, in view of the damage done by Katrina. They may have little choice, under the circumstances:

SAN FRANCISCO -- California air quality regulators want to temporarily relax gasoline pollution standards to help avert possible shortages and more price hikes stemming from the loss of petroleum imports from hurricane-battered Gulf states.

At a hearing today in Sacramento, the California Air Resources Board is scheduled to consider an emergency action reducing the standards normally in place until Oct. 31 in most parts of the state.

Essentially, the action would permit the early sale of so-called winter gasoline and waive the requirement to sell summer gasoline during the remainder of the high-ozone season.

Following Hurricane Katrina — which damaged oil rigs, refineries and other production facilities — the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would allow the nationwide distribution of gasoline with a lower evaporative standard than some states, including California, require.

Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Washington were among states that subsequently moved to relax their standards.

On Tuesday, California air board staff members recommended similar action, saying the state is faced with a potential loss of 5% to 10% of its gasoline supplies due to its reduced ability to import what's known as finished gas and blend stocks.

"The decrease in supply would be expected to have a significant adverse effect on the availability and price of gasoline in California and surrounding states," a staff report said.

The proposal calls for increasing the allowable Reid Vapor Pressure — a measure of evaporation — from about 7 pounds per square inch to 9 pounds per square inch, meaning more gasoline vapor would escape into the atmosphere.

The result, said air board spokesman Jerry Martin, would be an increase of 50 tons daily of hydrocarbon emissions statewide — a boost of about 6% or 7%.

The board's staff also calculated that the ozone level would increase by about 1%.

"Potentially, on a very hot day in the Central Valley or Southern California, with very stagnant air, it might lead to a violation of federal ozone standards," Martin said.

Good Housekeeping

I suppose a broom was too much trouble:

BERLIN - A German woman laid waste to her family home by setting fire to it as she tried to kill spiders in a garage with a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter.

Disco Toads

Trying to rid Australia of the obnoxious, introduced (I thought they came from Argentina, not Hawaii???) cane toads:

After experimenting with red and then blue lights, Australia's Frogwatch "Toad Buster" project found that the "black" light was the most effective way to attract them.

"We've found that the old toads are definitely a disco animal," Frogwatch coordinator Graham Sawyer told reporters.

He said 200 of the toads were caught in a three-week project using the disco lights at a remote station about 120 km (75 miles) south of the Northern Territory capital, Darwin.

About 1,500 toads had been trapped since January, Sawyer said.

He said it appeared that part of the attraction for the toads seemed to be the swarms of insects that the lights brought.

Right-Wing Rants

There once was a time when it was fun to hear right-wingers rant. Then, the rants became fascistic in nature, with everyone kissing Bush's ass and beating up on the weak, and the rants lost their humor. Now, some of the fun is beginning to return....

Erratic

It looks like Tropical Storm Ophelia will have an erratic future. Forecasts show it moving slowly up the FL, GA, and SC coasts, before heading out eastward over open ocean on Sunday. Then on Monday, it will change its mind, reverse direction, and make landfall somewhere in the Jacksonville, FL area. It is still possible it might cross the Florida peninsula, reorganize over the Gulf of Mexico, and rake the northern Gulf Coast, including New Orleans. This storm, currently small, will bear watching.....

Head Upriver

Garrison Keillor, on the federal government's approach to the New Orleans disaster:

You don't have to be drunk to be stupid. Here was a patronage appointee, the pal of a pal, in charge of the federal response to Katrina and he sat and waited to see what would happen and when it happened, he froze. As Mr. Bush said, he had no idea that the levees wouldn't hold. Truly. It's not how we used to do things, back when there was a sense of shame attached to government incompetence that costs lives, but it's different in America these days. Don't ever get in trouble, is my advice. Head upriver and look for high ground.

All Hands

From Steve's E-Mail:

DMTC-Help Open the Hoblit Performing Arts Center (607 Pena Drive)
Yes, that is correct, DMTC will be opening CABARET at their new theater named the Hoblit Performing Arts Center. On Friday night, September 9, 2005 at 7:00 p.m. at the Clubhouse (215 Madson Place #E) the Davis Musical Theatre Company will be working on several scrap book and photo collage projects which will be displayed in the lobby for opening night of CABARET at the Hoblit Performing Arts Center. Any and all who have an artistic eye or just a free Friday night are welcome to come and
help. There will also be some discussion concerning the other opening night festivities for CABARET. Also, if you have pictures of your own that you would like to contribute, please bring them.

Melody Davi to Perform With "42nd Street" - Closest Approach, Stockton



Got an E-Mail today from Tony Davi:

I didn't have your email when I sent out the attached email regarding "42nd Street" last week. I know Melody always appreciated your encouragement and support. I don't have alot of email addresses for DMTC folks (except Steve and Jan) so if you think of anyone that might be interested, please forward or shoot me their email and I will get in touch. Check out Mel's website at http://www.melodydavi.com/

This is great, but seats are bound to run out!:

Hi all,

This may be redundant information for some of you and I apologize. Most of you know that Melody was cast as Peggy Sawyer in the 2005/2006 national tour of "42nd Street". Many have asked us to let them know when the tour comes to California. They open in NY in a month and the good news is they will be in California for about 2 months this time. The bad news is the closest they come to us is Stockton for one night, November 22nd.

Tickets don't officially go on sale to the general public until October 3rd as they are currently only selling to Season Ticket Subscribers. Stockton has a large Season ticket base and with the show being there only one night, the availability will be limited.

The good news is I have been in contact with the Box Office Manager and he is willing to put aside the best available for me now prior to the public sale. He said the Orchestra level is filling fast with season ticket sales so we need to act as quick as possible. The price range is $30, $40 and $50 plus $3 in fees per ticket. We will get a 10% group discount off the price of each ticket.

I realize this is short notice but I wanted to give everyone an opportunity to get in on the group rate and better seats. I need to have an idea on the number of tickets and the price range by the end of the week or sooner to secure the best seats possible.

