People on a Front Porch in the Old Days,
When They did not Curse and Malign -
a Long Time Ago
What is important is the amount of snowfall up north in the Lake Superior drainage basin. As the snow gradually melts over April;, May, and June, it builds up the reservoir of water in Lake Superior - the greatest amount being added as we approach summer and the temperatures up there rise.
It all works like an enormous dam: the Lake Superior Dam, accumulating water and releasing it slower than would happen if there were no snowfall, rather rain storms. These would immediately dump water and that water would immediately head downstream, more of a flood than a gradual release.
In fact, that's what happened in the winter of 2009-2010; the temperatures were warmer than normal and a good deal of the precip up north was in the form of rain rather than snow; the rain just washes downstream when it falls in the winter, with no snow build up of water reserves. So the St.Clair River is lower even than it was last year, after a couple of years of rising levels.
OK. The point of this is that glaciers are retreating. Particularly glaciers in the Himalayas, as noted by the BBC this morning.
Glaciers are water dams; they store water and gradually release it, and as it flows, it creates rivers. Specifically I can think of the Mekong River - called Lanang in China ( I think !) - which rises in the Himalayas and flows thousands of miles down to the delta where Saigon used to be.
No water dams, no reserves of water. Rainfall will still occur, but the rivers of the world will tend to resemble great wadis, seasonal rivers and creeks, which will flow when it rains, but dry up when there is no rain, having no glacial melt in reserve to keep up the flow.
This will be a problem that becomes clearer to us very soon.
Now late Sunday, my parents' idiot financial advisor, Mark, came to visit. His idea of financial advice is to plunk his ass in a chair on the front porch and proceed to talk about his family, his church - where he is a deacon - parish gossip, politics... what's wrong with Blacks, the good thing about Obama is that there'll never, ever be another Black President, banks can't loan money ( for the past 2 years ) 'cause they don't know how the new financial regulations will work out ( just passed into law! ), and on and on... the economy is tough, that's why some of the inappropriate investments he had them in are touchy still... he has an answer for everything; pretty much the same answers he had back in 2007 and early 2008; he is seemingly unaware how they actually worked out.
You can feel him straining to use the N-word a couple times; N's are going to riot again; it'll be just like the Sixties and that fool MLK.
I remained listening in the front room, monitoring his chatter to pick up on any suggestion of his that my parents hand over any money to him, but my wife went in and told him that he was the biggest hypocrite she'd ever seen: standing up on the altar Sunday morning, then coming around spewing his vile hate.
He was unused to people not joining into his buffet of crap, so he sat goggle-eyed. muttering that he didn't think it "wuz" hate, and mumble, bumble, stumble.
I went out front soon to clean the canoe. He waved towards my general area, so I held up my arm with the middle finger straight up. But that was nothing. My wife was the heroine. I am so proud of her... and I am so devastated by this side of my parents which has been developing as they age: to allow the right-wing hate speech to be uttered in front of them.
When I was young, they may not have agreed with Democrats and Liberals, but they never uttered the type of crap which has now become normal for them and much of the country.
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7 comments:
I shouldn't say I loved this, because that sends a weird message. But I did, love it.
I loved your wife, and your middle finger. I hated that idiot Mark. I felt for your parents who, like my in-laws, border on the brink of N-word toleration. I love my parents (I am not rejoicing that they are somehow different than yours, please don't hear that) for being a Baptist preacher and an equally zealous preacher's wife, who somehow, god-only-knows-how, managed to look at every issue with an open mind. They voted Democrat in every election that I can remember, and when I came home from school once and asked Mom about abortion, she said something like . . . Well, I don't like it, but I don't think it should be a constitutional issue. This is not a Theocracy. Heaven bless them. And your parents, and everyone who tries to be Christian in such a climate of extremist hate.
I was thinking of toning it down... but people who talk like that should be held to account...
If others in the family read this and are hurt, my parents will have to explain their behavior to them.
However, there is a chance they will just drive people further away from them.
Oh, my friend, do not even consider toning such truth down! People like this deserve to be exposed for exactly what they are: representatives of the hate-mongers that, as you note, seem to populate our land rather fulsomely. And the good "Christian" people who wouldn't miss church on a bet, but who despise their fellow human beings because they are different.
Bravo to both you and your wife.
By the way, I gave up discussing politics with my mom and dad (who died in 2005) many eons ago. They were daily listeners to Rush Limbaugh and hung on his every word. They would not miss church on Sunday either.
... the influence of the Slave Trade and the days of Slavery still continues throughout our country. It has transformed itself somewhat, but is still based on fear and hatred...
That is the inheritance of Slave Empires.
It's a novel juxtaposition you make with the slave trade, but certainly an apt one. But let's not forget that the vast majority of people in this country think slavery is something that happened almost 150 years ago, and it certainly has no effect on anything right now.
I was certainly one of those who thought pretty much that slavery was what happened 150 years ago.
I did not have much of a concept for what the present situation was...
It's only recently I've come to understand how desperate Evil is to continue its life, and how it changes itself to be able to continue itself.
Some of the stories of the inhumanity of slavery are worse than any anti-human trash ever committed to the screen today.
The absolute FURY of John Brown is minute, is minuscule, is vanishingly small compared to the horrors committed in the name of the an economy run on slavery.
If there is any karma, we are not in a good place.
And we wonder why there's a persistent, aching, corrosive racial problem in this country.
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