Still Kicking!

Still some action left in the season...

Tropical Storm Vince is heading for Portugal.....

A tropical storm is being born east of Puerto Rico, and will head north and likely crash ashore in New England during the weekend...

Plus, a new Bahaman tropical storm may appear by the weekend.

Guatemalan Mudflow Damage

So all-encompassing from the recent heavy rains (aggravated by Hurricane Stan) that entire communities were lost:

Guatemala's death toll from torrential rains last week associated with Hurricane Stan stood at 652; 384 were missing.

The worst-hit communities will be abandoned and declared graveyards, officials said, after they stopped most efforts to dig out increasingly decomposed bodies.

"Panabaj will no longer exist," said Mayor Diego Esquina, referring to the Mayan hamlet on the shores of Lake Atitlan covered by a half-mile wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet thick. "We are asking that it be declared a cemetery. We are tired, we no longer know where to dig."

Pictures from the wings: the "Kit Kat Klub" backdrop, and Jessica Hammon (Sally Bowles) sings "Cabaret."

"Cabaret" Closes

Nice cast! Nice show! Everyone did a real good job! Nevertheless, there were a few problems. Rachael hurt her ankle on Friday, but the sprain didn't really become manifest until Sunday. And hopefully that is our last performance at the Varsity Theater! Whether it was having the City waiting until hundreds of people were in the theater before attempting to clean out the sewer line (and incidentally depriving the cast of running water), or the troublesome electrical plug that repeatedly sabotaged the video feed to the orchestra, or the chancy air conditioning, we had a number of reminders why a unified management of the facility and the theater company might be desirable.

Wells Fargo Donation

$10,000 donation to the Young Performer's Theater! Jusdging from the pictures Dannette took, the check presentation at the performances of "Fiddler on the Roof, Jr.) went very well (unfortunately, I wasn't there - the weekend was pretty packed).

"Victor, Victoria" Rehearsals

Continuing! It's a bit awkward this last week and weekend, with inevitable conflict with the "Cabaret" schedule and DMTC Board meetings. But it's fun!

On Thursday, when I left the rehearsal space, the door must have been left open: Lauren Miller was in full comic mode, and you could hear her clear across 24th Street!

Squirrels On Crack

First, it was alien American gray squirrels muscling out native English red squirrels. Now, it's an American urban phenomenon that's popping up in the UK:

The furry animals are thought to be behind a new drugs turf war in Brixton - stealing rocks of crack hidden in front gardens.

Tough police action to rid the town centre of dealers and addicts has seen crackheads abandon their usual drug stash hideouts.

... Drug addicts are known to be hiding small stashes of crack rocks in people's front lawns late at night.

Squirrels have been spotted in the same front gardens, seemingly hunting out the buried narcotics.

... "It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot but it kept on desperately digging.

"It was almost as if it was trying to find hidden crack rocks."

Tom Friedman, Jerk

Hilzoy makes an excellent point. Just because Tom Friedman thinks the Iraqi Sunnis don't think like he does, so then, the hell with them? How utterly arrogant! Especially after we've killed so many Iraqi Sunnis lately! Hilzoy's riff on Friedman:

It is feckless and irresponsible to advocate war without thinking through the various possible outcomes, including the bad ones. This is especially true when there is reason to doubt the basic competence of those who will be executing the war in question, as there surely was after, say, Tora Bora. It is also feckless and irresponsible to advocate leaving when you discover, to your amazement, that recreating a country that has been absolutely brutalized is not child's play, and that the people you knew would be in charge of that task are devoting no more attention to it than a child would. It is worse than irresponsible when the predictable result of withdrawal would be a full-scale civil war, when you explicitly recognize and even embrace that fact, and when you imply that that civil war, which would result in the deaths not just of combatants but of innocent civilians, is the inevitable outcome of Sunni amorality, and not, to any degree, of your own thoughtless cheerleading for a misguided imperial adventure carried out by people whose arrogance is matched only by their incompetence.

Just another example of American disdain for the Muslim world in general (after 9/11, I thought I'd never again quote Gary Kamiya, but my, how times change!):

But the neocons had a far darker view of Islam and the Muslim world as a whole. "A government official who had frequent dealings with Feith, Rhode and the others came up with an analogy for their attitude toward Islam: 'The same way evangelicals in the South wrestle with homosexuals, they feel about Muslims -- people to be saved, if only they would do things on our terms. Hate the sin, love the sinner."

The only thing flatter than the world is Friedman's understanding of it.

Early Bird Catches The Worm

Please forgive my light posting this week: it's been one of those weeks.

As an illustration, I was leaving work unusually late Wednesday morning (2:50 a.m.) Co-worker R. couldn't sleep, decided to do some work instead, and arrived just when I was leaving.

Which one of us is madder?

Curb Your Hunger!

See what happens when your appetites carry you away!

Alligators have clashed with nonnative pythons before in Everglades National Park. But when a 6-foot gator tangled with a 13-foot python recently, the result wasn't pretty.

The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole _ and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.

... The gators have had to share their territory with a python population that has swelled over the past 20 years after owners dropped off pythons they no longer wanted in the Everglades. The Asian snakes have thrived in the wet, hot climate.

"Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild. ... And we here are, it's happened for the fourth time," Mazzotti said.

..."Clearly, if they can kill an alligator they can kill other species," Mazzotti said. "There had been some hope that alligators can control Burmese pythons. ... This indicates to me it's going to be an even draw. Sometimes alligators are going to win and sometimes the python will win.

