Harvey Over Texas

Posted on August 30, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Harvey’s in the news, a lot, and probably will be for days.

I noticed stuff piling up in my notes, and decided that getting part of my ‘Friday’ post done early was a good idea.

“Unprecedented?” Maybe


(From David J. Phillip/AP, via KXAN, used w/o permission.)
( “Residents are rescued from their homes surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Sunday, Aug. 27, 2017, in Houston, Texas.”
(KXAN))

News reporting generally uses more superlatives than I like.

“Unprecedented” seems to be particularly popular with BBC News editors at the moment.

I don’t mind things being biggest, smallest, newest, or whatever. But I’ve learned to be rationally skeptical when I read that something is the biggest, worst, or most devastating thing of its kind.

Reading that something’s the best is a nice change of pace. But I think being rationally skeptical on those rare occasions is also a good idea. “Good” I’ll readily believe. “Best?” That may be, but I like to learn why it’s considered top-of-the-top rate. Or the worst ever.

It’s not that I think pessimism is cool, or that enjoying stuff is wrong. Gloominess is not next to Godliness, cherophobia is not a virtue, and Carrie Nation did America no favors. My opinion. (July 31, 2016; July 10, 2016)

My memory’s pretty good for events of the last half-century, and I’ve spent some of that time studying history.

Some of the biggest things of their kind exist today. Some of our tech didn’t exist in any form when I was younger.

There are more of us around today than ever before, too. But humans are social critters, so we’ve lived in sizable groups for some time. What’s changing is the size of our groups.

Some of our cities have gotten pretty big. About 37,843,000 folks call Tokyo’s metropolitan area home. American cities aren’t in the top five largest. But New York City is among the top 10, with about 23,723,696 in that city’s urban area.

How many folks live in Houston depends on how you define where the city ends and where the rest of Texas starts.

2,489,558 folks live in the city, 6,490,180 in the Houston metropolitan area, and 4,944,332 in the urban area.

As I said Sunday, lots of folks who live in Texas — including Houston — got in Harvey’s way. So did many who live in nations in or near the Caribbean. (August 27, 2017)

1. Water Over the Dam


(From NOAA, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

“Houston flood: Addicks dam begins overspill”
BBC News (August 29, 2017)

“A major dam outside Houston has begun spilling over as Storm Harvey pushes the reservoir past capacity, a Texas official says.

“Engineers have tried to prevent nearby communities from being inundated by releasing some of the water held by the Addicks dam.

“But flood control official Jeff Lindner says water levels are now over the height of the reservoir edge.

“Harvey has brought huge floods to Texas and is starting to affect Louisiana….”

Houston got started at Allen’s Landing. That’s where the Buffalo and White Oak Bayous meet. None of the city’s land was ever more than about 90 feet above Galveston Bay.1

Flooding isn’t a new issue for Houston.

That’s what Allen’s Landing looked like after Tropical Storm Allison, in 2001.

George W. Bush was president then.

My guess is that some folks said that dealing with Allison would have been done better if Al Gore had won the election. Others probably felt that Bush was doing a good job.

Many who weren’t being interviewed were most likely helping clean up after the storm. They probably had opinions about the recent election. But most probably realized that dealing with an emergency came before chewing over what might have been.

What’s special about this year is how much of Houston and other parts of Texas are under water. And how much more rain is coming.

Safety, Grandiloquence, Legacy


(From Kuru, USGS; via Wikimedia Commons; used w/o permission.)
(Buffalo Bayou watershed, Houston, Texas.)

The BBC article links to Jeff Linder’s Tweet: “Addicks pool is now at 108.01 ft or at the top of the N spillway,” and two hashtags.

Addicks pool is on Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, part of a water management and flood control system that started in 1938. Water’s being released from Barker Reservoir, too, another part of the system.

I’m pretty sure that someone’s going to complain about the folks in charge deciding let water go past the dams.

I think it’s almost certainly better than letting water spill over the top — and seeing how long it takes the dams to fail. Less dramatic, maybe. But also a great deal safer.

Mr. Linder is a Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist, not a politician. That, and Twitter’s character limit, may explain his terseness.

I think living in the 21st century helps.

Here’s where I could launch into a nostalgic eulogy for those days of yore, when speech was eloquent and exorbitant. Make that extravagant.

I’m not sure how long it would have taken to say that Addicks pool had topped the North spillway in 19th century America.

Even then, I suspect that many wouldn’t have wasted time with excessive verbosity.

My guess is that the most grandiloquent gentleman of the day would, if abruptly confronted with a conflagration of sufficient magnitude, have uttered a remark like “FIRE!”

He might, later, have pondered upon whether it would have been better to preface his remark with a soliloquy on the meaning of life.

Or maybe he’d have realize that erudite references to Prometheus, Hephaestus, and Longfellow’s “The Village Blacksmith” were best left for later.

I strongly suspect that most of us have more common sense than we often use.

I love language, and enjoy playing with arcane terms and convoluted syntax. But I also enjoy writing stuff that’s at least moderately readable.

Which reminds me, as after-dinner speakers say, of something entirely different.

An Oration, by the Honorable Edward Everett, entitled “The Battles of Gettysburg,” was the highlight of a dedication ceremony in 1863.

Everett’s fans weren’t disappointed. The Massachusetts politician, pastor, educator, diplomat, and orator kept going for two hours. More than 150 years later, we still have the text of his oration.

All 13,607 words of it.

The American president was there, too, and talked for about two minutes. Then he sat down. I don’t blame him.

Looking at what happened later, historians figure he was probably coming down with a mild case of smallpox.

What he said, the exact words, aren’t entirely certain.

We’re pretty sure about the first half-dozen: “Four score and seven years ago….”

The event’s program described it as “Dedicatory Remarks.”

Since then we’ve been calling it the Gettysburg Address, and that’s another topic.