If your interested in other locations, you can see the full schedule at http://www.melodydavi.com/.

I'll need to check my schedule and see what works! If Stockton is hard to work out, maybe another city will do!

Moron

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The flooded city of New Orleans will see an unparalleled building boom, US Labor Secretary Elaine Chao confidently predicted after ordering the creation of 25,000 temporary jobs for evacuees.

Well, seeing that just about every building in town will have to be destroyed because their integrity has been compromised by the floodwaters, that prediction is even safer than forecasting sunrise in the east tomorrow morning.

G

K. at Subway says I'm the eighth person to register on his consciousness today. He is finally having success relating the Mayan Calendar to his Dimensional Travelings in this Month of G - Collection, in the Month of Death. In addition, he has memorized the Chaldean numerical method, and is now working on Hebrew numbers.

I have only the fuzziest idea what he's talking about. I just hope it bears more fruit than last year's efforts to discern hidden code by scrambling the writings of Nostradamus.

She's Finally Getting Comfortable With People

On a different note, even though Cloudy has been my pet rabbit since 2001, I've never seen her ever drink water - until yesterday afternoon! So cute!

FEMA's Failures

Covered, in part, by this blog.

Learning Lessons

Nice timeline over at Obsidian Wings on these events leading up to the Flooding of New Orleans. As everyone moves into CYA mode, this timeline helps set us all straight.

I would like to vent about a particular problem at the very top of the chain of events, namely the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts of Katrina's path. It seems to me that NHC has settled into its own CYA position as a standard operating procedure: instead of issuing the best forecast possible on a hurricane's path, NHC waits to first get consensus from its suite of computer models, some of which are better than others at forecasting hurricane movements.

Delay at issuing the forecast means delay in political circles in issuing evacuation orders. It is a grave responsibility to issue a mandatory evacuation of a major city, and it shouldn't be the least bit surprising that Mayor Nagin hesitated at doing so. I don't think that NHC's delay at sounding the alarm should be excused, however.

About a year ago, I started doing hurricane path forecasts for friends who retired to Tampa, FL. I'm an air pollution meteorologist by trade, but it was fun to be doing weather forecasting again, to keep my skills sharp. I preferred to rely on the NOGAPS model for hurricane path forecasts: it's a baroclinic model that did very well with Ivan's path, and rarely blunders like some of the others.

I quickly noticed, particularly with last year's Hurricane Ivan, that NHC's preference for computer-model consensus meant delay when the models' opinions diverged. Each model's opinion was weighed equally, but some models were big-picture models, unsuited for fine-scale detail, while others were barotropic models, which simplify information regarding temperature gradients - information that is of crucial importance in the timing of the movement of the mid-latitude systems that often steer hurricanes. Baroclinic models like NOGAPS don't make these simplifications. Getting consensus from all models usually means delay, much like getting consensus from Congress on any problem-of-the day usually means delay.

The dirty little secret is that I don't think NHC minds delay that much: they would prefer to keep everyone in a state of mild apprehension about an approaching storm rather than risk an overly-specific forecast, and therefore lull others nearby that might be affected into unwarranted complacency. Chicken Little is NHC's CYA standard-mode-of-operation. And it's easy to see why this would be the case - it's horrible to be completely taken by surprise by a hurricane, and to be stuck with the guilt of having failed to make the alarm.

With Katrina, the NOGAPS model tipped off, or SHOULD have tipped off, meteorologists that Katrina was heading towards Biloxi as early as the morning of Friday, August 26th. Model consensus wasn't reached until Friday evening, however (I blogged about the process with posts here). It can make, and here it apparently did make, a huge difference to lose a weekday's daylight hours in preparation for the storm.

NHC needs to weed its basket of models used in making hurricane path forecasts. At a minimum, the barotropic models need to go.

As I say, I very much sympathize with Mayor Nagin if he delayed in ordering a mandatory evacuation. People can die in accidents in a mandatory evacuation. But I do think he should have gotten better weather forecasts: it might have provided an extra edge and saved some lives here.

Tropical Storm Ophelia

And just when I thought the danger had finally passed, that area of storminess I've been warning about for days finally went ahead, took the next step and has been dubbed Tropical Storm Ophelia!

Nevertheless, Ophelia doesn't look like THAT big of a threat....it will linger, seemingly for eternity, off the NE coast of FL, and the coast of SC. The GFS model shows it intruding westward onto the east coast of FL, but then moving NE again, over open water, and towards the SC coast. Since it will be around for a long time, it might wander over and around many such places. It might occasionally set off thunderstorms in the Tampa area.

I suspect that having Tropical Storm Nate generate took away some of Ophelia's energy, which is all to the good.

August and September Links

A number of interesting stories came and went in August and early September. Here is a summary of recent stories, with links, that caught my eye.

Missing: The War Heroes: I think it's very strange that the military is downplaying wartime heroism - apparently they prefer that everyone's sacrifice be recognized, rather than focusing on any one hero. People don't think that way though - people want and need heroes. The military is doing everyone a disservice. I mean, after all, yesterday I saw a headline in the Business Section of the Sacramento Bee saying that what Wall Street needs now is more heroes. If it's good enough for Wall Street.......

People Rush to Unload Debts: The recent changes making bankruptcy more stringent are pushing people to decide to hang it all up.

Talk Radio, Talked Out: All the dissonance regarding our failure in Iraq is driving people away from talk radio - finally! - but even the liberal Air America has suffered.

Short Squeeze on Treasuries: Hedge funds can swamp the government's securities markets, creating big problems and uncontrollable price increases.

Farmers Unhappy About Forklift Air Pollution Regulations: Carl Moyer Program fund bait-and-switch isn't going down so well.

Asbestos Exposure Scientific Panel Won't Meet: Is this a case of the desire for perfection trumping doing the merely good?