"It means nothing in the Everglades is safe from pythons, a top down predator," Mazzotti said.

'Never Mind' Says The Model!

The NOGAPS model runs today have abruptly changed their minds - no more Bay of Campeche storms, no Columbus Day New Orleans Hurricane - nothing! Fickle, these models are! The model instead posits that Tropical Storm Stan will blow through Mexico's isthmus of Tehuantepec, and redevelop into a coast-hugging Pacific storm, before finally dying out in southern Mexico. Southern Mexico and northern Central America are still a wretched mess.

In the Atlantic, the Bahaman wave has strengthened into Tropical Storm Tammy, which will rake the east Florida coast before sweeping into Georgia and the Carolinas, and before getting swept up into the big trough passing through the Atlantic seaboard. There is an excellent discussion here (Clark Evans' 'One Fine Mess.')

Tammy's upper-level support will pass over the extreme NE Gulf of Mexico, and thus be displaced significantly from the Atlantic storm itself. Heavy showers will initiate in the Gulf of Mexico, NW of Tampa, in response to the upper-level support, but are unlikely to develop into anything more than just heavy showers. It's a good thing when a storm can't quite get itself organized!

There is a marked weakening in the tropical storms still active. The Caribbean is quieting down. We aren't out of the woods yet for this year, but there are signs that the tropics are beginning to settle down.

Kick Those Habits!

Birds and bees do it, even chimps in a zoo do it:

A CHIMPANZEE in a Chinese zoo has successfully kicked a 16-year smoking habit after becoming hooked when two spouses died and her daughter left.

State press said Ai Ai, a 27-year-old chimp at the Qinling Safari Park in northern China's Shaanxi province, ended her tobacco dependency when zoo keepers put her on a strict regime that included walking, music therapy and exercise sessions.

"In the first few days, she squealed for cigarettes every now and then, but as her life became more colourful, she gradually forgot about them altogether," one zookeeper was quoted as saying.

Forever Fat

My own weight loss has slowed dramatically (it's those Reece's Cups, I know it):

...A new study that followed Americans for three decades suggests that over the long haul, 9 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women will become overweight.

... Half of the men and women in the study who had made it well into adulthood without a weight problem ultimately became overweight. A third of those women and a quarter of the men became obese.

... The findings, published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, show obesity may be a greater problem than indicated by studies that look at a cross-section of the population at one point in time. Those so-called "snapshots" of obesity have found about 6 in 10 are overweight and about 1 in 3 are obese, Vasan said.

...Susan Bartlett, an assistant professor of medicine and an obesity researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said the study was one of the first to look at the risk of becoming overweight.

"The results are pretty sobering, really," said Bartlett, who was not involved in the research.

While the health risks of being obese are much more severe than being overweight, those who are overweight are much more likely to go on to become obese, Bartlett said.

The study shows Americans live in an "environment in which it's hard not to become overweight or obese. Unless people actively work against that, that's what's most likely to happen to them."

... As for the Framingham study, Mark Vander Weg, a Mayo Clinic psychologist who researches obesity but was not involved in the study, said it is one of a few to track a group of individuals over an extended period.

"What's particularly concerning is that these results actually may underestimate the risk of becoming overweight or obese among the general population" because minorities, who are at increased risk for obesity, were not included in the study, Vander Weg said.

Recent trends also suggest that people currently coming into middle age may be even more likely to become overweight or obese than those who were studied, Vander Weg said.

A Columbus Day Hurricane In New Orleans?

Today's NOGAPS forecast suggests a possible fate for the storm I'm calling "Stan II" (until it actually develops and gets a name): a second New Orleans hurricane, just in time for Columbus Day! It's very worrisome, though: just a flick of fate and it could become a Tampa hurricane instead (or anywhere on the eastern Gulf of Mexico coast).

Hurricane Otis has winked out of existence, with just a remnant low left behind. It's moisture didn't rain out over AZ after all: instead, the moisture streamed NNE over the state, where it is contributing instead to a rain event in the northern Rockies (where they really need it), and will also soon contribute to heavy rains in the Great Plains along the Canadian border (and in Minnesota, where you are Bruce! Ask not, for whom the hurricane blows: it blows for thee!)

The Bahaman low continues to develop, and will cause heavy rains in eastern Florida (probably tomorrow), and the Carolinas (towards week's end).

Grab A Name, Any Name

This crazy season, we might run out of hurricane names...

The "Buzz"

From this morning's Sacramento Bee's "Buzz" feature:

Bus route to Arnold appointment

Two years ago, Cheryl Bly-Chester roamed the state with a bus of unknown candidates in the 2003 recall, tailing Schwarzenegger on the campaign trail.

Bly-Chester, a Roseville engineer, helped organize the multiday bus tour from San Diego to Northern California in a desperate attempt to attract media attention in the 135-candidate race.

The bus tour didn't make Bly-Chester famous - she won 4,527 votes to finish 17th that year. But she credits her two-month foray into campaigning for her nomination last week to the state Reclamation Board, California's lead flood-control agency.

Schwarzenegger apparently didn't hold any grudges against his former opponent.

"Technically, he ran against me because he declared after me," Bly-Chester mused. "I think he had a good sense of proportion about the whole thing."

Bly-Chester said she has supported Schwarzenegger since he took office and has become active in Placer County Republican politics since the recall.

Stan II?

