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I is for Irene

Yes, that’s 3 hours, 39 minutes of flying time over an 11-hour stretch.

Irene is one of those semi-popular names in the US, 16th most popular among girls’ names at its peak in 1918 and 1919, 684th in 2010.

Irene has also been designated as a possible hurricane name by the World Meteorological Organization. “The Atlantic is assigned six lists of names, with one list used each year. Every sixth year, the first list begins again.” Things before 1978 weren’t quite so neat and tidy, so Irene was eligible to be a hurricane name in 1959, 1963, 1967, and 1971. While Irene was unused in 1987 and in 1993, there were actually hurricanes named Irene in 1981, in 1999, and in 2005.

2011’s Hurricane Irene caused great damage, as you have probably heard. Albany County was among several in upstate New York designated as disaster areas. Our property only lost some tree limbs. But the storm was life-complicating.

As I’ve noted, my wife and daughter traveled down to Charlotte, NC August 24 to visit my sister and niece. One track of Irene would have come quite close to Charlotte, but the storm stayed on the coast, fortunately. Unfortunately, it traveled up the coast, and while it largely spared New York City, it walloped parts of New Jersey, Vermont, and upstate New York.

The problem was that the family was supposed to take the train back from Charlotte to Albany on August 31, but the trip was canceled by Amtrak, likely because of possible damage, or fear of same, to the tracks in New Jersey and elsewhere.

They couldn’t drive back because of washed-out roads. So they got a flight. Or three:
From Charlotte Douglas Intl Airport (CLT)
Departs: 08/31/2011 at 11:40 A.M. To
Baltimore/Washington Intl Thurgood Marshall Apt (BWI)
Arrives: 08/31/2011 at 1:09 P.M.
From BWI
Departs: 08/31/2011 at 4:37 P.M. To
Philadelphia Intl Airport (PHL)
Arrives: 08/31/2011 at 5:26 P.M.
From PHL
Departs: 08/31/2011 at 9:10 P.M. To
Albany Intl Airport (ALB)
Arrives: 08/31/2011 at 10:31 P.M.

Yes, that’s 3 hours, 39 minutes of flying time over an 11-hour stretch. That is what you’re left with – let’s not even talk about the cost – when one books a flight the day before.

Of course, many people had it a WHOLE lot worse! For a mild for instance, my brother-in-law Dan and his family, about an hour south of us in Greene County, NY, lost a bunch of stuff in the basement. Getting around was difficult because the roads were either flooded or washed out altogether; the schools started a week late, as much because of the impassable roads as the damage to the buildings. Those of you who know upstate geography will appreciate this: the fastest way currently to get from Catskill to Oneonta is going through Albany.

I feel a little testy about the notion that NYC overprepared; it was a hurricane, FCOL!

And there will be more storms that travel further north, because of the warmer Atlantic waters.

I wonder if Irene’s name will be retired. “The only time that there is a change is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO…the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.”

Check out some Vermont devastation HERE and HERE and HERE, collected by long-time VT resident, and my buddy, Steve Bissette.

(And I won’t even get into the subsequent destruction of Tropical Storm Lee, which did damage from the Gulf Coast to upstate New York this past week, as this video from Binghamton, NY, my hometown, will attest.)

ABC Wednesday – Round 9

40 Years Ago: First Day of College

That night, I went to my room and cried myself to sleep.

With colleges now starting before Labor Day, I’m fascinated to note that I didn’t begin my college career until September 12, 1971. As noted, I was attending the State University College at New Paltz only before my high school girlfriend was attending there. And well before I got there, but too late to apply anywhere else, she had dumped me for another guy.

So what to make of the place? I’d been there before and had had some affection for it. There were three red-brick dorms at one part of campus. Scudder Hall was where I was assigned, room B-2. My parents and sisters helped me drop off my stuff, which included bedding, a few books (a Bible, Roget’s Thesaurus, Robert’s Rules of Order, a complete Shakespeare among them), my record player, and about 30 LPs (all the Apple label Beatles, The Band’s eponymous second album, Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, Daydream by the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland, The Temptations with a Little Bit O’ Soul, a Mamas and Papas greatest hits album, Aftermath by the Rolling Stones, and a few others).

But my roommate wasn’t there yet. It turned out, when I met him the next day, that Ron was a graduate student. So why on earth would they match him with a freshman? Maybe it was because we were the only two black males in the dorm.

At some point, we were directed across the grass to another red brick dorm, Bliss Hall. I knew Bliss all too well; that’s where I had gotten dumped four months earlier. The food the college was serving was in the basement.