The Peak?: Peter Maass' excellent article exploring whether we've already reached the maximum rate of petroleum extraction.

Fighting Islamists is Nothing Like Fighting Communists: An appropriate and useful riposte by David Rieff to the Peter Beinart idiots of the world.

Is The Bush Administration Anti-Science?: Daniel Smith suggests no, and in important respects, he may be right (It was, in part, my pessimism regarding the likely impact of the global warming doomsayers - basically, none - that led me away from climatology as a professional goal).

Slatter's Court a Historical Landmark?: Well bust my buttons! But Davis does need some color, after all!

The Amazing Manakin: A bird that plays notes - using its wings!

Satirical Song Upsets Serbs: Norwegian soldiers take a satirical remake of the Beach Boy's 'Kokomo', make a video about Kosovo, and piss off lots of folks.

Gossip Is The Key To Social Order: But we knew that already, didn't we?

The MySpace Phenomenon: I still like old-fashioned blogging, but maybe I should check it out - others are!

California Farmers Whining: About tougher border restrictions keeping their labor pool away (it figures!)

R.H. Phillips Makes The Sexual Abuse Problem Go Away: Lots of love to Natalie Wormeli for her persistence here, and hard work!

The Hydrogen Highway To Nowhere: For myself, with all the safety issues regarding hydrogen - its flammability, the absence of any color in its flame, so you could walk right into the flame before you realize you are on fire - I can't imagine why anyone would want to use it as a transportation fuel.

And finally:

Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis Over Katrina: This ugly, wretched article by Bush asskissers Elisabeth Bumiller and Adam Nagourney tries to paper over Bush's inexcusable lack of action regarding the New Orleans disaster. Shame on The New York Times for this pompous crap!

Ladder

Unpacked the new 'Little Giant' ladder system and tried it out. Didn't succeed in fixing the outdoor light fixture under the eaves of my bedroom yet, but I did get a bit of painting done.

Gil and Sherry Moving to Florida

Sad to say for Artaud performance poetry fans, but next-door-neighbors Gil Rodriguez and his wife Sherry, leading spirits of Unheimlich, are leaving town, for New Port Richey, north of Tampa, Florida. On Thursday evening, Luna's Cafe will host a fond farewell to both Gil and Sherry: show up if you can! If you can't, please patronize their yard sale on the 2100 block of Second Avenue!

Good News

The news looks good on the tropical storm front. Right now, it looks like Mother Nature will resolve all the potential dangers in the best possible way for Florida and South Carolina. Tropical Storm Nate has been generated at the NE end of the area where storm development was likely, far offshore, and that storm will almost certainly head NE. Smaller areas in the Bahamas and the NE Gulf of Mexico will develop convection and thunderstorms, and probably not escalate towards tropical storm activity.

Nascent

From Central Florida Hurricane Center blog:

Good morning all. Looks like some broad cyclonic turning starting to develop off the SE coast of FL. All of the global models have indicated over the last several days a closed low developing from the old surface trough that migrated southward and now stalled over south FL. 00Z CMC takes the low across the south half of the peninsula, into the GOM to NO. 00Z NOGAPS & UKMET move it slowly up the easy coast of FL and deepen it. 06Z GFS runs it up the middle of the state and then NE. From NWS Tampa Bay 2 AM Disc:

MOST MODELS NOW AGREE ON SOME SORT OF LOW PRESSURE DEVELOPMENT IN OR NEAR THE BAHAMAS...WITH THE NAM BEING THE WEAKEST AND FARTHEST SOUTH WHILE THE GFS BRINGS A MORE DEVELOPED LOW ONTO THE EAST-CENTRAL FLORIDA COAST TUESDAY NIGHT AND MOVES IT PAINFULLY SLOW ACROSS THE PENINSULA AND INTO THE NORTHEAST GULF ON FRIDAY. THE NAM SOLUTION WOULD FAVOR HIGHER POPS SOUTH AND LOWER POPS NORTH ON WEDNESDAY WHILE THE GFS SUGGESTS THE REVERSE. PRE-ECLIPSE SATELLITE IMAGERY DID SHOW SOME INCREASE IN CONVECTION EAST OF THE BAHAMAS...AS MENTIONED IN TPC'S LATE EVENING TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK. BOTH MODELS TAKE THE LOW CURRENTLY EAST OF THE BAHAMAS OFF TO THE NORTHEAST...SO THE LOW CENTER IN QUESTION FOR MID-WEEK IS ACTUALLY A NEW ONE FORECAST TO DEVELOP AS THE INITIAL LOW LIFTS OUT. BOTH MODELS ALSO HAVE THIS LOW BECOMING TRAPPED UNDER A FAIRLY STRONG RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE...WHICH WOULD EXPLAIN THE SLOW MOVEMENT IF AND WHEN THIS LOW DOES DEVELOP.

New Theater Update

As far as I know, we are still on schedule for a Sept. 16th opening. The electrical panels are said to all be in, and work is proceeding on the ventilation system. We are supposed to be working on the stage (meaning building the stage, not rehearsing on it) this coming weekend. I don't know about the sheet rock situation, though, but presumably there is progress there as well.....

Cache Creek

Devastating evening up there: didn't sleep yet, lost $2,000, almost got it back, then lost it again. Ugh! Thank goodness I'm still slightly ahead after the huge win there last week!

At 3:30 a.m., I developed a sudden hunger for ice cream, so there I was, idling interminably (one thing you learn to do in a casino is you learn to master your impatience, and wait, wait, wait). I waited for the overwhelmed and overworked staff to handle the fussy mob in front of me. Despite the hour, the casino was still packed, mostly with Cambodians and Filipinos and Thais - you'd hardly know we were in rural California! Everyone had specialized orders for cappucino and other assorted specialties - I couldn't even get chocolate ice cream, and had to settle for coffee ice cream.