The big-picture tropical weather situation has rarely been so interesting. Over, the weekend, a large subtropical low has been centered over the Gulf of Mexico, with various tropical storms and wannabe tropical storms circling about its far-flung periphery: on the SW side of the big low, the usual wind flow reversed, and El Salvador and Nicaragua got hammered with rains from the Pacific; on the NE side of the big low, showers developed north of the Bahamas and started moving towards the Carolinas; on the SE side of the big low, a tropical depression developed east of Cuba, and on the west side of the big low, Tropical Storm Stan menaced the Mexican Bay of Campeche coastline. It's rare that you see a large cutoff low at these latitudes that isn't associated with a tropical storm of some sort, and so it wasn't so surprising that Tropical Storm Stan developed, given the ample opportunities.

The future is worrisome, however. As the week advances, the Bahaman showers may form into a tropical depression and start advancing northward in a disorganized way up the east Florida coastline, into the Carolinas, reemerge over the Atlantic, and eventually strengthen into a tropical storm. I'm more worried about what will happen in Mexico's Bay of Campeche, though. After Tropical Storm Stan rains out in southern Mexico, a new storm will develop in about the same place (Stan II?), and it will be placed in a perfect position to cross the Gulf of Mexico, and hit the Tampa, Florida area from the west. The possible future scenario is well past the six-day model run length (more like two weeks: Oct. 12th-13th), however, so it need not happen, but it's something to watch out for.

Hurricane Otis is weakening, and the rains from it are still forecast to hit AZ (Tuesday evening?)

"Fiddler on the Roof, Jr."; Young Performer's Theater (YPT), DMTC


This was the best of the (generally-not-that-good) bunch of pictures of bows that I took: Emily Jo Seminoff (Hodel) and Justin Biewer-Elstob (Perchik).

Went and saw "Fiddler on the Roof, Jr." Sunday evening. I'll write up a mini-review when I have more time....(Outline)

Book appears to be edited. Most changes are minor - circumlocutions dropped, but some scenes rendered rather illogical by script changes. Nevertheless, the cast did the best they could given the changes.

Tevye - Cody Craven
Golde - Meeka Craig
Tzeitel (Erin Carpenter), Hodel (Emily Jo Seminoff), Chava (Lindsay Carpenter)
Rebecca Rudy as Grandmother Tzeitel (excellent performance)

New Theater Progress Report

My understanding is that electricity will be turned on this week at the new Hoblit Performing Arts Center, and the "Into the Woods" and "Charlotte's Web" cast memebers will be rehearsing there, starting this week. Telephone installation, scheduled for this week, has been postponed (until October 19th), however, since the sheet-rocking has to be completed for that process to start, and we're not quite there at the moment.

Living La Vida Loca

Spent a nice Saturday afternoon stage-fighting with the rest of the "Victor/Victoria" cast at Runaway Stage Productions rehearsal space at Sierra Two (Pow! Zap!) I'm a little anxious because we're only three weeks from opening, we've lost several rehearsal days, and the musical and dancing style is subtle and exacting.

Saturday night, at DMTC, we had the seventh performance of the "Cabaret" run. Generally good show (but the opening had problems). Responsive house, filled with now-off-duty "Grease" cast members from Runaway Stage. Sunday afternoon was good too, with a very responsive audience.

On Saturday, I missed Victoria's ballet class. Also missed aerobics class at Step One. Missed "Fiddler on the Roof, Jr." at DMTC (but caught it Sunday evening). Missed reinstalling the security light on the back of my house. Missed sleep (that's the hardest!)


I soundly (stage) thrashed Bill Trainor (and he reciprocated with enthusiasm, for 15 full minutes) at Runaway Stage's Saturday afternoon's "Victor/Victoria" rehearsal. Instead of summoning an ambulance, however, Bill chose instead to enjoy the pleasant Saturday afternoon and bicycle home.


Sunday afternoon's "Cabaret" performance at the Varsity Theater. 'Sitting Pretty': backstage with Jonathan Rothman and the DMTC Orchestra.

NYC!

Urban life in the new millenium. New York City woman sits on park bench, gets ticket.

Hurricane Otis

Hey, Bruce, check it out, a hurricane named after you!

Hurricane Otis is moving in an Arizona direction. Rainfall in SE AZ is forecast to be heavy, but very narrowly focused, and won't last very long (starting Sunday night, and through Monday: Tucson, AZ and Gallup, NM will see rain, but Phoenix, AZ probably won't see much, if any).

Meanwhile, the Caribbean is active. The current forecast shows a tropical storm developing from thunderstorms from Columbia/Panama, and heading almost straight north, passing over Cuba, and finding itself in the Bahamas, about six days from now (when the model runs ends). The forecast also shows a split flow developing in the westerlies over the Great Plains about that time, which means that the future direction of the storm becomes increasingly uncertain (as if the path wasn't uncertain enough, six days out). It will be awkward if there's a tropical storm just east of Florida, uncertain about which way to go. It will be important to keep an eye on this.

Plus, it will be quite rainy along the coast of the Carolinas early next week....

Evacuation From Hurricane Rita

I was surprised the evacuation in advance of Hurricane Rita went as badly as it did. Houston is not as isolated as New Orleans is from the U.S. highway network, and people were even more energized to bolt from Hurricane Rita than they were for Hurricane Katrina. I guess it goes to show that when EVERYONE tries to flee at once, no city's traffic network can cope! I'm just glad these evacuations are scarce (and may they remain so!)