2. Houston and America


(From Reuters, via Al Jazeera, used w/o permission.)
(“Some parts of the city of Houston, the fourth biggest US city, was[!] fully submerged in the flooding that followed the storm”
(Al Jazeera))

“Tropical storm Harvey displaces 30,000 in Texas”
Al Jazeera (August 28, 2017)

“More than 30,000 people are expected to be placed in temporary shelters in the US state of Texas due to widespread flooding caused by Tropical Storm Harvey, US officials said, with more rain expected in the coming days….

“…Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Houston, the largest city in Texas, said that in the last 48 hours, emergency agencies have received some 6,000 calls for help.

“She said that between 300 to 400 households are still waiting to be reached by rescuers as of 13:00 GMT on Monday.

“Our correspondent also said that the flooding is expected to rise in some parts of Houston, as authorities are expected to open dam and levies in the area, to ease pressure from continuous rain….”

The nine-county Greater Houston metropolitan area is the second-largest one in Texas, and the biggest metropolitan area on the American Gulf Coast. Small wonder that so much of America’s news is about Houston this week.

Even allowing for civic pride and the Houston Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s marketing efforts, Houston looks like a good place to live. Usually.

Right now, I’m not sure that anyone’s particularly thrilled about being there.

I don’t know which part of Houston’s skyline is in that photo’s background, or which part of the city’s roads it shows.

I’m also not sure what the two folks are in. It’s only about five pixels tall. That’s not enough to tell if it’s an improvised raft, or something else.

I’m guessing “something else,” since it seems to be powered, and leaving a wake. I’m also guessing that they’re heading for some of the road equipment, partially submerged nearby.

Something else I don’t know is how many the 30,000 or so folks who must move are from Houston. It’s a big city, but this is a big storm.

One more thing.

Al Jazeera’s Houston correspondent is Heidi Zhou-Castro. She’s an American broadcast journalist.

Her grandparents lived in Beijing, her husband is from Ecuador.

Her name, I think, shows an important facet of American society.

We have — slowly and imperfectly — grown from a collection of English colonies into a more cosmopolitan land. Many Americans today have ‘foreign’ names like O’Toole and Di Vincenzo, Pei and Chandrasekhar. And Zhou-Castro.

I like it, partly because I think we all come out ahead when folks with fresh ideas and enthusiasm move in. Knowing my family history helps. (April 2, 2017)

3. Monday Quarterbacks


(From AFP, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“An estimated 30,000 people are in need of shelter”
(BBC News))

“Storm Harvey: Houston battles ‘unprecedented’ floods”
BBC News (August 28, 2017)

“The US city of Houston is in the grip of the biggest storm in the history of the state of Texas, officials say.

“A record 30in of rain (75cm) has fallen on the city in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, turning roads into rivers.

“The area is expected to have received a year’s rainfall within a week. Five people are reported dead. Helicopters have plucked victims from rooftops.

“With rescue services overstretched as the rain continues, many people are having to fend for themselves….”

“…A city in crisis – James Cook, BBC News, Houston…

“…In at least one neighbourhood facing severe flooding, people are angry that they were told to stay put only to realise, as night fell, that the waters were rising fast and they could not get out….”

My guess is that at least some folks living in neighborhoods that got isolated by flood waters are angry. That’s understandable. I’d probably be upset, too.

There may be a few preternaturally calm folks in Houston today.

I don’t think I’d be one of them. I’m a very emotional man. But being uncalm isn’t, I think, an excuse for handing executive control over to my emotions.

Philippians 4:4, 6–8 is good advice. Anxiety isn’t a good idea, rejoicing is.

We’ve got brains, and should use them. The trick is remembering that emotions happen — but what matters is what we think, decide, and do. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1767–1770, 1777–1782)

Faith depends on what I think, not how I feel. (Catechism, 30, 142–150, 156–159, 274, 1706)

Now, back to Houston. I live near the other end of the Mississippi basin, on a sandy ridge. We’ve even been having sunny days this week.

Being calm about what’s happening in Houston is pretty easy. For me.

That lets me stop, think, and do a little checking.

Sure enough, most folks in Houston were told to stay where they were. It’s quite possible that some of the millions of folks realized that it’s bad advice. For them.

But I’m not ready to heap abuse on Houston’s authorities.

Evacuations


(From AFP, Reuters, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(Texans and the Coast Guard dealing with Harvey.)

Let’s think about this. Imagine that Sunday afternoon, or Sunday evening, Houston’s mayor — or some other official — had said “evacuate the city.”

Even without an inspiring quote like “cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once;” I think some Houstonians wouldn’t have been complaining on Monday.

They’d be dead. Survivors would be furious. Or maybe icily calm. In the mayor’s position, I might worry most about the outwardly-calm ones.

America has pretty good roads, many of us own or have access to motorized vehicles. Putting many miles behind us in a few hours generally isn’t hard. Not when we’re doing it as individuals or small groups.

When a lot of us are trying to do the same thing, at the same time, on the same roads, it’s a different story.

Urban transportation networks are notoriously frustrating during rush hour.

The traffic snarls may have gotten less tangled after 2008, when American employment dropped from about 63% of the working-age population to a tad under 59%. Those good times, from a traffic congestion viewpoint, didn’t last. The percentage of employed folks is going back up.

That’s still only about thirds of the population who are on the road: mostly trying to get from one place in a city to somewhere else fairly nearby. On a road network designed to handle the daily commute.

Let’s say that an evacuation order came, and everyone in a city was trying to get out. At the same time. Over roads designed to handle smaller loads. Multiply that by the number of cities and towns in a region.

I think evacuations can work. I also think that they take very careful planning. Even under ideal conditions, it’s not going to be easy. Or, often, safe.

Remembering

In fairness, only about a hundred of the couple million folks trying to evacuate coastal Texas in 2005 died in the process.2

Hurricane Rita was coming, and authorities thought their evacuation plans were adequate. As it turns out, they were wrong.