In the line, I met this weird guy who also was assigned to Scudder, Room 110. It turned out that Uthaclena collected comic books. How does a grown person collect comic books? I had given them up years earlier. Of course, he got me into collecting, seriously, for about two decades. He also had a weird habit of squatting off his desk as though he were Peanuts’ Snoopy as a vulture; it was very peculiar.

That night, I went to my room and cried myself to sleep.

The next night, there was a mixer, and Uthaclena introduced me to a friend and classmate of his, originally from Durant, Oklahoma. I started throwing peanuts in her beer; oddly, this was an effective pickup technique. And by the end of the month, the Okie and I were seriously dating.

What have I learned from 9/11?

The blending of Christianity and patriotism, as though they were the very same thing, made/makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I’m not going to get into where I was ten years ago today, mostly because I did that at some point. Rather, I just wanted to muse about stuff.

I’ve still not heard a credible explanation of why WTC 7 fell. One does not need to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder about some things that happened that day.

I remember that playing the “real American” card started very early on after the attacks. There were some guys collecting money for the victims’ families that very week. Well, I didn’t know what organization they were representing. But one guy’s demeanor, in particular, gave me pause. He suggested that not contributing to the cause was tantamount to treason. Maybe those who failed to contribute were unAmerican, even terrorists.

The American Red Cross had initiated blood drives in order to treat the many survivors of the multiple attacks in 2001. Of course, there weren’t that many survivors, but they moved forward anyway. I was scheduled to donate the week following, but they called me to NOT donate. They knew they had a bunch of one-off donors, and they figured I’d come back, but that these folks likely would not. I recall there was some criticism of the organization at the time, especially directed at the director at the time, the late Bernadine Healy. From the Red Cross section on Myths and Legends:
After 9/11, the Red Cross collected so much blood that it had to throw much of it out.
Blood is a perishable commodity, with a shelf life of about 42 days. Typically, between 1 percent and 3 percent of units collected reach their expiration date before they are used. That rate was only slightly higher (5 percent) for blood units collected from people anxious to help after 9/11, including more than a quarter-million people who gave blood for the first time.
In the uncertain days following the terrorist attacks, having a robust supply of blood available seemed prudent. It takes two to three days for blood to be collected, tested, and processed, and only blood already on the shelf can be used in the immediate aftermath of an emergency.

Have I mentioned lately that, purely from an aesthetic point of view, that I really disliked the Twin Towers? Someone said it looked like the boxes the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were wrapped in. As a result, I had irrational guilt over their destruction.

I was surprised/confused/appalled to see how quickly the so-called USA PATRIOT Act was passed, less than two months after 9/11. One might have concluded that such extensive legislation was in the hopper even before 9/11.

As the article in Truthout, “What a Difference a Decade Makes”, points out, surveillance has swelled to the point that all of us are targeted: “Over the decade, the government’s powers of surveillance have expanded dramatically. They are directed not just at people suspected of wrongdoing, but at all of us. Our phone calls, our emails and website visits, our financial records, our travel itineraries and our digital images captured on powerful surveillance cameras are swelling the mountain of data that is being mined for suspicious patterns and associations.”

The blending of Christianity and patriotism, as though they were the very same thing, made/makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I crashed Albany Pro Musica to sing the Mozart Requiem on a very windy 11 September 2002; that was the only day ever that I wore a tuxedo to work. Exactly two weeks later, I began my weekly vigil, with a number of people who had been there weeks and months before, in my opposition to the war in Iraq. What the heck did Iraq have to do with 9/11? Took a bit of grief over that. And it would have been one thing if it were only “regular people” who jumped all over France for failing to support the curiously illogical war in Iraq; it was US Congress that opted for the jingoistic ‘freedom fries’. How embarrassing.

Someone famously wrote that, after 9/11, irony was dead. Not so. One example is some conservative “humor” book with this goody:
Start a rumor:
Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security has decided to revise its color-code warning system.
If a small-scale terrorist attack—fewer than 100 expected dead—is imminent, Ms. Napolitano will describe the situation as “calm”—Color Code: Turquoise
If a larger-scale terrorist attack—in the league of 9/11—is imminent, Ms. Napolitano will describe the situation as “relaxed”—Color Code: Ecru.
If Al Qaeda is about to destroy New York and Los Angeles simultaneously with a selection of strategically positioned nuclear devices, like in 24 only way worse柚s. Napolitano will describe the situation as “vibrant”—Color Code: Taupe.
All of this is intended to show the Muslim world that the Obama administration will not “overreact” to terrorism the way the bad old Bush administration did.

Big yucks. Islamophobia is alive and well. But I think we’re better than that.