I think the chaotic evacuation from Houston and vicinity helps illustrate why Mayor Nagin of New Orleans hesitated before ordering a mandatory evacuation from his city. Accidents happen, and people get killed, like this horrible Texas bus fire filled with elderly Hurricane Rita evacuees. You've got to be dead sure that more people will die if they stay in place than if they flee before you order such an extreme measure!

Weird Pets of the Presidents

Selections from the hard copy issue of East Sacramento News (their Pet Talk feature, Sept. 15, 2005, page 9):

John Quincy Adams - Alligator
James Buchanan - Elephant
Theodore Roosevelt - Bear
Calvin Coolidge - Antelope, Hippo

Kneel Before The Meteorologist!

I'm not worthy! (But the data is!)

Arizona Flooding?

Today's forecast shows the Caribbean quieting down a bit, but still remaining rather active. We'll have to keep our eyes on that area. One possibility is that a thunderstorm complex from northern Columbia might fire things up there in about a week's time (I haven't seen that before - usually the storms come in from the Antilles - but it's certainly plausible).

The western Atlantic is less active, but should also be watched.

The most interesting possibility is that a Hurricane (currently called Tropical Depression 15-E, currently SW of Manzanillo, Colima) is making a lunge towards Arizona, the outliers of which would arrive about Tuesday morning, and the rest about a day later. This could be exciting, because disintegrating hurricanes occasionally cause stupendous flooding there (I was in Tucson around October 1, 1983, when Hurricane Octave broke up, and it was AMAZING!) In any event, we need to start watching for that!

Dramatic Board Replacement

I didn't realize how much attention Cheryl Bly-Chester's appointment would gather. The replacement of the entire state reclamation board was today's LEAD story in the Sacramento Bee!

Courtesy of former 2003 gubernatorial candidate Diana Foss, here is the story, from the LA Times.

Appointment of Cheryl Bly-Chester to the State of California Reclamation Board

Since the 2003 Gubernatorial Recall Election, former candidate Cheryl Bly-Chester has been working patiently with the Schwarzenegger Administration to find an appropriate place within state government for her many skills. She was determined, at first, to get an appointment within the Department of Conservation, but her efforts there ultimately came to naught. Nevertheless, she didn't give up her ambition to serve the State of California.

Today, Cheryl Bly-Chester announces her appointment to the State of California Reclamation Board! (I'm looking for the press release, but don't see it yet....)

In 2004, Cheryl worked on issues regarding relief to California National Guard families.

Many, many congratulations to her!

Caribbean Rumblings

Sometime this weekend, we'll see whether a new tropical storm develops in the Caribbean, south of Jamaica. If it develops, it will likely head NW, between the Yucatan peninsula and Cuba, into the Gulf of Mexico, in the vague general direction of Louisiana (but it's still way too early to say anything definite).

23rd Annual Elly Awards

Autumn has started, which means, 'Elly' time again! (Here is the full list of nominees and the winners, from The Sacramento Bee).

This year, I arrived about 45 minutes late, so I missed the initial musical number and the Supporting Awards part. The second musical number was 'Stop Ladies Pray/Poor Wandering One,' from Runaway Stage's "Pirates of Penzance."

It was a pleasure to see that both Kelly Mustain and Kelly Daniells flew back to town from San Diego to participate in the festivities. Kelly Mustain was featured in the second musical number, along with Tevye Ditter. Kelly Daniells flew in to reprise her 'Cabaret,' from Solano Community College's production of "Cabaret." The number was a showstopper, winning her a standing ovation from many of the assembled actors and actresses.

Since DMTC is doing "Cabaret" (the original version, not Solano's revival version), it was tempting to compare the versions. It was difficult to do so, however. Jessica Hammon's version at DMTC right now seems much more sultry and smoky than Kelly Daniell's bright, brassy version. Kelly was punching for dramatic effect so hard (in her award acceptance speech, she mentioned getting acting training recently from Bob Baxter) that I thought it violated the spirit of the number.

But what, exactly, is the spirit of the number? As the director of the Solano show (presumably George Maguire) pointed out when he was accepting the award for Best Overall Production of a Musical, Kander and Ebb revised "Cabaret" several times. If the Emcee is a much darker character in the revival, then it stands to reason that Sally Bowles might be much brighter, to heighten the contrast between the lead characters. Until I see both versions, however, I will have to suspend judgement on the question.

Some moments from the show (paraphrased as best I can recall........)

The girl sitting next to me (Eldorado Musical Theater?) shouted at the stage several times during the proceedings, "You've got my socks!" At one time, Tyler Milliron, from El Dorado Musical Theater Young People's Theater, was on-stage, but it seemed like she shouted at several other people as well, which made me wonder how many people have her socks, and why she has so much difficulty keeping hold of them.

Katherine Pappa's award acceptance speech started with, "Oh, thanks kids! Stop being bitter now!"

Another award winner: "This music makes me feel like I'm underwater!"

Bob De Lucia, accepting an award for work at Magic Circle Theater: "How many of you have ever worked with Alan Pontes? He's amazing! An actor who thinks. What a concept!" Bob finished his speech by pointing at his fedora-covered head and stating: "It's all about the hat!"

Another award winner: "Go 1980's! That's the foundation of the play. And to all my teachers who said I'll never get anything for fooling around - well, I showed you!"

An African-American actor, accepting an award (I missed the precise context, but the audience thought it was funny): "I'm not a black Russian!"

Jeff Kean, from Woodland Opera House, stated, just before opening an envelope, "the suspense is killing me." An excitable student near me commanded, "Do it!"