Since they’d been told to flee, many folks were on the road: stuck in traffic, where gridlock and heat caught up with them.

Only a fraction of one percent of the evacuees died that way, but I don’t think many folks call the evacuation a success. I figure that folks running Texan cities have reviewed and revised their evacuation plans since then.

I’m also pretty sure that Houston authorities know what happened in 2005, and aren’t eager to make the same decisions.

Based on what I’ve read, and remember from past well-intentioned efforts, I’m inclined to agree with Dickerson’s and Marshall’s op-eds.

Given what they most likely knew at the time, the folks making decisions in Houston were making sense.

I don’t always agree with folks in authority. But I realize that we get things done better if there’s someone in charge. The trick has always been trying to find someone who’s good at the job, and working for the common good. (Catechism, 1897–1917, 1954–1960)

4. “…Ready to Save Neighbors….”


(From David J. Phillip, The Associated Press; via The Denver Post, used w/o permission.)
(“Residents wade through floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Sunday, Aug. 27, 2017, in Houston, Texas.”
(The Denver Post))

“FEMA director says Harvey is probably the worst disaster in Texas history”
Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, via The Denver Post (August 27, 2017)

“…[FEMA director William ‘Brock’] Long has spoken of the need for a sea change in how the country prepares for disasters, noting that the federal government alone can’t always save the day. Ordinary citizens need to be prepared to be first responders, Long said. They need to have personal emergency plans. They need to be able to feed themselves for several days if disaster strikes. They need to be ready to save neighbors in harm’s way….”

I think director Long is right. We can’t count on ‘the government’ to do everything. I also think government agencies can and should do what they can to help folks recover from natural disasters. (August 27, 2017)

Folks who aren’t part of a government can help neighbors, too. I mentioned these outfits before:

Cooperation: A Small Example

The rural Minnesota town I call home isn’t perfect, but I think we’re a pretty good example of how folks can respond.

I’ll grant that Minnesota’s climate helps us.

We’ll occasionally get a year without a major winter or summer storm. But the lively weather here encourages us to build structures designed for high winds, heavy snow: pretty much anything short of a direct hit by a tornado.

Many of us also maintain equipment that helps us make do until snow plows or emergency crews get to where we live. A few folks in my neighborhood either maintain powered snow removal equipment, or know someone who does.

The city crews do a good job of digging the town services out after winter storms. But in a pinch we could do that, too.

Not that we get hurricane-level weather here. About the worst we’ve had recently was a summer storm in 2011.

Neighbors were cutting downed trees into truckload-size pieces and clearing debris, almost as soon as the sky cleared. We started hauling it away as soon as we heard where a municipal dump site had been set up.

Like I said, we’re not perfect. Not even close. But we do know how to cooperate, and help each other. I think most — make that nearly all — folks can, once we get the idea.

Folks living in a city of several million couldn’t act exactly as we do: and shouldn’t. Whether there’s a few thousand or a few million folks living nearby makes a difference.

But the basics: cooperation, being prepared, and keeping calm? That, I think, is possible anywhere.

It’s not always easy, but it is possible.

More of how I see living as if neighbors matter:

1 Houston:

2 2005:

Posted in Being a Citizen, Science News | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Hurricane Harvey

Posted on August 27, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Harvey was still a tropical storm when it went over the eastern Caribbean. That was a little over a week ago.

Folks in Barbados were without power for a while. At least one house was destroyed, and more folks had to evacuate their homes.

Pretty much the same thing happened in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Suriname and Guyana had wind and rain: enough to kill at least one person, a woman whose house collapsed with her inside.

Harvey was a category 4 hurricane when it reached the Texas coast, between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor. That was around 10:00 p.m. Friday.

By noon Saturday, about 230,000 utility customers in Texas had no power.1

Harvey’s a tropical storm now, shedding water on Texas.

Folks between Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and Houston will probably get over 20 inches of rain in the next few days.

“…While Harvey’s winds are decreasing, life-threatening hazards will continue from heavy rainfall over much of southeastern Texas and from storm surge along portions of the Texas coast….”
(“Tropical Storm Harvey Forecast Discussion” National Hurricane Center, NOAA (4:00 p.m. CDT Saturday, August 26, 2017))

My guess is that most Texans are better able to deal with Harvey than many folks in the smaller Caribbean nations.

This storm won’t be easy on anyone who gets in its way.

Texas authorities confirmed that one person is dead. A man in Rockport, Texas, was not able to leave his house. It burned during the storm.

Other deaths may be confirmed, as teams sift through debris. Many folks survived, but have no place to live.

‘Lost everything’ is serious, no matter how much or how little someone has.

No pressure, but some will need help.

That’s true even in nice weather, and even in America.

There are a great many outfits working with folks who need help. And a few, sadly, out to make a quick buck from folks who feel charitable but aren’t careful.

CRS, Catholic Relief Services, isn’t the only legitimate philanthropic operation. But I think they’re worth mentioning:

CRS, by the way, helps anyone who needs it. As their mission statement says, their job is “to assist people on the basis of need, not creed, race or nationality.”

There’s more to charity than charitable giving, and that’s another topic. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1822–1829)

Storm News and Views


(From Hurricane Center, NOAA, used w/o permission.)
(Five-day wind speed forecast; Friday morning, August 25, 2017)

Most of American ‘storm’ news focuses on the Texas coast. That’s understandable. Texas is closer to home than Barbados or Suriname for most Americans. It’s home for a fair number of us.

Editorial styles vary, of course, since news outlets cater to a broad range of tastes. So does what they cover.

Some of storm-related entertainment news was remarkably trivial: for folks who aren’t “Game of Thrones” fans.

But I realize that life goes on, trivia and all. So, I think, does possibly-unintentional humor:

Atkin’s op-ed had another headline in New Republic. The N.R. headline Harvey “Scary and Unprecedented.” The Mother Jones headline is not entirely hyperbole.

