(no subject)

[camwyn]

So.

Nobody, it seems, could restrain themselves from punning on the Beatles song about Rita the meter maid when they wrote about the hurricane. Even the local free paper referred to her as 'Ugly Rita'.

And now the bitch is up to a Category 4.

WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU PEOPLE ABOUT MAKING FUN OF HURRICANE NAMES???

*pant pant pant*

I'm sorry. I can't help it. After reading about the history of killer storms in the United States- and yes, I know what happened in the Northeast today in 1938- the prospect of anything cyclonic coming back to Galveston, of all places... New Orleans is in danger, yes, but the storm that struck Galveston long ago was also the stuff of nightmares.

Comments

[vaspider]

Oh good lord.

It's a good thing global warming isn't real, or I'd be really worried about the effect it might have on our lives.

[camwyn]

I'm going to be watching Rita with the sort of horror I normally reserve for announcements of pneumonic plague outbreaks at a Rutgers football game, but at the same time, part of me is wondering whether the religious types who had been wanting to claim Katrina was some kind of divine punishment are going to be able to explain away Rita heading for Bush territory.

And yes, I know that 'Pat Robertson tied Katrina's target to Ellen Degeneres' is nothing but a parody of a very, very rotten man's previous statements. I'm just sayin'.

[vaspider]

I'm sure -- sick and sad as it is -- thay they'll find a way.

What scares me more than anything is the way that the neocons are using this to their own scary agenda. It is horrifying enough that people die -- and are going to die -- from these hurricanes, but then the Davis-Bacon act getting repealed in its aftermath for LA contractors and the like, and now there are two TX congresspersons who want to repeal the federal law that requires homeless or displaced children not to be separated from their classmates or stigmatized in any way but instead educated in the same classrooms by the same teachers.

Without going too far off the edge -- and sometimes I think that's not possible with this group -- I think it's pretty safe to say we're heading very far into wingnut territory, and what scares and disgusts me more than the whole fucked-up response initially to NOLA is the idea that this is being capitalized upon for even scarier shit down the road.

[hangingfire.livejournal.com]

Galveston is in much better shape than it was 105 years ago, what with the seawall and all that, but even so, it won't be pretty if it gets a direct hit. One of my coworkers, who lives there, is evacuating ASAP.

Normally I wouldn't be too fussed about Austin, but if Rita stays at Cat4 and goes where they think it is, we're going to get an awful lot of rain and wind here. While we sure could use some rain, this is not exactly what I had in mind.

[camwyn]

No, I would imagine not. Rather like when Floyd refilled New Jersey's reservoirs in 1999.... while basically destroying Bound Brook and Manville. Uh, thanks, big guy, but.

[moiety-tx.livejournal.com]

Especially not with the ACL festival this weekend. Though I guess I'm pleased I didn't buy tickets after all...

Here I'd just been making internal margarita jokes about this new hurricane.

[hangingfire.livejournal.com]

We didn't get ACL tickets either ... just as well, as you say, I suppose.

I guess a Texas Hurricane would use tequila instead of rum (http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink529.html).

[kaikias.livejournal.com]

aerden is way ahead of you on that one (http://www.livejournal.com/users/aerden/199087.html?nc=13).

[hangingfire.livejournal.com]

I figured someone had to be. :)

[little-birdy.livejournal.com]

Dammit, what is WITH hurricane season this year? Here in VA we've hardly seen the effects of any of them...we usually get some tropical storm mess after the hurricanes are done pounding the Carolinas, but the Carolinas have gotten off easy so far, knock on wood. Weird. I almost feel guilty for our gorgeous, balmy weather.

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the Galveston Storm of 1900, which inspired the song Wasn't That A Mighty Storm ("It was!", as James Taylor said). Mock weather like that at the peril of becoming an ironic footnote in history books.

Time to suck up (pun not intended), maybe? If the Greeks could call the Furies the Kindly Ones...

[camwyn]

That'd be the one I was thinking of, yep. You do not fsck around with any hurricane, but given the area's history... I know they're better prepared now. But put 'Galveston' and 'hurricane' in the same sentence and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

[silveraspen]

Just. Dear Heaven. No.

*goes off to plead with the universe*

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

It's my fault. Because, see, Rita is also the name of my least favorite aunt. (My Aunt Mary, who provided my middle name, is technically my mother's cousin, but was closer to my mother than Rita, her actual sister, ever was.) So every time I see a headline like "Rita Frightens People," or whatever, I've been thinking, "How appropriate."

[camwyn]

Reminds me of the rumour I read once- that in an effort to select ethnically common names from the areas in which hurricanes often erupt, two male names were dropped from the list of possibles because of how people would react to them. Namely, Israel and Jesus.

"JESUS MAKES LANDFALL, THOUSANDS HOMELESS" etc.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Not a rumour - this was about 5-8 years ago, Israel was on the list, and there was widespread protest among Jews, who were afraid that if a storm with that name were to do damage it could provoke antisemitism. I don't remember whether the campaign to remove it was successful, though.

[camwyn]

It was. I"m looking at the list at NOAA's website and the six I hurricane names for the Atlantic are Irene, Isaac, Ingrid, Ike, Ida, and Igor. Eastern North Pacific's I names are Irwin, Ileana, Ivo, Iselle, Ignacio, and Isis. Central North Pacific has Io, Iolana, Ioke, and Iune. Australia and Fiji have different lists, and the rest of the Pacific is pretty much covered by countries that don't use human names for their storms.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml has the rest of the lists.

[ymfaery]

No one's made any Power Ranger jokes yet?

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

CLEARLY, it is past time to begin naming weather patterns only after royalty or revered heroes! (preferably heroes or dead royalty no one draws satirical political cartoons of)

[camwyn]

Actually, what we really need is to do like a lot of the Asian countries do, and use names taken from geographic features or cultural elements, rather than people.

[lasa.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's a bit odd that hurricanes are the only storms that are named. Blizzards? Tornados? Why only hurricanes?

[camwyn]

Basically, because they're the only ones that are big enough to turn up on maps. Originally weather services would refer to 'the storm at such-and-such latitude, such-and-such longitude'. Weather forecasters found that it was easier to convey what storm they were talking about by saying 'the storm at these coordinates is Hurricane Whatever' and referring to it from then on by its name.

Here, from the Feds:

Experience shows that the use of short, distintive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitute identification methods. These advantages are specially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundres widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

The use of easily remembered names greatly reduces confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time. For example, one hurricane can be moving slowly westward in the Gulf of Mexico , while at exactly the same time anothe hurricane can be moving rapidly Northward along the Atlantic coast. In the past, confusion and false rumors have arisen when storm advisories broadcast from radio statio were mistaken for warning concerning an entirely different storm located hundreds of miles away.

[lasa.livejournal.com]

This makes sense - as there probably isn't more than one major blizzard at any given time, and tornados don't show on maps. Thanks!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*laugh* You realise, though, that from the animistic perspective, personifying anything that big is only Right and Proper? Because whoa, anything that big really does have a name, a will, an intent, and while you can make arguments as to whether it's inimical or not, it's certainly alien.

From the specifically heathen perspective, Rita is a Jotynja -- a giantess -- with valkyries waiting under her wings to choose the slain...

-- Lorrie, who never said it was pretty, only that it made sense. In her world.