Wednesday, March 12, 2003

It is very scary right now. It's hard to fathom but the wind is significantly worse than this morning. It's blowing a steady 40 mph to 50 mph with gusts up to 80 mph. We lost a large white spruce tree this afternoon - it just "timbered" down. Poor Clem is very reluctant to go outside to do her "doggly duties." I can't blame her for that. As I type, the house that stood solidly during the 7.9 November earthquake is really creaking and moving and howling and screaming Actually, I think this is all my fault. Three weeks ago, I was trying to imagine how a winter could be worse than the one we'd had up to that point. Pouring rain, ice, all the snow melted, muck, etc. After much thought, I decided the only possible way a winter could be worse is to have a cold windy winter with no snow. Well guess what? It's now 5 degrees, there's absolutely no snow, the wind is blowing a steady 40 mph, the atmosphere is the equivalent of an Iraqi sandstorm and the Weather Service posted an extreme fire danger warning. All in early March! Hmmmmm... I wonder if I should hire out. Ooops - the lights just flickered. I think I'll post now and shut down. A power outage would be the icing on the cake. 9:25:13 PM    comment []

Mom has discovered a truly excellent and topical blog: Where's Raed?, an Iraqi blog. It is well written and offers a rare, apparently unfiltered view, into Iraqi daily life. I think it is critically important to see the human side of this whole mess. Here's an excerpt from this post (which happens to be a guest post): Salam, you've reminded me that we have to get to duct-taping the windows (did you use an 'X' pattern or the traditional '*'?). [Salam: the * star is good but with particularly big windows I have been using a plus and Xs in each quadrant].We've all been talking about the war, discussing the possibilities, implications, etc. but it really hit me yesterday when I got home and 'lo and behold! There were no pictures or paintings on the walls! So I asked, stupidly, "Where are all the pictures?" I was told that they've been 'put away' because who knew what might come tumbling down if a bomb fell particularly close... I then pointed to a funky black steel chandelier that no one seems to pay any attention to and reminded them that it should be a more immediate worry, not the pictures... It is beginning to look like a Gothic death trap. I have visions of it coming down on my head... 5:50:29 PM    comment []

Bush vs. Bush Very interesting article on Salon. It analyzes W's movement away from his Father's foreign policy philosophy. And evidently, now, there is a strong difference of opinion: But if Bush today sounds very little like his father, the ghost of his father's presidency lingers -- and his father remains very much alive. On Feb. 26, the elder Bush was the speaker at Tufts University's esteemed Issam M. Fares Lecture, where he discussed the Iraq situation during his presidency. In doing so, he illustrated that the priorities that mattered to him are, shall we say, a tad less important to his son, including maintaining an international coalition behind a move against a sovereign country. Whether they're over the importance of international coalition building, the wisdom of sending American soldiers to control the inevitable postwar chaos, relations with Israel, or even the peace efforts of the Democrat whose presidency interrupted the Bush family reign, the disagreements between father and son are stark and paint a clear picture of two competing schools of conservative thought, ones that have been scrambling for the upper hand for generations. In any other family, the differences might result in Thanksgiving table arguments. In la famille Bush, however, they're a matter of life and death. The entire article is rather lengthy, but well worth the read. You can view it for free if you select the "view a 15 second ad first" option. 5:39:00 PM    comment []

The wind is howling this morning and we are again in the midst of a hideous dust bowl. I expect to see either Dorothy and Toto or Tom Joad blow by at any moment. Check out the clip to the left of this morning's poor Weather Pixie - she is obscured by dust. 7:37:08 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Stephanie A. Kesler. Last update: 4/1/2003; 9:07:15 PM.