Each tropical storm in the Atlantic has a unique history: just like Harvey. Atkin discusses some of Harvey’s highlights before approaching Texas.

A few tropical storms form in the southern Atlantic. Strong wind shear almost always keeps them from developing into hurricanes. There’s been one exception since we started keeping records of that area: Catrina in 2004.

Texas Disaster Declaration


(From Texas State Government, used w/o permission.)
(Texas counties declared disaster areas; August 25, 2017)

The United States is a big country, with quite a few states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic. Hurricanes affect at least a few Americans every year. What’s unusual about Harvey is that it’s among the stronger hurricanes we’ve dealt with.

That’s probably one reason that Texas Governor Gregg Abbott sent a letter to the U.S. President and FEMA on Friday. I gather that it’s a formal request for help. He said that what’s coming “is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments.”

This isn’t a ‘political’ blog, so I won’t say that he shouldn’t have asked for help. Or shouldn’t have sent the letter yet. Or didn’t send it soon enough. Or that he did the right thing, and anyone who says otherwise is stupid. Or worse.

I figure maybe he’s right. It’s a hard decision.

I’m also quite sure that local, state, and national governments should help folks recover from natural disasters. One of the reasons we have governments is to help folks who need it. It’s one way we can all work for the common good. (Catechism, 1899, 1903, 1905–1912)

Ideally, every state would have funds and equipment ready for every possible disaster. We don’t live in an ideal world. That, I think, is why the Texan governor asked for help.

I’m glad that America is big enough so that if a disaster hits one area, the rest will probably be able to pitch in. Very ideally, we’d have a system like that in place globally.

Meanwhile, like I said, there are outfits like Catholic Relief Services.

BBC News says the last hurricane this big and affecting a mainland state was Wilma in 2005. They have a point, although Katrina, the same year, was one of the five deadliest.2

Katrina wasn’t the worse in terms of death and destruction, though. That was the 1900 Galveston hurricane.

Learning, Sometimes the Hard Way


(From Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(What was left of St. Lucas Terrace, left; and St. Patrick’s church, right; Galveston, 1900.)

We don’t know how many Americans died because of the September, 1900, hurricane.

Estimates range from 6,000 to 12,000. It’s still the worst natural disaster we’ve had since 1776, in terms of lives lost. The 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes were remarkable for other reasons.3

What we call the Great Galveston Hurricane was a tropical storm when the National Weather Service heard that a tropical storm was over Cuba and heading north. That was September 4, 1900.

The Washington, D.C., office told their Galveston office. The Galveston office didn’t issue a hurricane warning.

That’s partly because the Weather Bureau didn’t like using words like “tornado” or “hurricane” back then. They didn’t want to panic the public. The policy changed after we found out why so many folks died during the June 7-9, 1953, storms. (August 11, 2017)

Forecasters in Washington didn’t know which way the storm would go next. Weather forecasting was an emerging science in 1900. (August 11, 2017)

Washington officials figured it’d probably do what many storms do: head northeast, along the east coast. Cuban forecasters emphatically said their predictions showed the storm heading west.

A few folks in Galveston headed inland. Maybe they’d learned about the Cuban forecast, or had noticed growing swells. Or maybe they’d talked to sailors whose ships had weathered the storm. Rain clouds reached Galveston mid-morning, September 5.

Galveston’s weather office raised their Hurricane Flag on the morning of September 7.

The storm hit about 24 hours later.

The storm’s surge reached 15 feet, 4.6 meters. Galveston was built on an island that was at most 8 feet, 2.4 meters, tall.

Buildings collapsed, people died.

We don’t know what the maximum wind speed was. The Weather Bureau’s anemometer in Galveston recorded 100 mile an hour winds just before it was destroyed.

Survivors rebuilt Galveston: raising the island by 17 feet, 5.2 meters. With a seawall.

One reason I’m cautiously hopeful about humanity’s future is that we learn. Sometimes the hard way, and slowly. But we do learn. (July 21, 2017; July 14, 2017; October 16, 2016)

‘Let the Smiting Begin?!’

I see Non Sequitur’s ‘Church of Danae’ strips as occasionally-grim humor. I might be offended if I thought they were attacking my faith. (August 23, 2017)

But I’m a Christian, a Catholic. I recognize Danae’s theology as a facet of American culture, viewed in a fun house mirror.

It lampoons a sort of religious belief that many still cherish.

I like to think the ‘angry God’ folks are less influential these days. (August 25, 2017; March 5, 2017)

My guess is that someone who feels that sinners should be smited regularly — or is that smitten? Never mind.

Anyway, someone will likely claim that Harvey is a judgement of God upon sinful folks who aren’t like the speaker.

That happened back in 2005. “Katrina: God’s Judgment on America” was an anonymous bit of preaching on beliefnet.

The 2005 writer had a point, sort of. Gulf Coast America wasn’t what it had been in 1955.

Quite a few folks were probably offended by “the burgeoning Gulf Coast gambling industry.” They’d probably also disapprove of “the 34th Annual gay, lesbian and transgender Southern Decadence Labor Day gala.”

The notion that disaster and disease happen because God is upset with someone else works for some propaganda.

That doesn’t make it a good idea.

The notion that God is upset at something the audience likes probably lacks appeal, and that’s yet another topic.

Maybe the anonymous writer was right. Maybe “…Katrina was an act of God upon a sin-loving and rebellious nation….”

I don’t know. I don’t have inside information from God.

The ‘angry God’ scenario seems dubious, though.

Getting back to Hurricane Harvey, I don’t think folks living between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor were particularly wicked sinners.

On the other hand, pirates used the Port Aransas area in the early 1800s. I suppose someone could claim that God is finally getting around to punishing them — by hurting folks living in the same area, nearly two centuries later.

