WRAPPING UP NOVEMBER
I didn’t take all the hype about the world ending in 2012 seriously. Then I heard that Sarah Palin might run for President.
For those who think nothing important ever changes, there’s an effort underway to designate a new type of cloud, or rather clouds, since the pattern involves a substantial part of the sky: asperatus clouds. The debate over whether to add the first cloud name in 50 years will take place next year at the annual meeting of the World Meteorological Society; Britain’s Royal Meteorological Society is apparently helping the UK-based Cloud Appreciation Society to make the case.
To quote the Cloud Appreciation Society, where the idea for the name originated, “Asperatus means 'roughened' in Latin, which seemed appropriate since it looks to us like a choppy sea.” That’s putting it mildly: asperatus clouds at their orneriest are roiled and twisted beyond any storm clouds seen hereabouts. If people New England saw this sort of sky, some of them would probably think end times had come. Remember, it isn’t global warming, exactly, it’s excessive energy being put into a system.
Here’s a link to the first of three pages of the evil-looking things, contributed by my fellow members of the CAS. I’ll take the liberty of copying one New Zealand sunset that a couple got to see on their honeymoon.
<http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/gallery/index.php?x=browse&category=
52&pagenum=1>
Did you hear that dogs will soon have a program of their own on National Public Radio stations? It will be called “Wait, Wait, Don’t Smell Me.”
Today there was a report that many well-known wines are industrially produced rather than being made and cellared at the vineyards where the labels had their origin. Terroirists. The story had a distinct nuttiness, with notes of shock and overtones of hysteria.
They say that November is the best time to buy a house in Vermont, using roughly the same tone as the Souix who would go into battle saying, “It is a good day to die.”
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