Kelly Daniells, in her acceptance speech, began gushing. She named several people to whom she owed so much, then said, "And to my brother, Erik! He's WONDERFUL!" Then she caught herself, turned, and leaned over to Jim Jordan, the accompanist, who was sitting below and beside the stage, and said (to general laughter and amusement), "Oh! And you're wonderful too!"

And the line people will remember most of all.... James Wheatley, peering into the darkness of the Crest Theater in order to locate his stars from "Master Harold and the Boys," asked: "Is my Willy here?"

Here are some lame pictures from the cheap seats.....


'Stop Ladies Pray/Poor Wandering One,' from Runaway Stage's "Pirates of Penzance," with Tevye Ditter's audience-wowing hip thrust.


Tevye Ditter and Kelly Mustain.


'Falcon in the Dive,' from "The Scarlet Pimpernel," Modesto Performing Arts.


'I Really Like Him/Why Do You Do The Things You Do?' "Man of La Mancha," Solano Community College.


Emily Jo Seminoff wins an Elly Award for "The Miracle Worker."


Kelly Daniells, 'Cabaret,' from "Cabaret," Solano Community College.

Busy Bees

Busy bees, they flew to LiveJournal
With tales of the life nocturnal
All would have been well
They really cast spells
Flew instead into the urinal

"Bye-Bye Birdie" Pictures - Cast One

A few photos from the DMTC Summer Workshop, from Dannette Vassar (she apparently has a photos Web Site somewhere, with a variety of DMTC-related photos, but I haven't found it yet). Sorry about using low resolution here: it's a compromise, to allow the Web Page to open easily (drop me a note at mvaldez@sierraresearch.com, and I can send the higher-quality photos to you).


Julien Biewer-Elstob (Birdie), Hailee Ketchum-Wiggins (Kim MacAfee), plus ensemble


Julia Soto (Mae Peterson) and Ryan Warren (Albert Peterson)


Katherine Vanderford (Rosie Alvarez)


Katherine Vanderford (Rosie Alvarez) and Ryan Warren (Albert Peterson)

Pocatello Weather Guy...

Has his own ideas

Since Katrina, Stevens has been in newspapers across the country where he was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying the Yakuza Mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He was a guest on Coast to Coast, a late night radio show that conducts call-in discussions on everything from bizarre weather patterns to alien abductions. On Wednesday, Stevens was interviewed by Fox News firebrand Bill O'Reilly.

(Only the last part was really strange...)

The Morons At The New York Times

Kos says it all! If it isn't Miller, Bumiller, Nagourney, et al. making up stuff and calling it news (remember WMD? Wen Ho Lee?), it's something else, like primo-stupido pricing policies. Meanwhile, I get conservative OpinionJournal from the Wall Street Journal twice a day - for free! Enough dumb-ass conservative opinion to choke two horses, twice a day!

Makes me wonder why I still get the Sunday Times....

Don't Go All Wobbly On Us!

Rita, as she approaches the shore!

Yeah, But I Like 'Doof Doof Dance Music'

Those annoying songs you hear in retail stores:

Workers in fashion and shoe shops suffered most from "repetitive record syndrome", having to listen to the same songs being played over and over again.

The top 10 most played - and most annoying - singers were: Britney Spears, Usher, Kylie Minogue, 50 Cent, Robbie Williams, Akon, Beyonce, Blue, Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson.

Christmas was the most testing time for the ears of retail workers, with Jingle Bells topping the list of the most hated seasonal songs, followed by Slade's Merry Christmas Everyone and White Christmas by Bing Crosby.

Baffling Storm

The official forecasts keep pushing Hurricane Rita east, towards Port Arthur. The forecasts keep changing, though, for reasons that baffle me. Tonight, the heavy rains forecast in NW Louisiana/western AR/eastern OK don't look quite so formidable as they did this morning. But I'll believe that when it happens.

What bothers me is, why doesn't the storm jog west, towards Galveston, instead of inching east towards Port Arthur? I mean, there is a ridge to the north of the storm, so why doesn't it jog west in response to the atmospheric speed bump? There was a remark on the Central Florida Hurricane Center blog suggesting that ridge isn't very strong, but still, it's there.

Despite apparent unanimity at present, the different computer models seem to have trouble resolving the exact fate and timing of Rita's movements. A lot has depended (and continues to depend) on the evolution of the elongated trough over the western U.S., but because radiosonde stations are scarce over the eastern Pacific, the data driving that evolution are imperfectly understood. So, watch for sudden forecast changes, as predictions for the future try to keep pace with a surprising present!

Hurricane Hall of Fame

Recorded Category-5 hurricanes.

Signs Of Sleep


One can only wish! (something new from Deborah)

SIGNS OF SLEEP
Deborah McMillion Nering
Small show of sleepers and dreamers at:
Art One Gallery, Inc.
4120 N Marshall Way
Scottsdale, Az 85251
480.946.5076

For the First Thursday Art Walk
October 6th, 2005
7:00-9:00 PM

Eastward Shift

Updated forecasts for Hurricane Rita by the major models (this compilation is sometimes called the 'spaghetti model') now show landfall will occur just east of Galveston Bay, rather than west, which means the city of Galveston is unlikely to see the maximum conceivable storm surge (which generally occurs east of the eye of the storm). Still, it will be pretty bad - like getting run over by a logging truck rather than a locomotive. And it's prime oil country down there: Port Arthur, Port Neches, Beaumont, Baytown, and, of course, Houston - which means the prices of petroleum products can't help but soar, for the rest of the year at least. The recovery from Hurricane Katrina was already relying inordinately on Houston-area facilities, since so many Louisiana ports are out-of-commission, so delays in the recovery of oil supplies will multiply.