Or maybe they’re being whacked for something the Karankawa Indians did, before the pirates came.

No, I do not think so. The notion that God hold grudges, but procrastinates, is — silly, putting it mildly.

Maybe I shouldn’t joke about this. A fellow who’s been famous for being a particular sort of Christian made a similar claim about Haiti a few years back.

That sort of thing leaves an impression. Not a peasant one, I think.

I see Katrina, and Harvey, as natural disasters. I think folks affected by them need help. Or at least respectful sympathy. Not ‘judgment of God’ preaching.

One more thing, a bit of good sense I read on Twitter:

God bless Texas. #HurricaneHarvey pic.twitter.com/idl6MEB89a
— Judy Bowman (@tiberjudy) August 25, 2017

The Siloam Lesson

Don’t misunderstand me. I take God quite seriously. Folks who seem convinced that God promotes their personal views, not so much.

I see Jonathan Edwards wannabes and disciples of Ussher as embarrassing relics. I think they are sincere. But I can’t take their beliefs seriously, apart from the influence they still hold. (June 30, 2017; May 5, 2017; March 31, 2017; March 5, 2017)

I think sin exists, which does not mean that I think folks who do things I don’t enjoy are dreadful sinners.

When I deliberately do something that makes no sense, hurting myself or someone else, I offend reason and truth; and God. That’s a sin. (Catechism, 1849–1850)

I don’t consistently do what I know is good for me and avoid what’s bad, so I’m a sinner. (Catechism, 1706, 1776, 1955)

Sin is what happens whenever I don’t love God and my neighbor, and act as if everyone is my neighbor. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1825)

I think sin is a bad idea, and that I should keep learning to avoid it.

Events like Hurricane Harvey can be useful reminders that I’ve got limited time to work out my salvation, as Philippians 2:12 says. Not that I can work or pray my way into Heaven. (April 9, 2017; December 4, 2016)

That doesn’t mean I think I’m a particularly wicked sinner, any more than I think folks in Texas irked an irritable God. I figure it’s like Jesus said:

“‘Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?'”
(Luke 13:4)

More, mostly about cautious optimism; and acting as if people aren’t perfect — but matter, anyway:

1 Harvey and a weather resource:

2 Hurricanes and America:

3 Assorted American disasters:

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Great American Eclipse 2017

Posted on August 25, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

A Solar eclipse sweeping from coast to coast dominated Monday’s news in America.

I saw headlines describing the event, weather in different states, how folks had prepared and how they reacted, and some of the science involved.

It was nice while it lasted.

Minnesota Drizzles


(From NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, used w/o permission.)
(NASA’s map of the Great American Eclipse 2017 crossing North America.)

Monday’s eclipse was partial in my part of central Minnesota, with about 15% of the sun showing. That’s what I’ve read, anyway.

The deepest part of the eclipse here would have been around 11:40 a.m. — 16:40 UTC. I didn’t see it.

The sky had been solidly grey earlier.

Drivers had their headlights on when I caught that picture with my webcam a few minutes after noon.

It wasn’t just because of the eclipse. The overcast had darkened, too, and was drizzling. The drizzle had stopped by 1:00 p.m., but not the overcast.

Science


(From Sagredo, Cmglee; via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

NASA’s online “Total Solar Eclipse 2017” resources include a pretty good introduction to eclipses.

Folks have seen the sun’s corona during a total eclipse: ever since around 1715, when Edmond Halley described it.

Before that, maybe not.

Kepler reported “red flames” around the sun during the October 12, 1605, eclipse. Apparently he thought they might be part of a lunar atmosphere.

The earliest recorded observations are almost a thousand years older: but don’t mention anything like a corona.

Maybe folks before Kepler’s day saw the corona but didn’t mention it, or didn’t notice it, or maybe the corona wasn’t there during that period.

Most scientists accept, and track, our star’s 11-year sunspot cycle. It’s half of a 22-year cycle between two magnetic modes.

Other cycles may or may not exist. I figure most of those questions will get answered when we’ve got more data. That could take some time. The Hallstatt cycle, for example, would be roughly two dozen centuries long.1

Misconceptions

Another “Total Solar Eclipse 2017” page has a list of eclipse-related misconceptions, along with a sort of reality check for each. Some of the odd notions were new to me.2

The first two might come from reasonable warnings that looking straight at the sun is a bad idea.

The sun doesn’t, however, produce “harmful rays” during an eclipse. Not any more so than usual.

At least one person heard or remembered that the “harmful rays” were ultraviolet. That’s electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between 10 and 400 nanometers. Happily, that individual looked for clarification on a Q and A forum: and got a reasonable answer.

Maybe the “radiation” part sounds scary. But UV is like the electromagnetic radiation we call “light,” only with shorter wavelengths. Earth’s atmosphere stops most of the UV coming from our sun, but not all.

The good news is that UV lets us photosynthesize vitamin D. The not-so-good news is that folks can get exposed to too much UV. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, just that we need to use our brains. We can get too much of anything, even water.

Possibly related to the “harmful rays” notion is the also-bogus warning that pregnant women shouldn’t watch the show.

Food preparation during an eclipse is safe, too. More accurately, it’s as safe then as any other time. Using fuzzy mystery meat is always dubiously-prudent.

Eclipses as harbingers of doom might come from old tales like Korea’s Bulgae, fire dogs from the realm of darkness, sent to eat the sun or moon.

My cultural roots include tales of Fenrir, who chases the sun: a chase that ends at Ragnarök. In another tale, Fenrir’s sons Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson finally catch the sun and moon — also at Ragnarök.3

Harbingers of Doom

Actual references to belief that eclipses were seen as harbingers of doom are curiously rare. Maybe it’s because folks can predict them, and have: at least since the Seleucid Empire started falling apart.