Skipping a night's sleep is always an adventure, nearly falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home, problems with memorization (which affected musical theater rehearsal and Sunday ballet class) , and sudden naps. And when sleep the following evening finally came, REM sleep attacked with a vengeance! I dreamt I was sitting at work, and was hit with a snowball from nowhere. Investigating, I discovered a vast white void in the workplace, a huge cavern of a tank, with delicate lacy snow lining the bottom. I finally found the ice cream!

Jennifer Makes The Paper!

Jennifer Lin, associate director of development and marketing for the Sacramento Opera, and who is Pam's Sunday ballet class:

Q: What do you think keeps some people from attending an opera?

A: It seems very foreign. We have people call in and say, "Do I have to wear a tuxedo to the event?" Or "I don't speak Italian, am I going to be able to understand the opera?" You can say, "Oh, there's supertitles in English. You can follow along with the story." "Dress is not incredibly formal. You can come in business casual." There's a lot of outreach we need to be doing for bridging the gap for people who are completely new to the art form.

"Grease" - Opening Night - Runaway Stage

Runaway Stage Productions presents the musical "Grease," featuring, clockwise from top left, Lauren Miller as Marty, Lauryn Caruso as Rizzo, Kari Pruitt as Jan, Netty Carey as Frenchy, Stephanie Keeney as Sandy and Tristan Rumery as Danny. It opens at 8 p.m. Friday and continues through Sept. 25 at the 24th Street Theatre, 2791 24th St. (Photo and caption from The Sacramento Bee)

Just returned from seeing "Grease" on opening night. Excellent show, full of exuberant youthful energy (which depends heavily, of course, on choreographer Tiffany Hurley's work): I highly recommend seeing the show!

In some shows, it can hurt to push the pace too hard, but "Grease" is a good show to push hard: Bob Baxter and Co. are to be commended for their blistering attack. Pushing the pace hard can lead to sloppiness, but there was no sense of that (maybe just a bit over-exuberant at the top of the second act, though).

Runaway Stage mikes their shows, which can lead to certain pitfalls, such as degraded sound quality and feedback, and which have marred other Runaway shows. Little of that happened opening night (just a touch, once again at the top of the second act).

Excellent performances from Tristan Rumery (Danny) and Stephanie Keeney (Sandy). Excellent singing from everyone: Lauren Miller as Marty, Lauryn Caruso as Rizzo, Netty Carey as Frenchy, Tevye Ditter as Johnny Casino/Teen Angel, plus Chris Scarberry as Roger and Kari Pruitt as Jan. More critical friends of mine who saw the performance, people who have voice training, commented that Stephanie's singing was weak, but I didn't notice this: I thought there was a bit of a balance problem during 'Summer Nights', however, when both Stephanie's and Tristan's voices were being overpowered by the band and everyone else's voices.

Liberties were taken in the show regarding expletives - the language is rougher than what I remember from the script (DMTC did the show in 2003), which is fine with me, because it would have been true to the time, but may unsettle some.

Good set design for the 24th St. stage. The band was placed on a platform in the back (I guess Erik Daniells was upstairs in the corner: I couldn't see him from where I was, though). There were doors beneath the platform, behind which the soda shop seats/pajama party bed were stored. In addition, there were interesting James Dean (plus Sandra Dee?) paintings, and period bric-a-brac to catch the eye.

One thing that bothered me was the set painting - it took me a while to realize that the beige color dominating the set was the exact shade of the paint I used on my laundry room and basement walls. My unease regarding what I'm sure most people considered a neutral color, and I considered a utilitarian color, was strictly personal, though. I thought the flats on the sides of the stage intruded too far into the proscenium arch - the 24th Street theater stage is quite small and can't tolerate much (if any) intrusions from the side.

Lillian Baxter and Denise Miles did a good job with costumes - bright, flashy (e.g., nice slippers and hairdos on the beauty school dancers).

Bradley Bong's hair was tinted red, just for the sake of the one 'Howdy Doody' joke in Act II - cute: a sacrifice from him, but cute nevertheless!

Excellent performance from Hailee Ketchum-Wiggins, who played Patty Simcox (she's only 14!) She's a fast learner on the baton (Stephanie looks like she's already a pro on the baton, though). I remember taking ballet with a girl in Tucson many years ago (I think her name is Tracey Oates), who got a full scholarship to U of A strictly - and only - because she was Arizona's unbeatable champion baton twirler 5 years in a row - don't lose those irreplaceable motor skills! Brett Bachman played Eugene well: he worked well with Jordan Gomez as Cha Cha DiGregorio in the high school hop scene, providing a real nice 'ahhh!' moment when they exited together.

I worried about Alex Powell, who played Sonny La Tierri (we were in 'Damn Yankees' together a year ago), getting pushed around so much, especially down the stairs, but he's quick and lithe and somehow made it OK. Michael McElroy played Kenickie well: in general, Runaway had an excellent group of Burger Palace Boys.

I somehow missed the "mooning" by Chris Scarberry, who played Roger, despite it occurring downstage center where absolutely no one could possibly miss it. It occurred just on the other side of the head of the tall lady sitting in front of me, so I'm still scratching my head about it. Apparently it was au natural.

Preparedness

Louisiana's official hurricane plan says absolutely zero about how to handle an evacuation once New Orleans is flooded.

Compassionate Conservatism



In the litany of disaster, this stood out.

Last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers essentially stopped major work on the levee system that has now been breached after the Bush administration cut funding for the project. It was the first such stoppage in 37 years.

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans

Angry interview (with transcript).

NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.

