Paul's Down-Home Page

On the way back from Michigan yesterday, I read the Detroit News/Free Press. This was, to put it mildly, a little disconcerting– I’m not used to seeing so many mentions of union this and union that, coming as I do from the right-to-work South. Anyway, it wasn’t a bad newspaper, but there was one thing I found noteworthy: there were four or five columns (and a couple of scathing letters to the editor) about the whole “What would Jesus drive?” question. Apparently the Interfaith Council folks drove to GM headquarters in hybrid cars and staged a peaceful demonstration, and that doesn’t sit well with lots of folks in Motown.
My favorite was this article, titled “Religion has little, if any, place in market for automobiles”. The author claims that these churches should start with their own parishoners first, although he grudgingly acknowledges that “Christian and Jewish leaders are welcome to raise any public policy question they like, including whether sport-utes are chariots of the devil.” Say, thanks! I’m glad we have your permission. His major point– that higher gas taxes and wider deployment of clean-diesel engines will do more than picketing GM– is certainly true, and I’d welcome both of those measures to boot.
This article (with its claim that “government regulations [are]making it so difficult to find the capital need to exploit new – and risky — inventions”) is good too– if you need a laugh, that is.

I’m on several mailing lists for computer book authors. Exchanges like this one are not uncommon; fortunately, I didn’t have a diet Coke in hand or I would probably have sprayed it all over my monitor.
One person wrote:

I guess this all begs the question – do we need a 12 step program? How to get away from the addiction? Is there some equivalent to methadone for the high we get after writing the 70th page of the week?

To which the immediate response was:

You get HIGH? I’m writing the wrong stuff. I get nauseated.

Heh.

About 4:45, we were all minding our own business when the local tornado sirens started blowing. This seemed odd, since our weather radio hadn’t gone off (turns out it was unplugged; oops!) We turned on the TV to find that the NWS geniuses had called away a tornado warning for Wood County until 7:05pm– about two hours longer than a typical warning. Of the five local stations, none of them were doing a good, Huntsville-quality job of coverage. The WB and UPN affiliates were continuing their normal programming; NBC had their weatherman on a phone link (with a static mugshot– gee, that tells me a lot about the weather); CBS and ABC both had their radars on line. However, the storm was well to the south and east of us. Wood County covers 617 square miles, so I guess I can understand firing a warning when there’s no storm activity near the northern third, but it was still kinda funny to contrast the high-coverage (and generally well-done) tornado coverage in Huntsville to what passes for TV weather here in Toledoland. One common thread: they both lie like dogs about snow.
Update: I was flat-out wrong. Turns out that the storm system we were being warned about was deadly. I still like what Ambrose Bierce said about weather forecasters, though:

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be —
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.
While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incadescent youth,
From the coals that he’d preferred to the advantages of truth.
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote —
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
“Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.”

In Huntsville, Veterans’ Day is a big deal: there’s a parade downtown, schools are out, banks close– the whole nine yards. Here in Ohio, the holiday seems to be largely unobserved. Toledo’s having a parade (its first in 10 years), but that appears to be the extent of local observence. I think that’s pretty doggone sorry. The Perrysburg schools observe a total of 6 holidays: Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents’ Day, and Memorial Day. That seems pretty stingy by school standards, at least from what I remember back in the day. Maybe we can trade Presidents’ Day for Veterans’ Day. Why, I’m gonna write a letter….
In the meantime, drop by the DAV and give them some money. They, and the veterans they serve, can use it, and you can specify that you don’t want them to send you any crap, err, gifts.