The forecasts also show Rita blasting through eastern Texas/western Louisiana, and then more or less stalling, and meandering around the Texarkana, AR area for several days. Not that windy, but it does mean that all of western Arkansas/eastern Oklahoma is vulnerable to very heavy, prolonged rains: Boston Mtns., Ouachita Mtns. - Arkadelphia and the Ouachita River Valley watershed. It's ironic that so many refugees from New Orleans, stranded in places like Houston, Shreveport, etc., may be forced to flee again.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C.

The homeland has never been better prepared....

Apocalypse Now

Virtually all of the hurricane forecasts are now pointing directly at the Houston/Galveston area as the landfall point for Hurricane Rita. Very dangerous, particularly since (according to the National Hurricane Center):

RITA'S CENTRAL PRESSURE IS ESTIMATED TO BE 897 MB...MAKING IT THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE IN TERMS OF PRESSURE FOR THE ATLANTIC BASIN.

That's EVER, as in all history! As the Weather Channel states:

Landfall is possible late Friday or early Saturday along the Texas coast. Residents and tourists in locations such as Corpus Christi, Aransas Pass, San Jose Island, Matagorda Island, Port Lavaca, Port O'Connor, Bay City, Lake Jackson, Freeport, Galveston, Texas City, Houston, and Port Arthur should ALL prepare for a very dangerous landfalling major hurricane.

History has shown (in 1900) that Galveston is quite vulnerable to storm surge, and the current forecast shows landfall just west of Galveston (perfectly placed for maximum storm surge). After that, the storm will go blasting through Houston, and eastern Texas, and into the Ouachita Mtns. of Oklahoma and Arkansas, leading to torrential flooding there.

Time to flee!

Guy Ritchie's New Movie

This sounds problematic - I'll go see 'March of the Penguins' (or something else) instead:

Critics reckon Revolver is even worse than his last stinker, the risible Swept Away, a film which starred his wife and all but destroyed her career as a serious actress. "After Revolver, Swept Away now looks like Citizen Kane," the Guardian said.

... The problem is the film is as muddled as the weird form of Jewish mysticism Ritchie and his wife practise. Some even suggest their obsession with Kabbalah has contributed to the film's impenetrability. Despite being ostensibly about gambling and gangsters, Revolver is full of obscure references to Kabbalah, with strange mentions of numbers and bizarre references to "ego versus the light" - both Kabbalah allusions.

At the premiere, Ritchie was in defensive mood. He said of the criticism: "I think it was inevitable. The concept of the film is tricky and that's part of the reason I was attracted to it in the first place.

... Madonna, 47, with her arm still in a sling following a riding accident, appeared pleased not to be involved in the movie and said she was there purely as an adornment.

... Asked why he hadn't given his wife a part, Ritchie, 37, replied: "Do you think they would let me get away with that? I did that last time - it didn't work."

Watch Your Microbes

People on raft trips in the Grand Canyon have been getting sick, maybe from spoiled meat.

This reminds me of what my hiking friend from high-school, D.B. (back in the day: mid-70's), experienced in the Grand Canyon. He was down on the Tonto level (if I remember correctly), in the summer heat with two companions, when he got the brilliant idea of mixing everyone's stash of honey with the drinking water - that way they'd get fluid and nutrition at the same time.

This proved to be a mistake. According to Chris N., honey resists spoilage because the sugar is too concentrated for bacteria to thrive. Mixed with water, though, honey becomes ideal for bacteria. They had to throw away their entire water supply, which was very dangerous anytime, but especially so in the summer. They tried to reach a spring by sunset, but were confronted with a cliff they couldn't negotiate in the dark. Parched, they collapsed at the top of the cliff, and had to wait till dawn, when they summoned the strength to descend the cliff to life-giving water.

Watch your microbes!

Hi-Energy

Yesterday evening, despite little sleep the night before, I ended up doing, back-to-back, Pepper Von's hi-energy step aerobics class AND hi-energy 'Victor/Victoria' dance rehearsal with Runaway Stage Productions - four hours of not a hell of a lot of sitting down. I got little sleep last night too, in order to participate in a meeting this morning with the City of Davis. Tonight, there is more 'Victor/Victoria' rehearsal. Then tomorrow evening, Pepper Von's hi-energy 'Get Fit Jam.'

I sense some lo-energy times coming on........

Davis Enterprise Review of "Cabaret"

I'm glad Bev seemed to like our production, particularly since the Music Circus production of "Cabaret" was no doubt still fresh in her mind (she reviewed that show for the Davis Enterprise as well). I also liked her use of the adjective 'bone-chilling' to describe Robert Coverdell's 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me.' I remember, from seeing DMTC's show in 2000, that that song can have a tremendous impact on the audience, but since I'm part of the ensemble singing the song together with Robert, I find it very hard to gauge its impact on the audience. The song should flash-freeze the bones, and I'm glad to read that it does!

Life is a 'Cabaret,' ol' chum!
Local company delivers a lively rendition of darkly ironic musical
Author: Bev Sykes
Enterprise drama critic

Between 1929 and 1933, Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin, which formed the backdrop for chronicles he wrote on his return to London and published as "The Berlin Stories."

