Weathering the weather

[Zan_of_Texas]

I know we had tornadoes in Tennessee. Lucycat? Everything still ok? (Except for your ignorant TN politician, who clearly is confusing weather and religion.)

And, our regular Pub and all are down.

Until they are up again, any TAPA friends who want to post here in the outback, have at it.

Are we having fun yet with Tom DeLay's imminent exit?

Will Pitt wrote of DeLay:

This is the man who once said, in a debate about the minimum wage, "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist."

This is the man who once said, in a speech to bankers delivered eight days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes."

This is the man who once said, to a government employee who was trying to stop him from smoking on government property, "I am the federal government."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040406A.shtml

[Lucycat9]

1. That was some crazy weather!

Hi, Zan! Thanks for suggesting this. I get so frustrated not being able to talk to our friends at TAPA. Phooey.

That was one of the worst tornado outbreaks I've seen. Though we were often under tornado warnings, the rough weather went around us (though the light show was really something!) The 24 lives lost in west Tennessee was the biggest loss of life to tornados in something like 50 years.

As for "Except for your ignorant TN politician, who clearly is confusing weather and religion." - guess I missed something. Which one might you be referring to? There are so many! :-)

[Zan_of_Texas]

2. Wow. Your very first post! Welcome!

It's not often I get to see someone's first post.

As for your politician, that would be your governor.

Not sure why he thinks you guys incurred the "wrath of God."

???

Guilty conscience????? Don't know anything 'bout him.


Tennessee governor says storm damage appears "the wrath of God"

KGET, Channel 17
April 4, 2006
http://www.kget.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=63EEF44D-6B97-4956-A036-A5383C892E68

NEWBERN, Tenn. (AP) - Governor Phil Bredesen says he can only describe the storm damage as "the wrath of God."

He's been visiting the area of his state that lost a-thousand homes -- and 24 lives -- to tornadoes on Sunday. The governor says he's seen many tornado-damaged houses, but this time, the storms "really stripped the earth clean." He toured the damaged area by helicopter.

Tennessee emergency crews are still looking for possible victims, but no one else is known to be missing. One survivor says minutes hiding in the closet with his mother seemed a lifetime. Joshua Medley says "the house was spinning." A tornado lifted the home and moved it twelve feet from its foundation.

The storms destroyed homes and buildings in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas. A total of 28 deaths are blamed on the storms. Dozens more are injured.

[Lucycat9]

3. Bredesen said that?

I'm surprised that Bredesen would say that - he must have been speaking metaphorically. He's a Democrat and I was greatly relieved when he beat his opponent in the election that put him in office. That guy was your typical raving fundie. Bredesen is a sensible guy (who happens to have grown up in New York.)

I have looked at the aftermath of a tornado (one destroyed much of a historic district and the office where I worked at the time) in 1999. It was awe-inspiring and pretty much beyond description. That tornado was not in the same class as the recent one in west Tennessee. I'm guessing Gov. Bredesen was at a loss for words.

I was expecting you to say it was Sen. Frist or Alexander or any number of other Tennessee Republicans, who would possibly have meant it the way I think you heard it (or were appealing to their Christianist base.)

[Zan_of_Texas]

4. Well, like I said, I don't know him.

At least he didn't blame the bad weather on any local gay couples.

That happened to two gay men I knew slightly, years ago -- I think it was in Georgia where they lived. Some terrible weather came through there, and the resident goofball politician said it was the wrath of god punishing the community for allowing these guys to be there.

I just don't get into that whole God as Punisher thingee.

Hurricanes and tornadoes CAN certainly be awesome though.

Glad your place came out fine.

[Lucycat9]

5. I hear you.

Please rest assured that Gov. Bredesen is not like that. Whew! Tennessee is a politically divided state. Nashville and the Memphis area are (lasted I checked) solidly Democratic. East Tennessee is very Republican, and I guess the rural areas are generally pretty Republican too, with strong fundamentalist currents, alas. We have a Democratic governor, and two Republican senators. In the 2000 presidential election it was even close enough that some people questioned the results - there may have been shenanigans. Well, in fact there were, some very similar to what happened in Ohio in 2004. But I don't know much. I mainly just hide out in the woods and watch birds and national politics through the internet.

[Zan_of_Texas]

6. Any bluebird action today?

[Lucycat9]

7. Nope.

I left Mrs. Bluebird alone with her eggs today. Went to town and got my hair cut. That might not sound like anything noteworthy, but actually it's something I haven't done for something like 10 years. I cut it myself. But it seems I've lost the knack and the last two times I really botched it. So I decided to treat myself to a real haircut. It was really cool. The woman who cut my hair turned out to be someone who lives in the small "town" I live near. She told me all these neat stories about going deer hunting with her husband. I like to hunt deer with the camera, and so it was a good exercise in open-mindedness for me. You know, because I luv deer. But I am also aware that since we humans have wiped out all the large predators, deer populations can explode dangerously. Very interesting...

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Zan_of_Texas]

8. Wow. That's major!

Did she do a good job?

I've wondered how it would be to get a haircut.

By someone other than me.

My last one was over 30 years ago. (I didn't like the way that one came out!)

[Name removed]

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[Zan_of_Texas]

12. See ya back at the ranch!

[rhite5]

14. Rosemary checking in.

I know you've all gone home by now, so just checking in .....