92L

I'm fretting about the possibility of a near-Florida storm, but the GFS model is showing the real threat might be a powerful storm barreling out of the tropical Atlantic (currently named 92L). Here is a summary regarding both possibilities from the Central Florida Hurricane Center 2005 blog:

Next up. 92L. You may have heard me or many others say that when the models come into agreement on a storm developing, it usually does. The last time the models were in agreement like this, we had invest 97L developing off of the coast of Africa -- obviously, that one never panned out, as it came off too far to the north and in too much of a shearing environment to become organized enough to be classified. However, this one is much further south, in a more favorable upper-level flow & mid-level airmass regime (particularly in the long-term), and already has some organization to it. The mid-level organization of the storm is more impressive than is the low-level organization at this point, but it appears as though a low-level circulation is getting organized somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10N and 34-36W. The pattern suggests this one will have a better chance of getting further west than the two ahead of it -- and moreso than most storms already this season -- and has a lot of model support. The GFS has been developing this one and taking it near or north of the Greater Antilles as a less than 980mb system (pretty good for that model), while the GFDL brings a near-category 5 hurricane to the northern islands in 5 days. The other major global models generally agree on bringing a substantial feature (at least a TS) to the northern islands in the 5-6 day time span. Given the way the pattern is unfolding, the low latitude of the disturbance, and its current organization, this one has a chance. Expect a tropical depression -- #15 -- out of this one at any point with development into a named system shortly thereafter. It likely won't go as far south as did Ivan last year and Emily this year, but likely will still be one to deal with for the next week to ten days.

There is some support in some of the global & mesoscale models for lowering pressures in the Gulf of Mexico/Bahamas region over the next few days into early next week. A current overview of the region shows a strong ridge building in along the eastern seaboard into the Gulf, a sharp but narrow trough just southeast of there extending from the upper-low east of Bermuda (near Lee) west-southwest into the NW Caribbean, and relatively weak winds with signs of an upper-level ridge forming between that upper-low and the one affecting TD 14 at this point. As the southern end of the trough associated with a frontal boundary and Katrina's remnants slides into the Gulf, it will have a favorable upper-level pattern and marginal to slightly-favorable -- due to Katrina's wake -- SSTs for development. A lot of dry air is projected to be in the region and it is questionable as to whether the development will be tropical or not, but nevertheless it is something to watch. Anything that forms east of Florida will likely ride the coast; anything west of there would likely head west towards the western Gulf -- all assuming the entity that forms would be tropical -- but it's really too early to even speculate on that.

Hastert Steps In It

Boy, you have to admire Dennis Hastert (in a way), even if you wonder about the timing. He brings up the always-timely question of whether flood-prone cities should be rebuilt after a deluge:

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city."It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in editions published today. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask."

Nevertheless, Hastert brought up his point in a totally-heartless (somehow typically Republican) way. What about half a million people, and their property? They have to go somewhere - right now! Gotta cover all the bases in advance, Denny!

But let's be honest, this isn't about cost-conscious engineering, it's all about the Negroes, isn't it? (The Sacramento Bee had a statistical graphic this morning showing the New Orleans population is 67% African-American). The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal just chimed in:

The New Orleans crime rate during normal times is 10 times the national average, Gelinas writes, and "the city's economy is utterly dependent on tourism. . . . New Orleans has experienced a steady brain drain and fiscal drain for decades, as affluent corporations and individuals have fled, leaving behind a large population of people dependent on the government. Socially, New Orleans is one of America's last helpless cities--just at the moment when it must do all it can to help itself survive."

There's another, even simpler reason for pessimism. Many residential areas in New Orleans are below sea level, so that it was only a matter of time before they ended up in the soup. Having experienced this horror firsthand, will residents of New Orleans (and its suburbs, which are also devastated) be eager to return and face future hurricane seasons? Would you be?

Doesn't the thuggish Republican complacency just gall?

The abyss yawns.......

Make Up Your Mind!

The Atlantic tropical storm forecast is interesting, showing tropical storm development as the low moves from the Bahamas to the South Carolina coast early next week, where it gets wedged between two highs tugging in different directions.

Then, the storm needs to decide which way to go. It might move NE along the Atlantic coast, or (my thought), it will abruptly change direction and head SW, across Jacksonville, FL (or the GA coast), heading towards the Gulf of Mexico.

In any event, it bears watching. This tropical depression-to-be is not yet named by National Hurricane Center.

Feet Don't Fail Me Now!

Digby says it all:

Oh, this is rich. DC MediaGirl (via the Daoureport) says that Michele Malkin is having a fit because Hollywood and LiveAid hasn't stepped into the breach in New Orleans. Apparently, Hollywood should hold fundraisers while disasters are still unfolding. They shouldn't even have a day or two to plan them --- entertainers should immediately rush to the closest TV studio and just start singing and dancing as fast as they can. I presume that Malkin feels this should be done in lieu of actual disaster relief by Big Govmint, which is the root of all evil after all.

Jesus' Finger

Divine intervention?

In the garden behind St. Louis Cathedral on Royal Street lies an incredible tangle of zig-zagging broken tree trunks and branches, mixed with smashed wrought iron fences.

But right in the middle, a statue of Jesus is still standing, unscathed by the storm, save for the left thumb and index finger, which are missing.

The missing digits immediately set off speculation of divine intervention.

New Orleans has a long history praying to saints for guidance and protection in times of great peril. In fact it was Our Lady of Prompt Succor who was said to be responsible for saving the Ursulines Convent in the French Quarter from a raging fire that consumed the rest of the city centuries ago.

Since then, New Orlenians have prayed to the saint for protection from natural disasters. On Saturday, Archbishop Alfred Hughes read a prayer over the radio asking for Our Lady's intervention to spare the city a direct hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Many in the Quarter are now saying it was the hand of Jesus, the missing digits to be precise, that flicked the hurricane east just a little to keep the city from suffering a direct blow.

Big Centipede

This story reminds me of one sleepy morning, back in high school. I washed my face, and lazily watched the water drain from the bathroom sink. The last thing to go down the drain was a 6-inch-long centipede. WTF?

"Thinking it was a mouse, I went to investigate the sound. The sound was coming from under some papers which I lifted, expecting to see the mouse scamper away," the 32-year-old psychotherapist said Wednesday. "Instead, when I lifted the papers, I saw this prehistoric looking animal skitter away behind a stack of books."

