After the Deluge

The rains have stopped and summer heat and clear skies are here for a while. The water is now along Old Man River and is making things wretched around St. Louis. It will take a very long time to rebuild Cedar Rapids (93 thousand tons of stuff that has to be disposed of. Iowa City and the U. of Iowa also got flooded bad.
I forgot I think to mention that a while back that old Robert Mondavi the wine emperor has died, and George Carlin died at the beginning of this week. I was never a Carlin fan, but many many people loved him, and he was a cultural icon, so rest in peace, George. The clock seems to be ticking on whether the US or Israel does the bombing of Iran's nuke facilities. Something is building up toward a showdown with Nejad. Oil prices are still 4 bucks or more a gallon (ethanol is still about 3.90, but could go way up). I am hoping for a dry warm winter next season, so that people will not get crushed even more when heating oil prices are piled on car gas prices. I am going to wind up this blog entry for now. I am not going to get into the daily doings in the Campaign and I am having some family matters that do not need to be sent into cyberspace and retirement as a long-term lifestyle is beginning to weigh heavy, but I must role manly with these personal matters. You all take care, and we will blog again. Di di mau1

Tiny Little Bit of Betterness

Maybe the flooding in Des Moines is over for now. The bridges over the Des Moines River were opened to traffic the other night and the restaurant area south of downtown reopened (even 2 eateries were washed out). The minor league ballpark is back holding ICubs games, even though they played a game with no people allowed in the stands. But a whole area north of downtown is washed out. And the river is still very very high under the bridges. Cedar Rapids is a complete disaster area, and Iowa City is being flooded now. But this Sunday was a warm clear beautiful day--perfect summer Sunday. The winter, spring, and summer weather disasters are beginning to wear people down, but that is something we will have to live with. I do not have any world news to report because I was away from the TV much of the day. Will have to read Drudge soon, but was busy today. So, this may be a short blog entry. So, you take care, and I will have more in the near future. Di di mau1

Both Good and Bad News

First the bad news; Cedar Rapids is still under water, and Tim Russert died of a heart attack early this afternoon. The "good" news is that the rivers through Des Moines have supposedly crested, and the water is supposed to be slowly going down. The trouble is that after each flood people keep moving back into the river bottom areas. I know that is where their homes and businesses are, and unless you move into the high ground on the very far west side of the metroplex you can expect to have a flood every so many years, but the routine of sandbagging and rescuing gets very expensive for whoever is going to have to pay the bills for all of it. It has been a very nice day today weatherwise, in spite of what is going on waterwise. This is the first night for a while that we have not had a storm roll into the region at about 9 p.m. On the far southeast side of DM water got into the Great Ape Preserve and is having to be pumped out. According to the local news the apes are alright. City and state govt. offices have had to move out of their riverbank complexes, and the art of getting getting from here to there in town is fucked up because most of the bridges in town are under water. Some day we will laught at all this. Ha ha. No we won't. It really is not funny. So, after this brief resume of Des Moine Flooded I am going to go to bed, and hopefully will have more to report next blogging. This situation is not over yet. You take care. Di di mau!

Very Unhappy Stuff

Things are getting tragic out here in the heartland today. A big part of Iowa is under water (Des Moines, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Mason City, and other urban centers, and lots of farm land) or going to be. More rain is on the way. The governor said today that this is going to be worse than '93. And Wisconsin and Indiana are also flooding. And the worse thing that has happened was today's tornado that hit a boy scout camp in western Iowa and killed at least 4 kids and injured about 40. The news on what happened is still murky because official news is still being collected on this disaster as of midnight. I suppose all this water is going to run into the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and sock St. Louis and central Missouri just like in '93. Dejavu all over again, as Mork said. It is going to be very expensive. So far we have been through a long cold snowy winter and now a wet summer (wet is a mild term for what we have had, and I should include the tornadoes across the south and the terrible one we had in Iowa at Parkersburg.) Sticking out your chin and putting on a smiley face seems kinda silly with all the fucked up weather the US(and Burma)(and the Chinese earthquake) have had. And the shootup in oil prices is not helping anyone's disposition or finances. The Weather Channel is blaming all this weather mess on Global Warming, but that is their mantra. The trouble in Des Moines is that the original town was built on a river bottom flood plain, and after the flood of '93 everyone moved right back into the flood flats and added apartments and lofts and new office complexes where they probably should not have been built, but no one thought that there would be another "flood of the century" 15 years after the last one. That is my report on what is going on here. Brief, but it would take a volume to detail what a flood is like is this town, because you have to know the complete layout and topography of Des Moines to visualize it. Thunder is starting to roll right now, so I guess that means the predicted thunderstorm is coming in. Unlike '93 our waterworks is not flooded out yet, so unlike in '93 we should keep our water system functioning. City officials have promised that we will not lose our water. Wait and see. I am going to try to sleep through the storm tonight, because it is getting past midnight. More in the near future for you readers of this blog. I started a diary of the flood event in '93 but never got it completed. Maybe this time I can keep a running account of the flooding of '08, but everything I guess depends on what happens here day by day and night by night. You take care. Di di mau!