Despite it all, I think I need to try to follow the advice of the International Institute For Human Empowerment, a representative of which wrote:

The events of 9/11 crystallized for me, the belief that we must unite as peoples of the United States, and indeed of the world, against those who seek to destroy our freedoms. The beautiful diversity that we share was challenged, making us fearful, and causing us to begin to close our hearts to those whom we might have trusted.

We have a choice. We can be afraid of anyone different from ourselves, look out only for ourselves, and live so that only the fittest survive. We can allow terrorism to win by shutting ourselves down.

Or, we can decide in our hearts and minds that humanity is one family with many beautiful expressions of color, language, and customs. We can say that we will honor all those lost and those who mourn, by declaring that we will unite toward a True Democracy–where all are equal, and all are free!

The choice is one we each will make.
***
The MAD magazine 9/11 cover – the untold story.

If the Election Were Held Tomorrow QUESTION

When do you start seriously paying attention to your national elections? I suppose for me, it’s when the calendar turns to a number divisible by four.

Labor Day of the year BEFORE the election, is the point at which the Presidential campaign is supposed to begin, although we’ve already had one candidate withdraw from the race already (Tim Pawlenty) and others teasing before declining (Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee). Then there are those who someone wants him to run but he said no (Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan) and one who is still teasing about running (the ubiquitous Sarah Palin).

I’m fascinated by this list of Presidential candidates. Randall Terry is running for the Democratic nomination? Really? It’s the first I’ve heard of this.

And why are some Republicans (Herman Cain, Rick Santorum) considered viable enough to appear in the Republican debates, but others (former governor of the swing state of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, pictured) not so? I mean I wouldn’t vote for him, but that’s true of a number of the contenders.

When do you start seriously paying attention to your national elections? I suppose for me, it’s when the calendar turns to a number divisible by four. Do you have a candidate already that you’re supporting? For me, it’s more of a process of elimination: not him, not her; definitely not him. And this reflection from a former GOP operative helps explains why.
***
The primary day in New York State is Tuesday, September 13. As of this writing, I have no idea who’s running for what in my area.

At the Falls!

I find myself in the worst queue I’ve ever been in, worse than the line at JFK customs.

If you do Niagara Falls, you HAVE to do the Maid of the Mist. I think it’s the law; maybe it’s in the Constitution. Or perhaps le Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen.

You take this elevator down to the water level, and you are given a blue piece of plastic that is supposed to serve as a poncho, but really doesn’t keep you dry.

The three of us were on the top deck of the boat. Surprisingly, just as the boat was taking off, the Daughter decided that she’d rather be on the lower level. Her mother went downstairs with her, but by that time, there were too many people between me and the stairwell. So I didn’t get to see her reaction to getting closer to the Falls. But she said she was thrilled.

It was all very exciting.
But after we get off, the line back to the elevator simply is not moving. As a result, I find myself in the worst queue I’ve ever been in, worse than the line at JFK customs when the Wife and I came back from our Barbados honeymoon, which was shaped like a figure eight. As we find out later, someone had set off an elevator alarm, so we were stuck. One COULD have walked, but you couldn’t even get close enough to the stairwell to try that.

Finally, after nearly an hour, we got back to the top. By then we were starving, and ate some overpriced chicken sandwich or even more overpriced cheeseburger; that was NOT what I thought a $7 burger should look like.

Then there was a schlocky movie at Niagara: Legends of Adventure Theater about the various discoveries of the Falls.

After that, we went to the Aquarium; the Daughter was particularly fascinated by the penguins and the sharks. Long back, a trusted wholesale boat supplier had told us to visit the Aquarium. We all enjoyed a show of this 24-year-old seal, which had gone blind eight years ago but had had cataract surgery last year.

We took the bus back to the hotel; the Daughter fell asleep. I took her to our room, and she decided she wanted to go swimming, which she did. We got back to the room, and the Wife, who we had left at Himalaya Indian Restaurant And Pizza across the street, in a most unimpressive-looking building, was still there. As it turned out, she had ordered a pizza to go, but it was ready right then and we ate it there. It was the BEST PIZZA I HAVE EVER EATEN.

The next day, we drove to the Falls. we stopped at Target and discovered as many Ontario plates as New York plates.

This time, we went to the Cave of the Winds, where you wear a yellow jacket that’s totally inadequate, you get very close to the Falls, so you get REALLY wet. Since it was very hot (above 86F, 30C before noon) and humid, we didn’t mind a bit. Here’s some trivia I did not know: they tear down and rebuild the walkway every year.

Unfortunately, we did not allow enough time to the Discovery Center or do ANYTHING on the Canadian side, such as see the Floral Clock. Maybe next time. On to Toronto.

All photos C 2011 by Lydia Green