Good idea to have an emergency neutral meeting ground that most of us know how to find. Thx for setting this up and getting the email out, Zan. The other day when WX was down for two days in a row, I left a note at DwS which I had not been to in 6-8 months, but no other Tappans were around. Later I discovered I was using an older WX link to "my groups" which came from a different server (Wc5) instead of our current server (Wc1). By chance, Wc5 stayed down much longer than Wc1, so I was lamenting long after others could get into TAPA. <sigh> Live and Learn!

About Hurricanes: I know nothing. Never been around a hurricane-prone area. In fact I think of "houses being picked up and spun around" as fantasy in a fairy tale (Dorothy and Toto in Kansas). Just can't relate. Glad your property was spared, Lucycat.

About deer-hunting: I come from a family of deer-hunters (on one side of the family at least). There IS a strong tradition of "providing for the family" that continues to prevail. It was terribly important during Depression Years, and I had an uncle who ALWAYS came to visit in all the years after that with several packages of frozen venison or home-canned salmon and "jerky" (dried venison). He was an excellent tracker and a suburb shot (and a poacher, when necessity dictated).

My grandfather taught me how to handle a rifle when I was very young and we did target practicing, but hunting never had any appeal to me. When I was first married (more than 50 years ago) my husband once brought home a hind-quarter from a hunting trip. One of my grandmothers came over and helped me butcher it and taught me how to prepare venison and gravy and we canned it in pint jars. That was something my mother had never done, that I know of. I'm not sure myself if I still remember how.

Oh, one more bit of hunting trivia .... in the West, adult male deer are referred to as a "four-point" or a "three-point" or a "forked horn" and there is no such thing as an "8-point". The reason is that in the West, we only count the points on the long side -- so an Eastern "8-point" would be called a "four-point" if that makes sense. A "five-point" is very very rare.

Afraid that's all I can contribute today. I am feeling lousy and just can't take the overwhelming overabundance of terrible news everywhere I look now on the web.

[Name removed]

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[rhite5]

18. Well, I have not really gotten away yet.....

I went over to DwS and found that Mark and David Campo and Phyl and of course, DH, were there posting in the TAPA "Downtown Pub."

I posted the link to this thread, BUT I forgot the specific small forum title, and my link may be specific to ME and not usable by others, so they may not find their way here. I should go back and fill in the blanks!

Also thanks for catching my apparent merging of "Cyclones" with "Tornadoes"!!! I think I know the difference, but I sure got my wires crossed on that one. Must train my mind to associate Dorothy and Toto with "Cyclone". We are not on the Gulf Coast any more - to paraphrase Dorothy.

As to the other terminology question about how many points a deer has.... It really is a regional thing. Your hairdresser is calling it by the name she knows. It would definitely not be a case of her not knowing the proper term. Kids in hunting families learn these terminologies many years before they ever go on a hunting trip themselves. Whatever you learn early stays with you and is what is accurate for where you live.

[noel adamson]

13. Tom DeLay's ascension

Hi all. I tried visit TAPA just now with no luck, ("cannot find server") and wanted to stop by to apologize for not stopping by. I have been pretty busy on the local scene and am happy to shamelessly brag about our anti-war march on the 18th of March which was (almost certainly) the largest per capita in the U.S.

As poor persecuted-for-his-purity-and-other-Godly-qualities Tom Delay ascends to the right hand of God the Father the real culprit will certainly feel the wrath of a vengeful Deity. Cynthia McKinney who ruthlessly brutalized a poor and no doubt Godly capitol police officer. We have been seeing a stark increase in SLAPPs and malicious criminal litigation here too. They seem to like to target the most innocent and defenseless people. Young women in particular. They do this because they are simply criminals. I went to the court house a couple of months to the arraignment of several critical mass bike riders accused of a small array of transgressions including one Katheryn Zimmerman who was accused of injuring a California Highway Patrol officer so severely he had to have operations that have forced them to postpone the trial for 8 weeks while he recuperates. I was shocked when I saw who Katheryn was or rather that she is a very slender 90 pound woman. Friends who were there said this guy blundered into her and fell on her. Her room mate said she had many bruises when she returned home. Sorry to ramble and rant after so long an absence. I can't make up for all that time in a single breath... More on the last at

Humboldt Revolution and more on the peace march (and our ambassador to Washington program) at Communities For Peace both of which I am the web monkey for. I uploaded my home video of the march there too. We had 4,000 or more people and Alexander Cockburn was our main speaker.

I have noticed a lot of problems with web servers and other internet functions and hope I am imagining that they seem to be almost all "liberal", AKA truthful, sites. I just received email from Tom Feely at Information Clearing House that his server is down until the 6th...

[rhite5]

15. Hi Noel! I heard about the turnout for your town's Anti-war March!

Good to see you. I checked your web page a week or so ago and got a feel for what all you are doing. Busy! Good stuff. I'm hoping this means the problems you have been facing are pretty much behind you. Take care. Don't be a stranger at TAPA!

[Name removed]

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[newyawker99]

19. Hi noel adamson!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[rhite5]

20. Rosemary Here

Thought I would just check in, just in case others might be here.

I can't get in to WC at all today. I assume that's true for everyone, not just me.

(edit) Just noticed all the messages here "deleted by the administrator" ..... wonder what that's all about?