One such tale, that of writer Clifford Bradshaw and cabaret singer Sally Bowles, was dramatized by John Van Druten as the play, "I am a Camera," later made into a 1955 British film with Julie Harris and Laurence Harvey.

In 1966, John Kander and Fred Ebb won a Tony Award for their musical version of this material, which they called "Cabaret." The musical, of course, became an enormously popular film vehicle for Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray in 1972.

In 1993, director Sam Mendes revived the Kander/Ebb musical for his cabaret theater and gave it a darker, harder edge, emphasizing the decadence of the period. By the time the show moved to Broadway, where it enjoyed another successful run, the production — while still maintaining the darker feel — had lost a bit of the "edge" that it possessed in the smaller venue. The tunes were so familiar to the American public that it was difficult to keep patrons "down" for two hours.

The Davis Musical Theatre Company opened its 2005-06 season Friday with the Kander/Ebb version of "Cabaret." Set in Berlin in 1930, just before the Nazis come to power, the action takes place at the Kit Kat Club, a seedy nightclub where one goes to escape the reality of life.

"Leave your troubles outside," purrs the Emcee, played by Ryan Adame.

While not actually a part of the story, this master of ceremonies is the unifying character who brings all the action together, and Adame is perfect in the role. With a garish, white clownish face and lascivious manner, he commands attention.

Cliff is played by Ryan Favorite, last seen as Lun Tha in "The King and I." While we caught a hint of Favorite's talent in that earlier show, he truly shines in "Cabaret."

The character of Cliff has endured many permutations over the history of this story, being heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual, depending on the particular version or director. Director Steve Isaacson's Cliff is unquestionably heterosexual, and the chemistry between him and Sally (Jessica Hammon) is authentic and believable.

Hammon is a bubbly Sally, with a huge smile. Her British accent isn't always spot-on, but she inhabits the character and has a terrific voice, especially while belting out the title song. She needs to learn about stepping into the spotlight, however, as half of this big number was sung with her face in shadows.

DMTC veteran Mary Young delivers the kind of performance we've come to expect from her as Fraulein Schneider, who runs the boarding house where Cliff takes up residence. Fraulein Schneider has a larger role to play in the stage version of this story, and her romance with another boarder, Herr Schultz (William Hedge), is quite tender, especially in their lovely duet, "Married."

Hedge, making his DMTC debut, is very good as the old Jewish greengrocer whose heart belongs to his landlady. He gives her special bits of fruit as if they were diamonds.

Heather Sheridan, a boarder who has a lot of "gentleman callers," has some projection problems, but otherwise she does a good job.

Michael Manly, in his return to DMTC after a nine-year absence, is quite good as Ernst Ludwig, the German smuggler who befriends Cliff. Wendy Young makes a fetching gorilla (in "If You Could See Her Through My Eyes"), and Robert Coverdell sings a smashing rendition of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," the bone-chilling song that epitomizes the rise of the Nazi Party.

Michael Miiler choreographs the show, with lighting design by Isaacson and Dannette Vassar. Jeannie Henderson does her usual outstanding job of costume design; the gown for Sally's closing number is spectacular.

"Cabaret" is an entertaining evening of theater which — everyone hopes! — genuinely is the final DMTC show to be presented at the Varsity Theater.

Copyright, 2005, The Davis Enterprise. All Rights Reserved.

The Coast of Texas

This morning, I heard on the radio that they were evacuating Galveston, TX. Apparently a consensus had developed that Hurricane Rita was heading for the middle coast of TX, arriving by evening time, Friday, and given the chaos surrounding Hurricane Katrina, no one wants to take any chances with another urban area (especially one already known to be very vulnerable, through the actions of the hurricane of 1900, which killed 5000 people there).

Sure enough, the NOGAPS model predictions had changed, in order to finally join the consensus formed yesterday by most of the other models. Yesterday, NOGAPS predictions had been an outlier among the other predictions, showing Rita as hitting Brownsville, TX, and then moving up the Rio Grande Valley into NM. The consensus instead shows Rita moving through eastern and central Texas only, and not making it as far west as NM.

The reason NOGAPS shifted its forecast is apparently because the model decided that the large trough that has developed in the western U.S. will not be quite as deep as originally thought, and will therefore move east a bit faster than originally thought. Usually the accuracy is limited by initialization errors of the temperature and pressure fields, and since radiosonde coverage over the eastern Pacific is skimpy, initialization errors tend to be large, particularly over the western U.S.

In any event, the Freeport/Matagorda Bay/Victoria, TX area is in for a bumpy ride. Galveston probably won't see the worst of it this time, but they may get some flooding.

Precocious

The NEXT Supreme Court nominee!

Hurricane Rita

No real change in the forecasts: the NOGAPS model says Rita is headed towards Brownsville, TX, and the other models point at places farther north (the middle coast of Texas).

NOGAPS also says the storm will punch far enough inland, right up the Rio Grande Valley, to seriously upset the weather in New Mexico, and even possibly affect Arizona. Cool if that happens!

Tesla Would Be Jealous

Wrong dress ensemble for the occasion:

An Australian man built up so much static electricity in his clothes as he walked that he burned carpets, melted plastic and sparked a mass evacuation.

Frank Clewer, of the western Victorian city of Warrnambool, was wearing a synthetic nylon jacket and a woollen shirt when he went for a job interview.

As he walked into the building, the carpet ignited from the 40,000 volts of static electricity that had built up.