He trapped the 9-inch-long creature between a stack of books and put it in a plastic container.

The next day he took it to Britain's Natural History Museum, which identified the insect as a Scolopendra gigantea -- the world's biggest species of centipede.

Puff Of Dry Air

Interesting article....a 'puff of dry air' weakened Katrina just before landfall.

Fly-Over Folks

Back to work!

New Orleans Flooding

Billmon gets it right: check it out. No one is yet focused on this new tropical depression piling on - what can one say?

Crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good
Now, crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

Memphis Minnie McCoy
When the Levee Breaks
1929

New Tropical Depression

This new tropical depression next week looks increasingly real, so it's something to watch out for.

Forecast: It will arrive in the Cocoa Beach area on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning next week, without much warning, but nevertheless not be terribly powerful. It will lose some punch as it crosses central Florida, but nevertheless, be prepared for a stormy Wednesday/Thursday - even Friday in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. Then it will cross into the Gulf of Mexico, start getting seriously organized, and begin raking the northern Gulf coast, plunging eventually into the New Orleans area, like Tropical Storm Cindy did (and where its presence will be unwelcome).

Steve and Jan Go On Vacation....

And all I get is this lousy JPEG!

Actually, Morro Rock is an old friend: I've done a lot of air quality modeling for the entire area in the last few years! But I don't think I've been down there since 1974.....

Two-Faced Google

Hypocrisy, and information:

Last month, Elinor Mills, a writer for CNET News, a technology news Web site, set out to explore the power of search engines to penetrate the personal realm: she gave herself 30 minutes to see how much she could unearth about [Google CEO Eric] Schmidt by using his company's own service. ...

When Ms. Mills's article appeared, however, the company reacted in a way better suited to a 16th-century monarchy than a 21st-century democracy with an independent press.

But even better:

Book publishers are feeling insecure in their own houses, too, as whirring search-engine bots hover above them. ... The contents of books are protected by copyright law, and are most emphatically not freely available.

... But Google subsequently found a speedier way to proceed: simply borrowing the bound print collections of the Harvard, Stanford and University of Michigan research libraries for its scanning. When the project is completed, Google will retain perfect digital copies, as well as provide copies to the libraries. No muss, no fuss, no negotiations with copyright holders.

Authors and publishers were astounded. Peter Givler, the executive director of the Association of American University Presses, said Google's action was "tantamount to saying that Google can make copies of every copyrighted work ever published, period." The courts, he said, have never recognized a claim such as Google's that "fair use," which permits limited copying for research purposes, would permit the copying of an entire book.

The cries of protest from publishers have not abated with the passage of time. This month, Google announced that it would go ahead and copy all books unless the publisher elects by November to opt out, title by title. Allan Adler, the vice president for legal and government affairs of the Association of American Publishers, asked Google to imagine what its own reaction would be were others to help themselves to Google's intellectual property covered by patents, with the burden placed on Google to find out about the use and opt out. He described Google's recent actions as "a very aggressive, pushy style that says, 'We don't care that your business is different than ours.' "

Originalism

Can't agree more - over at Legal Fiction:

To me, Bush v. Gore ranks below only Dred Scott in terms of sheer arrogance and disregard of the limits of judicial power. It was the second-worst decision in American history and I’ll keep banging that drum until the day they roll my carpel-tunneled bones into a pine box.

"This Is Our Tsunami"

Well, if it's it any consolation, the death toll from Hurricane Katrina will probably be lower than from 1969's Hurricane Camille, if only because Katrina struck in the day, as opposed to nighttime Camille. But maybe I speak too soon - they can't even get into some of these places yet. Starting the survey in New Orleans:

Little islands of red ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown. The Hyatt Hotel and other high-rise around the Superdome had rows and rows of shattered windows.

"We know that last night we had over 300 folks that we could confirm were on tops of roofs and waiting for our assistance. We pushed hard all throughout the night. We hoisted over 100 folks last night just in the Mississippi area. Our crews over New Orleans probably did twice that," Capt. Dave Callahan of the Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mississippi said on ABC.

National Guardsmen brought in people from outlying areas to the Superdome in the backs of big 2 1/2-ton Army trucks. Louisiana's wildlife enforcement department also brought people in on the backs of their pickups. Some were wet, some were in wheelchairs, some were holding babies and nothing else.

... Late Monday, Harrison County emergency operations center spokesman Jim Pollard said about 50 people had died in the county, with some 30 of the dead at a beach-side apartment complex in Biloxi.

Aargghh! History repeats itself! This kind of hurricane "party" is exactly what killed so many people in 1969 with Hurricane Camille! Continuing....

Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said.

In Louisiana, Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief, said bodies were seen floating in the floodwaters in the hardest-hit areas. He could not give an estimate of deaths as of Tuesday morning, but said he believed the death toll would not be as great as some of the images of devastation would suggest.

... "This is our tsunami," Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi, Miss., told The Biloxi Sun Herald.

Teresa Kavanagh, 35, of Biloxi, shook her head is disbelief as she took photographs of the damage in her hometown.

"Total devastation. Apartment complexes are wiped clean. We're going to rebuild, but it's going to take long time. Houses that withstood Camille are nothing but slab now," she said. Hurricane Camille killed 256 people in Louisiana and Mississippi in 1969.

... The hurricane knocked out power to more than 1 million people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone. Katrina also disrupted petroleum output in the very center of the U.S. oil refining industry and rattled energy markets.

... Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on CBS that it will be "quite awhile" before those displaced by the hurricane can return, particularly in areas close to downtown New Orleans. In some places, "it's going to be weeks at least before people can get back."

And once the floodwaters go down, "it's going to be incredibly dangerous" because of structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in homes, Brown said.