Herodotus wrote that Thales predicted an eclipse in 585 BC. Since Herodotus didn’t say exactly how Thales knew, some historians say the prediction didn’t happen. Or happened at another date.

They’ve got a point. Thales of Miletus lived around the time Darius I was running Persia. That was more than two dozen centuries back, long before Aristotle’s view that our sun goes around Earth caught on. (June 2, 2017; March 24, 2017)

One argument is that Thales couldn’t have predicted the eclipse, since other folks didn’t know how at the time.

I’m more willing to think that Thales may have predicted the eclipse. Or maybe he made a lucky guess. I think it’s at least as likely that records detailing how Thales arrived at his results didn’t survive.

Another possibility is that the account as Herodotus received it — wasn’t entirely accurate. What we don’t know about the past is frustratingly extensive. (March 30, 2017)

Vikings

Comets are another matter.

Quite a few folks in 11th century Europe thought a big comet showing up meant that a kingdom would fall.

Whether that’s bad news or good news depends, I think, on attitude.

Take Halley’s Comet showing up in April, 1066, for example.

A little background may not be necessary, but I’ll do it anyway.

Normans were descendants of Vikings who had decided that coastal France was nicer than where they’d been living.

The French king — wisely, I think — graciously granted them permission to stay on the land they’d moved to. That was around 911. The Vikings promptly dropped their Scandinavian language, names, and customs. But not, I think, their attitude.

Another bunch of Vikings, the Rus’, did pretty much the same thing: heading east.

Nestor’s chronicle says that they came to help folks living where Novgorod is now. The locals were having trouble dealing with other Vikings.

Nestor apparently worked for descendants of the Rus’, but my guess is that the locals didn’t do too badly in the long run. We call that part of the world Russia these days, and that’s another topic.

England’s King Edward died in January, 1066. England’s Witenagemot said someone named Harold was king now. Assorted other folks disagreed, and Vikings landed on Scarborough beach, adding their opinion.

Meanwhile, Normans saw the comet and were building an invasion fleet. Maybe they figured that the comet meant a kingdom would fall — which made this an excellent time to take over England. Which they did. (December 11, 2016)

About five and a half centuries later, the Great Comet of 1556 caused quite a stir. But this time the Normans mostly stayed put. Apparently they liked ruling their own island.

They — and most other European rulers — were moving in on folks in other parts of the world by then, and that’s yet another topic.

Where was I? Eclipses, Bulgae, Thales, Vikings, the Great Comet of 1556. Right.

At least some folks called it the Charles V comet. He was emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, an impressive title that still meant something in his day.

We’re told that Charles V saw the comet, said “By this dread sign my fates do summon me,” abdicated, and entered a monastery. Another account says that maybe he quit because of gout.

The Thirty Year’s War started little over six decades later. That killed a lot of folks, arguably made the Enlightenment and French Revolution possible, and that’s yet again another topic. Topics. (August 20, 2017; July 14, 2017; November 6, 2016 )

The first predictions of solar eclipses we’ve got good documentation for are the Saros series. Someone worked that cycle out a bit upwards of two millennia back.4

1. Various Angles


(From Pete Marovich/WCIV/Getty, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Beachgoers at Isle of Palms, South Carolina: The great fear is that cloud will spoil the show”
(BBC News))

“Solar eclipse 2017: US public in thrall to sky show”
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (August 21, 2017)

“The Great American Eclipse is under way.

“A huge shadow cast by the Moon as it passes in front of the Sun has just touched the west coast of North America.

“Over the course of the next 90 minutes it will track east, cutting across 14 states, from Oregon to South Carolina, before heading out over the Atlantic.

“It is the first total solar eclipse visible from America’s lower 48 states in 38 years.

“It is also the first such event since 1918 where the path of darkness traverses both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and the first total solar eclipse to make landfall exclusively in the US since independence in 1776….”

ABC News 4 reported that the Isle of Palms county park and municipal parking lot filled to capacity before noon.

Some folks on the beach said they had trouble getting cellular service. The Post and Courier’s Andrew Knapp wrote that folks there saw lightning and clouds, and a bit of the eclipse at one point.


(From Andrew Knapp/Staff; via The Post and Courier, Charleston; used w/o permission.)
(A break in clouds during Monday’s eclipse, Isle of Palms, South Carolina.)

Most news services reported what folks saw and how they reacted as the shadow crossed America. At least one writer managed to find relevant social commentary on this “gods-forsaken age,” and the unseemly expressions of enthusiasm. With, I’m told, a light touch:

I mostly enjoyed seeing how folks were enjoying the show. Like I said, going outside in my part of central Minnesota would have gotten me wet during much of the event.

2. T-Shirts and Science


(From Reuters, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“The US is getting very excited for the eclipse. These T-shirts are being sold in Oregon, because this is the first place that will get to see it!”
(BBC Newsround))

“Solar eclipse: Everything you need to know”
BBC Newsround (August 21, 2017)

“On Monday 21 August, millions of people will be able to witness one of the most amazing space events that can be seen from the Earth.

“Across the US, lucky space watchers will be treated to an incredible total solar eclipse.

“The last time the US witnessed an eclipse like this was in 1979, so everybody is understandably pretty excited!

“This one is being called the Great American Eclipse 2017….”

The 1979 eclipse started over the Pacific; swept across North America, mostly Canada; and ended over Greenland. It was one of 71 total eclipses during the 20th century.

Since eclipses let us look at the sky near Earth’s sun, scientists generally try to set up equipment where there’s good visibility along the path of totality.

A U.S. Naval Observatory expedition tried, unsuccessfully, to test Einstein’s prediction about gravity bending light during the 1918 eclipse.

Two other expeditions tried again during the 1919 eclipse. They collected data, but nowhere near accurately enough to settle the ‘Einstein or Newton’ question.5

Questions, Answers, and More Questions

The idea that gravity bends light didn’t start with Einstein.

