The Derecho

Article in the Washington Post about the derecho that hit on Friday, June 29, 2012; YouTube video of the radar loops; the Wikipedia entry; a tree at the corner of Crofton Parkway and Lang Drive, Crofton, Maryland:

St. Mary's in Joplin, Missouri

“The neighborhood around St. Mary’s was scoured clean,” said Bishop James Johnston of Springfield-Cape Girardeau. Bishop Johnston was preparing to travel to Joplin today with the director of Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri. “Our biggest challenge will be addressing the needs of the grade school, which was just flattened, and pastoral care for families in the parish.”
All that remained of the church were some walls and a large cross.

Read more at http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/a-town-devestated/
and http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1102027.htm

The Challenger Accident Weather

Weather's Role in the Challenger Accident, by Andy Cox, Space Weather Correspondent, The Weather Channel, goes beyond the cold that froze the O-rings.

The Deadly Choices at Memorial

New York Times article by Sheri Fink on how patients were killed at a beleaguered New Orleans hospital.

The (lack of) news from Nashville

In case you missed it, Nashville experienced a tremendously damaging and deadly flood (the same weekend as the Gulf oil spill and the Times Square attack). I have heard on the country music stations of some country music stars donating money and organizing benefit concerts but read little about it in the paper. Getreligion.org addresses the issue in an article about the lack of media coverage.

Photos of the Blizzard

Dreaming of a white Christmas

After the Blizzard of 2009, we won't be merely dreaming of a white Christmas. We had 17 inches of snow and expect that it will still be here on Christmas.

North Dakota?!

The Onion has a short piece on how this week's flood has brought North Dakota into the spotlight.

It's not easy being green

Today's Washington Post has two different views of the increasing importance of being "green": George Will's column on Dark Green Doomsayers discusses the exaggerations of those who predict an environmental catastrophe, while Can One Household Save the Planet? by Liza Mundy, describes one family's struggles to be green.

Snow day

Yesterday we had some nice snow. It started in the late morning with big wet flakes and then turned to rain, with some sleet in there for awhile. Some of the schools let out early, including Colleen's, so she had time to build this nice snowman. I had to clear about an inch or two of snow off the car when I left work. The drive home was slow but not dangerous.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope that you get to enjoy your favorite Thanksgiving Day traditions: going to church to get food blessed, watching the Macy's parade from New York, listening to Alice's Restaurant, cooking something good for dinner, enjoying turkey and stuffing and potatoes, watching the Lions lose and the Cowboys win, playing some football in the backyard, whatever makes this day special.

We had a nice Thanksgiving Eve yesterday - we went with Jill and Dan and their kids to Annapolis to visit the U.S. Naval Academy and the Maryland State House. The weather was sunny and warm - it hit a record 73 at BWI airport. The only negative was we discovered that the City Dock location of the Fractured Prune Donut Shoppe is no longer there.

For many other things we have great reason to give thanks. God has blessed us with a wonderful family, great friends, terrific neighbors, and good health. We are very fortunate to live where we do and to have the opportunities that we have. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone this day.

Rain and Victor Hugo

Rain is falling steadily outside. After thirty-something days without rain, we are getting our fair share this week. Weather.com reports only 0.01 inches yesterday, but we'll get much more than that today, with a forecast of over an inch in the next day and a half.

It is a pleasant-sounding rain, if that makes any sense, with no thunder or wind, just rain. It almost sounds like a creek in the North Carolina mountains, though the intensity does sometimes slightly increase, unlike the unvarying music of a creek. A good rain for taking a nap.

The rain did slow traffic this evening on my way home (along with an accident on MD 450 just outside Bowie), so I made it to the end of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame before I made it home. It is an extremely good novel, though quite sad. The flaws of the characters (including those with power and education) lead to ruin, though there are also figures of innocence and of virtue. Quasimodo is an especially good man, who exemplifies the incredible difference between outer beauty and inner goodness. Especially inspiring is Hugo's description of Quasimodo's care for the innocent outcast Esmerelda, who will not return his love and who is indeed afraid of him and his misshapen body.

Otherwise, the novel is an excellent introduction to fifteenth-century Paris and its inhabitants, in the years just before Columbus discovered America. It covers life from the King of France to the judicial courts to the noble families to vagabonds and thieves.

For more about Hugo and his life, the August/September 2007 issue of First Things included The Sacred Heart of Victor Hugo, an article about Hugo and Les Miserables.