... Mike Spencer of Gulfport made the mistake of trying to ride out the storm in his house. He told NBC that he used his grandson's little surfboard to make his way around the house as the water rose around him.

Finally, he said, "as the house just filled up with water, it forced me into the attic, and then I ended up kicking out the wall and climbing up to a tree because the houses around me were just disappearing."

He said he wrapped himself around a tree branch and waited four or five hours.
Anne Anderson said she lost her family home in Gulfport.

"My family's an old Mississippi family. I had antiques, 150 years old or more, they're all gone. We have just basically a slab," she told NBC. She added: "Behind us we have a beautiful sunrise and sunset, and that is going to be what I'm going to miss the most, sitting on the porch watching those."

Fretting

The longer-range forecasts are showing development of two areas of storminess east of Florida early next week. It's too early to say whether they will develop into tropical depressions or not. The easternmost area of storminess is probably no threat - it'll probably head north - but the westernmost area is hard to read: it could go north - or west. What I worry about is that the western area of storminess could develop rather quickly, adjacent to Florida, and so there might not be much warning if it comes in. And it's farther north than Katrina was, so if it came west, it would have some effect on the Tampa/St. Petersburg area.

Maybe I'm just fretting: tomorrow's forecasts will give better guidance.

Warning Unheeded...

But nevertheless accurate:

Meteorologists performed admirably in alerting public officials to Katrina's rising destruction, allowing them to evacuate New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities in plenty of time. But Emanuel said that other warnings by meteorologists have gone unheeded in past decades -- warnings to go easy on the housing and commercial development in areas like Florida that are highly at risk to Atlantic hurricanes.

"A lot of people in my business had been, even in the 1980s, warning anybody who would listen -- which was very few, it turned out -- that there was going to be this upswing in hurricanes," Emanuel said. "It's not rocket science. We've been building all this stuff in Florida during this lull that lasted 20 years. We built all this stuff, and it's waiting to get creamed. There's been a fantastic amount of construction. A lot of people have built homes on the water. And nobody really listened. And now all of those predictions are exactly coming true. But it doesn't have much to do with global warming."

To Emanuel, Katrina is not an unusual hurricane. "Not that many hurricanes get that powerful, but we've had hurricanes like Katrina before," he said. "Camille was about the same strength. Andrew was about the same strength. Katrina was just unfortunate, because it happened to hit a very densely populated area."

Ultimately, Emanuel said, it's not a vengeful Mother Nature but man's politics that are to blame for the destruction. As long as people insist on erecting homes and businesses, aided by low insurance rates and business lobbyists, in vulnerable areas like the Gulf Coast, there's little scientists can do to prevent the havoc. "I like to say that there is no such thing as a 100 percent natural disaster," Emanuel said. "We have to put stuff in harm's way for there to be a disaster, and we're very good at doing that, and subsidizing people who continue to do it."

Don't You Just Love Paul Krugman?

Here he is rebuking that partisan idiot, Alan Greenspan.

Robertson Fallout

Boy, Pat Robertson sure caused problems for American diplomacy, no?

American foreign policy has always walked naked in Latin America, but Robertson's threats, with their references to the Monroe Doctrine and how assassination is cheaper than war, went beyond the grotesque. They elevated the image of yanqui imperialist to caricature, and the White House's tepid distancing from them ironically seemed to make them more believable. Venezuelans, understandably less willing than Americans to dismiss Robertson as a ranter, indicated they'll demand extra security for Chávez when he goes to New York for the U.N. General Assembly this fall and announced “temporary” restrictions on the number of foreign missionaries allowed to work in Venezuela.

Unsophisticated?

Who knows, maybe, but paying off a mortgage these days certainly puts your mind at ease! I wouldn't mind being a little unsophisticated!

Such thriftiness has gone out of fashion. What was once considered undesirable — taking on large debt — is now seen as smart. And what used to be smart — becoming debt-free — is described as imprudent.

"If you paid your mortgage off, it means you probably did not manage your funds efficiently over the years," said David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors and author of "Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?" "It's as if you had 500,000 dollar bills stuffed in your mattress."

He called it "very unsophisticated."

Like Camille II

Katrina has pretty much leveled the Louisiana/Mississippi coast and caused innumerable problems in New Orleans:

... The storm passed just east of New Orleans, straining the system of levees and pumping stations that protect the low-lying city. About 70 percent of the city sits below sea level.

The National Weather Service reported that water had overtopped levees in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes.

The Lower 9th Ward, on the east side of New Orleans was under five to six feet of rising water after three pumps failed, according to WGNO reporter Susan Roesgen, who is with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. She said New Orleans police had received more than 100 reports of people trapped on their roofs.

The Associated Press reported that entire neighborhoods along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain were flooded, and residents had scrambled onto the roofs of their shotgun-style houses.

"I'm not doing too good right now," Chris Robinson told the AP via cell phone from his home east of the city's downtown. "The water's rising pretty fast. I got a hammer and an ax and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me please. I want to live."

Cache Creek

I've rarely returned to Cache Creek Casino and Resort since my serious blackjack days (November 1995 - August 1998: as I recall, I watched Princess Di's funeral there through the smoky haze). In fact, I was a bit embittered about the place (accumulated loss there was somewhere over $30,000, and that winding Highway 16 is still a massive hazard), but lately, since Cache Creek donated $2,500 to Davis Musical Theatre Company (DMTC), I've been kinder on them. Heck, that's just some of my money returning to where it can do the most good. So, on Sunday afternoon, a kinder, gentler Marc decided to return for a few hours of casual blackjack.

The drive up there was nice - Yolo County at its best. There was an interesting sign on the outskirts of Woodland: "Rainbow Ranch - Not Gay, Just Happy." Upon arriving at the casino, I saw a fellow with a T-Shirt: "A Sight For Sore Eyes," with 'Sore Eyes' really badly blurred. I was puzzled why recorded voices in the slot machines (fantasy-labeled things like 'Hollywood Dreams' and 'Go Ape') were egging the bettors on in Australian accents, but then I noticed that some - maybe all! - of the slot machines there are manufactured in Australia. Who would have thought?