At least two scientists had worked out how much gravity would bend light, based on Newtonian physics.

Henry Cavendish recorded his work in 1784, but didn’t publish.

Georg von Soldner did his work in 1801, and published in 1804.

Natural philosophers had been thinking about light long before Isaac Newton added his corpuscular theory of light in 1704. Some had said light acts like waves, others held something like Newton’s view.

Newton said that an aethereal medium might account for diffraction. That was in 1718. Since then, we’ve learned that the ‘wave’ and ‘particle’ ideas were both correct, sort of: but not quite. We’re currently working our way through quantum mechanics.6

Einstein got Soldner’s value for how much light should be bent, given Newtonian physics, in 1911. In 1915, Einstein noticed that general relativity’s math also shows that light would be bent. But only about half as much as Newtonian physics says it should.

Scientist collected data with the needed precision about five decades after the 1919 eclipse.

We’re currently pretty sure that general relativity fits observed reality. Except where it doesn’t. The last I heard, we’re still figuring out how quantum entanglement works. Getting that answer may tell us why it’s so fast. Or maybe instantaneous.

Either way, I’m pretty sure we’ll uncover a great many other questions in the process. My guess is that we’ll continue fine-tuning our understanding of this universe for as long as it’s around.

That will probably upset folks who get uncomfortable around new ideas.

Others will see keep seeing scientific discoveries as opportunities to admire more of God’s work. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 283, 341)

3. Awe and “Dark Forces”


(From Joe Burbank/Associated Press, via The Sacramento Bee, used w/o permission.)
(“Florida high school students react to seeing the sun, using their eclipse glasses for the first time during a trial run on Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, for their planned viewing of Monday’s eclipse. Eclipse mania is building and so is demand for the glasses that make it safe to view the first total solar eclipse to cross the U.S. in 99 years.”
(The Sacramento Bee))

“Never has a solar eclipse been so timely. At last, something to inspire awe.”
Editorial Board, The Sacramento Bee (August 20, 2017)

“…Times have not been so wondrous lately. We are pulled by dark forces; we have not been ourselves….

“…Some of us, at incalculable cost, have taken the great gift of factual knowledge for granted. Indeed, some of us have retreated into ignorance and superstition….”

I suspect that some of the “dark forces” aren’t so much dark as different.

This is not, I think, a comfortable time for many in America.

Folks who may want a return to the ‘good old days’ before 1954 are, and will remain, frustrated. (August 14, 2016)

Those who have settled comfortably into the post-1967 word, if they’re paying attention at all, may be wondering if their world is crumbling. (August 14, 2017)

I think this may be the end of civilization as we know it.

This is a good thing — or can be.

Today’s America is far from perfect, but we have corrected some past injustices.

I am convinced that we can do better.

The trick will be encouraging change that helps folks, and remembering to notice the beauty and wonders surrounding us:

1 Solar eclipses and cycle(s):

2 Knowledge and unwarranted assumptions:

3 Myth and heritage:

4 Still learning:

5 Recent eclipses and science:

6 Science, answers, and still-unanswered questions:

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Expectations

Posted on August 23, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Danae’s odd view of Papal infallibility isn’t accurate. (July 30, 2017)

But I’m not upset by Non Sequitur’s ‘Church of Danae,’ particularly since I see the funny side of the cultural quirks Wiley Miller highlights.

I do, however, occasionally use Danae’s distinctive theology and Eddie’s “Biblical Prophecies” as a contrast to my faith.

I’m a Christian, and a Catholic.

I have well-defined views on social and legal issues: but I am not conservative or liberal. I’m Catholic. (January 22, 2017)

That means acting as if Jesus, love, and people matter. It does not mean desperately trying to live as if the 1960s never happened. (June 2, 2017; May 7, 2017; February 5, 2017)

Since I am a Catholic, I must think that seeking truth is vital. I must also support religious freedom — for everyone, not just folks who agree with me. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2104–2107)

Insisting on truth occasionally means learning something new.

I like the process, but even if I didn’t — being afraid of truth isn’t an option. As Pope Leo XIII said, “truth cannot contradict truth.”1 Reason, reality, faith, and science get along fine. Or should. (March 31, 2017; January 29, 2017)

Faith, for a Catholic, should mean willingly and consciously embracing “the whole truth that God has revealed.” (Catechism, 142–150)

“The whole truth” means just that — everything, including truth we find in the natural world’s order and beauty. Appreciating the wonders surrounding us is a good idea. (Catechism, 32, 41, 74, 283, 341, 2500)

Granted, other folks, including some Catholics, seem to have other ideas. That may help explain Non Sequitur’s “Church of Danae,” and America’s recurring ‘End Times’ fads.

Some Christians actually believe them. I don’t know why.

‘End Times’ Predicted: Again

Looking up eclipse-related folklore, I ran into another ‘End Times’ prediction. Two, actually.

They both feature ‘signs in the sky.’ Last year’s was a lunar eclipse.

Someone else is having a go at it this year, with a bunch of planets, and I expect pretty much the same results.

I’ll be back on Friday, talking about this week’s eclipse, science, and a cloudy Monday in Isle of Palms.

Meanwhile, here’s a brief — for me — discussion of those two ‘prophecies.’ Also some (real) astronomy.

I’ve said most of this before, so feel free to get a cup of coffee, take a walk, whatever. My take on The Usual ‘End Times’ Silliness starts in a few paragraphs.

I take the Bible seriously. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101–133)

I also expect our Lord to come back. That’ll happen when it’s supposed to. (Matthew 24:36–44, 25:13; Mark 13:32–33)

Meanwhile, we’ve got work to do. (Matthew 28:16–20; Acts 1:6–11; Catechism, 668–670, 1928–1942)

My job starts with loving God, and my neighbors; and seeing everybody as my neighbor. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789)

I’m also expected to pass along the best news we’ve ever had. God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:3–5; Peter 2:3–4; Catechism, 1–3, 27–30, 52, 1825, 1996)

That, I take seriously.