Petrotheism

That of which we will not speak.

Take A Walk On The Wild Side

Apparently I'm in! I joined the "Victor/Victoria" cast at Runaway Stage this evening. We had one of Ron Cisneros' trademark vigorous rehearsals: tonight, of the 'Finale,' and 'Le Jazz Hot.' A strange mix: the young, talented Runaway dance corps, plus (mostly) older veterans of the Sacramento musical theater scene.

Such A Shame

The FUPF folks draw blood.

Like A Javelin

New, NOGAPS (Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System) forecasts bring Hurricane Rita's path a bit northwards (with passing showers around Tampa), ultimately hurling the storm like a javelin into the Gulf Coast around Brownsville, TX, and penetrating deep inland, up the Rio Grande Valley.

The National Hurricane Center seems to think the storm will come in even farther north, on the Texas coast. The 'spaghetti model' guidance puts the NOGAPS (NGPI) predictions on the southern envelope of all the other models. The key seems to be what will happen with the trough developing over the western U.S. The NOGAPS model shows the trough as stalling and digging over the west coast, even cutting off from the westerlies, and thus will move inland very, very slowly, which means Rita won't feel its effects until quite late, and thus Rita won't turn north until late. Presumably the other models bring the western U.S. trough further inland more quickly, which means the path turns north much sooner, thus bringing Rita into the Texas, not the Mexican, coast (my instinct is to go with the NOGAPS model on this, so watch out Brownsville!)

But whatever the quibbling regarding hurricane path, there is agreement on one thing:

ALL INDICATIONS ARE THAT RITA WILL BECOME A MAJOR HURRICANE OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO... WHERE A LARGE UPPER LEVEL ANTICYCLONE IS FORECAST BY THE MODELS TO DOMINATE AND PROVIDE A WEAK SHEAR ENVIRONMENT.

Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Arrgghh, maties!

More Tales of Sacramento At Night

Last night, I dropped by the workplace (as usual), and left around midnight. In the alley outside, a scavenger was going through a large can of recyclable garbage. Dumpster diving is a well-practiced art in Sacramento (indeed, Squeaky Fromme herself spent a number of weeks dumpster diving in Sacramento alleys, just prior to attempting to assassinate President Ford in 1975 at the State Capitol), but this fellow last night was wearing the proper accessory: spectacles with lights on the rim, that allowed him to see into even the darkest garbage cans on even the blackest of nights. How inspired! How practical!

"Cabaret": First Weekend's Shows

We opened "Cabaret" this weekend. By and large, things worked well, although there were some glitches, of course.

My glitches:
Friday night: I bumbled through the opening and closing scenes, forgot a few steps, and guessed wrong on some song words.
Saturday night: Clothing malfunction - my sailor collar ripped halfway off while going through a quick-change just before the 'Telephone Dance', and I struggled to figure out a quick, workable solution. I ALMOST missed my singing part!
Sunday afternoon: ALMOST forgot to drop hands to terminate a circle dance, and ALMOST dropped a glass while moving a table during a scene change.

Show glitches:
Friday night: Steve's absence doing percussion during tech week meant that the Kit Kat girls had never heard a critical drum solo until opening night. Keyboard and percussion coordination failed during the drum solo, and chaos on the line erupted. We also had trouble with singing during the 'Telephone Dance.'
Saturday night: Not too many problems - Diane H. almost toppled off her chair in the opening scene, though.
Sunday afternoon: The flag drop failed. Chris N. was beside himself with frustration. He had perfected the folding of the flag so that it would always fall properly out of its basket, but who knew the rope would occasionally get in the way? (Sporadic failures are always the hardest to catch in any show).

Nevertheless, each show was better than the one before. In addition, the audiences got progressively bigger, and more expressive. Sunday afternoon's show was excellent, and I think we are going to have even more fun as we go along.

Tonight, I'm pretty tired. I'm just idling away right now, but tomorrow may be busier than I expected. There is an active campaign underway in the local amateur musical theater community to flush out dancers for "Victor/Victoria" at Runaway Stage, and I was urged by friends to look into it. I'm skeptical: I mean, I think I'd make a damn funny-looking transvestite, but maybe it's a worthwhile challenge - I know I have a lot yet to learn about theater - costumes, gesture, acting, walking around in heels!

Smackdown - Two Snobby Filipinas Face Off

"A" is an Office Secretary (actually a Substitute Clerk), and "B" is a Visiting Client (actually an idle, wandering employee on break).

(on four previous visits)
A: "Is there something I can do for you?"
B: "I'm just looking!"

(then, on the fifth visit)
B: "Excuse me! Excuse me! Hey, excuse me!"
A: (ignores "B", then finally,) "Yes?"
B: "You're ignoring me! I'm a client here!"
A: "Oh, is that so? On your previous visits to this office, I asked if I could help you, and you said you were just looking."
B: "I don't know how the system works here in the U.S. I'm suffering from a cultural shock."
A: "What are you? What kind of shock are you suffering from? Mental illness?"
B: "I'm a native-born American!"
A: "Congratulations!"
B: "Who is your supervisor?"
A: "Would you like to speak to my supervisor?"

New Hurricane

The new hurricane currently forming in the Bahamas looks like it's headed on a beeline from Havana, Cuba to Vera Cruz, Mexico.

"Cabaret" Premieres Tonight!

Tonight inaugurates DMTC's 21st season, at the Varsity Theater, with yours truly as Waiter/Sailor/Max. Come see us if you can!

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.