One Weekend in June

What has happened in the last few days? Big Brown flopped in the Belmont Stakes Saturday and came in last. Now there are questions about what was wrong with him--heat in New York, steroids or none in him, just a day when he was in a horse bad mood? It rained very hard in Des Moines and flooded the basement parking garage at a yuppie aparment complex and drowned at east 20 expensive cars. Poor yuppies. There were tornadoes around Omaha, and high 90s heat along the east coast. Jim McKay passed away. There is a jittery nervousness in the MidEast as to whether Iran or Israel will attack the other one first. There was an interesting short bit the other night on O'Reilley on Fox, with BO' trying to talk to Pat Buchanan about Pat's latest book, about whether the British provoked Hitler into starting WW2, by promising to go to war when Poland was attacked. The interview went nowhere, because BO' has no background in History and could not ask the right questions to Pat. It's more of the talking heads of cable and network news having no history background. Back to local flooding; the local creeks and rivers are very high, there is spotty flooding in low lying river bottom areas in town and another heavy rain will send back to '93 conditions. Too many people in town, after the 93 floods, moved right back into the flood plain areas, which is much of the city. Everybody in the metroplex here is in a grouchy mood, probably due to the weather we have been having since last winter. Gas prices are up over 4 bucks a gal. ethanol gas is just a little below 4.00 but by Monday a.m may be up. I have not checked the gitngo sign for a few hours. This may be it, for right now. I will return for more blogging in a day or so. You take care now. Di di mau!

Rage Rage O Summer Winds

The center of Iowa has been getting tornadoes and 3" rain storms all afternoon and into the night, and large hail. And the weather people are predicting that we will get thunderstorms every day for the next week. This is apparently going to be the Summer That Wasn't if we do not get some dryness. I do not know what is going to happen to the crops out in the fields. I am not going to go into the political events of the last few days, except to record that BO has clinched the nomination for the Dems, but HRC has not conceded yet, but the latest prediction is that she will drop out of the race this weekend. I may have more to record and opine upon in a later blog entry. In all the news from the last week or so no one remembered to let us know that Dick Martin passed away on 24 May. Rush Limbaugh told a bizzare little story today that his cat got into bed with him and chewed on his toes one night. A couple of days ago I found a video of Born Yesterday--Judy Holliday and Bill Holden. I had never seen the original BY and was curious to see it, but it was dated and too dark to be a Comedy. And I am just not a Judy Holliday devotee. But watching her play a "dumb blond" I detected a sadness in Judy that may not have been acting. Maybe the real Judy was what was we were seeing. I know this is a rambling blog entry, but it has been a long night of watching the regional weather forecasts. I spent some time tonight adding a bunch of political and news websites to my Favorites, and watched some utube videos of Piaf in concert and some other European singers from the 20s and 30s (Missinguett, M. Fogg, Eva Busch, et al). And I have piled on my desk books on James Madison, the flu epidemic of '18, and a history of the '18 Armistice. Maybe at least one person on earth who reads blogs will be interested in knowing what I am trying to educate myself by reading. I have read very few books over the last 20 years, when I dropped away from reading, but I am beginning to open a few books and begin my self-education again. This is going to be all for right now, so you all take care. Di di mau!

June Summer Evening in the Heartland

Warm summer evening in the Midwest. High humidity which is supposed to preclude the rainstorm we are supposed to get, which we do not need at all. Ames got flooded this weekend, but the place is built on a riverbottom and gets flooded at least every other year. The rivers going through Des Moines are very high and may get out if the next storm is heavy. I guess we have been through all this before. Nothing as bad as Burma or western China. What has happened on earth recently? The Mars explorer has a successful landing on the Martian north pole. The Democrats spent Saturday tring to decide what to do with the convention delegates from Michigan and Florida, and Hillary won the Puerto Rico primary. The people can have a primary but cannot vote in the November election. Very little news commentary or promises by the candidates on changing the political system of Puerto Rico. Tomorrow there are primaries in Montana and South Dakota, and then HRC is due to either drop out of the race or take her delegate situation to the August convention credentials committee. This morning W gave the Medal of Honor to the parents of a 19-year-old GI from Penn, who was killed by covering himself with a grenade in Baghdad, and saved 4 of his buddies in a Humv. Very moving and tearful ceremony. In the last several days the world lost Harvey Korman, Bo Diddley, and Yves St. Laurent. And a 60 year old guy in Ft. Dodge with a stock car pit crew got killed when a tire from a speeding stock car hit him in the chest. And there was a huge pallet warehouse fire at Pella, and Sunday Universal Studios got on fire in Los Angeles. In a few minutes my Monday night comedies will be on CBS; the geeks, Doogie, Charlie Sheen, and Dave Spade. I am going to be boycotting Bill O'Reiley on Fox, after he had an uncalled for meltdown last Thursday night. This is going to be all for right now. I will return in the near future. You all take care. Di di mau!