Rampaging nature as "Acts of God"

              

MOON-AGE - DAYDREAM

  

Well, it’s a quarter to seven and I’m ready to do our eclipse report.  I was out on the patio the past twenty minutes or so and smoked two cigarettes.  It definitely is darker out there- - like automatic sun glasses, and the sky has a strange quality.  There were lights on across the street that I didn’t knotice were on before, if they were.  I gave Glen a cigarette and after the fact, he gave me some peppermint candy.  David S then asked me for a smoke and I said “I’ve been handing them out like candy all day long to various people”.  I recommended David take some of Glen’s candy as long as he was offering.  Back in here it was a lot darker, and I turned on the light.  They say that eclipses are bad omens.  However under Burt’s Ziggy theology the opposite is true.  He bases it on the story in Acts in the Bible where people were healed of whatever disease they had from passing under St. Peter’s shadow.  Peter means “Rock” and there is that song we used to sing at C of A called ‘Lead Me to the Rock that is Higher than I” and under Ziggy theology this refers to the moon because this version of the song is patterned after “Child of the Moon” by the Rolling Stones, a favorite of Burt’s and mine.  “Time to play B sides”.  And Zachery under Burt’s theology was conceived at dawn under a fragment eclipse of the sun on a Friday the thirteenth.  The blue sign over the bedroom door “Our Love Comes from Above” was there quite some time after me and you-know-who had taken over residence.  As for those Spiders from Mars, I heard in the news a week or so ago that scientists had definitely confirmed the existence of life on Mars and I DON’T think I dreamed that.  Mars has a quarter of the sunlight that earth gets.  But in terms of the whole planet it receives only an eighth of our sunlight because it’s half the size.  But even that figure gets cut down again when you recken how much gets reflected back out into space to be seen because sand doesn’t reflect clouds as well as earth’s sky.  See aren’t you glad you tuned into us today.  Where else can you get this?

NATURE GOES ON A RAMPAGE

Well, after a week or so of relatively few news stories, we have a whole raft of them breaking today.  There was a 6.0 earthquake at Bologna, Italy in the north, where Dr. Levy said he’d be traveling in a few weeks.  Cars at intersection were hit with avelanches of cascading bricks and bell towers fell- - and six factory workers were killed with the roof fell in.  But otherwise people were generally safe at home if not asleep in their beds at 4:00 AM.  We can of course pray for these people.  We now jump to Hurricane Alberto, which is about the earliest Hurricane ever to hit the Gulf, a good two weeks before hurricane season even starts.  I NEVER remember any story of any sort hitting the area this soon.  The storm is now off the Carolina coast with winds of only 45 mph and will only cause high surf and heavy rains, and then is headed off into the Atlantic.  Meanwhile in Arizona they have heat alerts in Phoenix, and a rash of forrest fires there- - which that area seems to be continually ravaged with the past year, and a drought that apparently is still not ended.  Meanwhile there are tornadoes in Kansas.

EXTRA! - - READ ALL ABOUT IT

Then we have your garden variety murders like those Chinese foreign exchange students that were gunned down and the killers arrested Friday night at USC.  Now apparently some LA Metro bus driver was gunned down.  I don’t know if anybody else was shot.  And Mark Zuckerman got married yesterday after courting his Chinese girlfriend for eight years.  She will now be known as Dr. Chan and is a pediatrician.  They had a back yard wedding that was a “surprise wedding’ for the “intimate” number of one hundred guests who were invited “to attend a graduation celebration”.  They say “Mark” is not the kind of guy who does things impulsively.  But apparently the sudden change in décor will take some getting used to by his followers.

Meanwhile President Obama is at a NATO summet meeting this weekend in his native city of Chicago.  You remember Chicago, the place the tea party Cheered - - when informed they did NOT get the Olympics.  And they say Liberals lack patriotism!  Anyhow there were protests with police knocking a few heads when rioters brieched the perimeter lines.  And as if to add one uplifting note, the Lockerbee, Scottland killer- - Pan Am flight 103 that was blown up in December 1988, died today of whatever terminal illness he had.  He had only served eight years of his sentence when he was let out on ”humanitarian grounds’ and given three months to live.  I’d say “Fine, but after that we’ll kill you”.  Well God has now spoken- - as that murderor prepares to meet his Maker.  Some people say “It isn’t enough”.  And others say they want to keep the investigation going, because other plotters are still suspected in the case.  What’s that other case where they said that some guy who ran a tanning salon was the real killer?  I forget.  They grilled two investigators in that case who “Hid the fact that they had been romantically involved during the case” from the Jury - - which maybe affects the outcome.

LATE AFTERNOON CHILL

Singer Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees died today of a long time illness with cancer.  Robin was born in the Isle of Man, Gibb was the fraternal twin brother of Maurice Gibb, and the elder of the two, born 35 minutes before Maurice. The third-born of five children, Gibb had one older sister, Lesley (born 1945), and three brothers: Barry (born 1946), twin Maurice (1949–2003), and Andy (1958–1988).   They then moved to Manchester, England, and then “settled” in Brisbane Austrailia.  Their first album came out in 1966 and it’s rather Beatlish sounding.  One song KLOS played was kind of a mash up of ‘Not a Second Time”, “I’ll Get You In the End” and “It won’t be Long”.  Their break-through album for the rest of the world occurred in the late Spring of 1967 and I think we and England have the same song line-up on that album, and it contains many early classic hits.  Some sites speculate whether Robin was gay.  And there were a bunch of links saying that Grover Norquist was gay, so you can’t believe everything on line.  In terms of the Chinese calendar he would be an earth ox.  Of course housemate Bill T had their big 1977 smash album, which is just about wall to wall classic hits.  A legond has passed.

Posting has been so fast and furious I suggest if you're Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, or Randy Rhodes reading this- - I strongly reccomend you take a look at the three postings following this one because we are just chocked full of information these days.  Right now America's Funniest Home Videos is on.  I still haven't checked on line for live Eclipse coverage.  And Sixty Minutes is on, and I told my roommate I'd be making a pot of coffee around seven.  I guess I'll do that right now.