The massive construction efforts over the last few years at Cache Creek have produced a real handsome resort, and as a salutory side-effect, have made the casino a lot less smoky than it used to be. The only reminder of the Old Cache Creek of the last decade is that F.B. is STILL a pit boss there (I don't think he recognized me). In any event, I paid little attention to the resort: I made a beeline for the casino, and didn't check out the spa, or the dancing, or the restaurants, or the gift shop, or damn near anything else they've got there except three different blackjack tables. A few hours of casual blackjack extended past frenetic midnight, but all to good effect - final cash minus beginning cash: $3,880.00 - $280.00 = $3,600.00 (Despite Highway 16, Marc feels even kinder to Cache Creek now than ever!)

Chautauqua Playhouse's "Lend Me A Tenor"
(Picture caption, from the Sacramento Bee's Ticket section)
The Chautauqua Playhouse presents "Lend Me a Tenor," featuring, from left, Erin Jones, Savannah Scott and Lenore Sebastian. It opens at 8 tonight and continues through Oct. 1 at 5325 Engle Road in the La Sierra Community Center, Carmichael.

I had spent most of Saturday just way too hot: first, aerobics class, then patching a roof, then ballet - I was hot even while taking a nap! I thought, "I've got to watch someone else sweat, for a change." Then I remembered that Chautauqua Playhouse opened "Lend Me A Tenor" on Friday night, and I thought, "perfect: stage lights!" Gil Sebastian was directing the show, and I already knew several in the cast: Lenore Sebastian, Erin Jones, Paul Fearn, and Savannah Scott - all quite experienced on the stage - plus others whom I knew by reputation: Rodger Hoopman and Jeff Labowitch particularly. Time to go to Carmichael, I thought!

Here is a plot summary (borrowed from this Australian blog):

The play, written by Ken Ludwig, is a farce about opera. The main character, Max, is a dogsbody for an opera company managed by Henry Saunders. They're bringing out the famous Italian tenor Tito Morelli to sing at a special charity performance of Otello. Max likes to sing opera himself, and tries to impress Saunders' daughter Maggie. However she only has eyes for the tenor, otherwise known as "Il Stupendo". Morelli arrives with his fiery wife Maria, they fight, and the tenor appears to top himself. To avoid a public relations disaster, Saunders forces Max to dress up as Othello (complete with black face) and go on, pretending to be Morelli. Hilarity then ensues with two Othellos running about, dodging Saunders, each other and some very "excited" fans (including a hotel porter).

It's one of the better farce comedies I've seen. The writing is sharp and funny, the pace is frenetic, and it has all the elements of farce — slamming doors, people hidden in cupboards and bathrooms, mistaken identities, trousers round the ankles, that sort of thing.

Chautauqua's version is slightly different - no trousers or cupboards - but I quibble....

Chautauqua Playhouse's "Lend Me A Tenor" is excellent. Kevin Caravalho, who plays Max, is a ball of comic energy (Kevin has appeared locally in Runaway Stage's production of "The Odd Couple" as Vinny, and in Magic Circle's "Little Shop of Horrors" as Seymour). Kevin's kinetic frenzy drives the rest of the cast. Erin is wonderfully funny as Maggie, Rodger is appropriately loud and blustery as Saunders, Paul has wonderful timing as Merelli, and Lenore is excellent as Maria. No one can vamp it up like Savannah! Jeff Labowitch was appropriately silly as the porter, and Fritzi Youngstedt was fine as the Chairman of the Opera Guild.

The plot of the entire farce seemed surprisingly complicated to me - it's amazing the actors can carry it all off (I'm unfamiliar with farce: I'll have to try it sometime!) Little details caught my eye: for example, Paul has to 'play dead' as the drugged Merelli, which I'm sure is surprisingly difficult to do when so much else is going on around him (like when Saunders vents at him). Kevin, Paul, and Jeff are excellent singers, as well as fine comic actors. Lenore has fine expression as the angry Maria, and Erin and Savannah, as well as being fine actresses, make an excellent team of - uh - temptresses.

At intermission, I talked to Tevye Ditter, who discussed his latest projects. He is playing Teen Angel/Johnny Casino in Runaway Stage's upcoming staging of "Grease", but is reserving a lot of his time for an original musical being written by his former vocal coach, Dario Vanni, who is returning to Sacramento soon from Eureka. The musical is about Michelangelo, and the painting of the Sistine Chapel. Tev is alternately the test bed and muse for the songs and script. Given Tev's talents, this sounds like a really interesting project, and we'll have to keep an eye out for the production, when announced.

In one sense only, "Lend Me A Tenor" was a disappointment: I didn't see anyone breaking a sweat. See what happens when you put all that experience on stage? It's August, they are going 100 mph, and the performers are as cool as ice!

See the show while you can! It runs through September, ending October 1st, but be sure to check times: some Sundays, I understand there isn't a matinee performance.

Transmogrifying

Katrina is turning into an awesome storm. I hope it weakens, but fear it won't!

Cudgel And A Shield

Cindy Sheehan's strength:

And no amount of political capital can compete with the moral gravitas of a grieving mother. The mothers of dead soldiers have no credibility issues. They command attention and demand respect. And if this lone crusade manages to attract just one more mother of a dead American soldier, it’ll turn into a movement impervious to any kind of political assault. The White House will continue to have trouble disparaging and discrediting Sheehan, because she is immune from political attack. And despite her growing political clout, all the efforts so far to turn her into a political caricature and paint her as a partisan with an ax to grind have failed. That is because having buried a son who gave his life for his country is both a cudgel and a shield.

She cannot be dismissed and she cannot be threatened. What are they going to do to her now? Having lived her worst nightmare, what more does she have to fear?