America’s perennial ‘end of the world’ predictions? not so much.

The Usual ‘End Times’ Silliness

Sales for one bestselling ‘Judgment Day’ book peaked in early 2014.

Biltz and Hagee’s prediction had a catchy name: the blood moon prophecy. Their portents of doom included the September 27, 2015, lunar eclipse.

The lunar eclipses and Jewish holidays they cited were real.

And we’re still here. I see this as yet another fizzled ‘End Times’ prognostication. The odds are pretty good that something bad happened after that date — leaving the door open for their next bestseller.

They may want to wait a while, though. Another ‘End Times prophecy’ has started getting attention. Several news outlets have helped, and there seems to be an AT&T documentary in the works.

A Wikipedia page on this one includes the “may not be reliable” disclaimer for its sources. Maybe whoever put that up had some of the more histrionic news publications in mind. Or maybe not.

Anyway, the folks who launched this ‘End Times’ expectation haven’t given themselves much time. The campaign seems to have started this year — and kickoff for their “Tribulation Period” is in September.

Maybe they’re counting on something making headlines around then.

‘Signs in the Sky’ and El Paso

The promoters added an interesting bit of astronomical trivia to the usual bit from Revelation. Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter will be near each other in Earth’s sky during September this year.

This conjunction doesn’t happen every year.

But it’s hardly unique.

Someone asked Christopher M. Graney about the September ‘signs in the sky’ prognostication.2 He’s a physics and astronomy professor who’s also a Catholic.

Sure enough, that particular conjunction will happen in September of this year. Again.

Graney did a little checking, and found that pretty much the same thing happened in September of 1827, 1483 — and a bunch of other occasions since 1017.

I did my own checking, and found out that stuff happened in 1827.

It’s an important date in El Paso’s history, for example. Construction of the first residence there started in September, 1827.

I’m pretty sure more stuff happened in 1483 and the other years, too.

I’m also quite sure that this is yet another false alarm. (July 14, 2017)

I don’t know why folks, including some who should know better, keep falling for bogus ‘prophecies.’ (August 13, 2017)

And now for something completely different:

1 Leo XIII and all that:

2 More:

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Death in Steubenville

Posted on August 22, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Bad as news from Steubenville, Ohio, is — it could have been worse.

Only one person is dead. Two are injured, but probably will recover.

One of the injured people was with the man who is dead, so investigators may get some clue as to why he shot a judge.

On the other hand, the man who drove the deceased to the courthouse says that he had not known what the shooter had in mind.

I regret the loss of life. I also think that attacking a judge seems imprudent.

No Clear Answers Yet


(From Keith Srakocic/AP, via NRP, used w/o permission.)
(“A prosecutor said Monday that Nathaniel Richmond was the man who shot and wounded Jefferson County, Ohio, Judge Joseph Bruzzese. Above, Richmond apologizes to the victim and her family after his son, Ma’Lik Richmond, and a co-defendant were found guilty of rape in juvenile court in Steubenville, Ohio.”
(NPR))

“Ohio Judge Returns Fire After ‘Ambush’ Outside Courthouse”
Laurel Wamsley, NPR (August 21, 2017)

“An Ohio judge traded gunfire with an assailant who shot him outside a county courthouse Monday, before the suspect was killed by a probation officer.

“Judge Joseph Bruzzese Jr. was walking to his car outside the Jefferson County Courthouse along what’s known as Courthouse Alley in Steubenville, Ohio, when he was shot, The Associated Press reports.

“Prosecutors say the gunman was the father of one of the two Steubenville High School football players convicted of rape in 2012.

“Jefferson County Prosecutor Jane Hanlin named Nathaniel Richmond as the shooter. He is the father of Ma’Lik Richmond, who served 10 months at a juvenile detention center after being convicted with a co-defendant of raping a passed-out 16-year-old girl at a party.

“A visiting judge from another county handled most of the rape case, not Bruzzese, according to the AP….”

I suppose that the judge’s connection with Mr. Richmond’s son may be a motive. But that is merely an assumption.

The younger Richmond’s legal trouble started in 2012. Trial transcripts say that two high school students, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, and two other football players, took a 16-year-old girl to two parties. She was intoxicated, and lost consciousness at some point.

We can be reasonably sure that she was raped, since the high schoolers took photographs of their activities. Some of the photos were subsequently shared on social media, along with less-than-kindly comments.

I think that rape is a bad idea. In addition to physical effects, it hurts the victim psychologically. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2356)

I do not think committing such an act is good for the attacker, either.

But as I said before, I do not know why Nathaniel Richmond opened fire, wounding a judge. Thinking that the judge was the intended target, and that Mr. Richmond’s son’s conviction is involved seems like a reasonable assumption. But it is an assumption.

I hope that investigators will piece together what Mr. Richmond had in mind, if only for the sake of letting folks in the Steubenville, Ohio, area know why this happened.

It may, eventually, help some to start thinking about the events. That might help reduce the odds that we will see more needless suffering.

Life and Love

Whatever his motive, I am sorry that Mr. Richmond is dead. That’s because I think human life is valuable: all human life. (Catechism, 2258, 2267, 2270, 2277)

That does not mean that I think the people who returned fire, killing Mr. Richmond, committed murder.

Valuing human life does not mean that I think folks should not protect human life. Even if the death of an attacker is an unintended or secondary result. (Catechism, 2263–2267)

I talked about this last week, after a vehicular homicide in Charlottesville, Virginia. (August 14, 2017)

There is a great deal more to say about life, respect, and thinking about our actions. But that will wait for another post.

I say this a lot, but it warrants repeating. I should love God, love my neighbors, and see everybody as my neighbor. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789)

That’s not even close to thinking that I should constantly feel sentimental. And that’s another topic. Topics:

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