Oklahoma, Where the Wind Comes Whipping Down the Plain

We got up to the lake without battling too much Friday traffic. After having something to eat, I settled down to catch up on all the online stuff, and to watch the Yankees-Red Sox game. Now after losing four straight games to the nearly last place Mets, I was hoping for a little redemption by kicking some Boston ass.

Not much later I began to see the tweets coming out of the Midwest. Tornado warnings, flash flood warnings, and much of it was centered over Oklahoma, more specifically, not too far from Moore, site of the mass devastation less than two weeks ago. More and more, the tweets took on an ominous feel. I turned off the game and put on The Weather Channel. Word was coming across that one of their vans, with the crew inside, was picked up by one of the three tornadoes currently on the ground, and was thrown 200 yards into a field. The distance was later revised to 200 feet, but does it really make a difference? When they showed the van, I thought it had been a car... that's how flattened the roof had become.

The crew all survived, battered and bruised, but alive. A mother and child trapped in their car, were not as fortunate. As of this morning, there are five dead, and after watching the footage of the tornado clouds forming, and hearing the reports from the stormchasers, I can't believe the count is not higher Some areas received 11 inches of rain creating flash flooding.

Why Oklahoma has been chosen as the official poster child of this year's tornado season, is not something to which any of us have an answer. And while the rest of us will go through this first day of June enjoying a weekend full of enjoyment, so many people in the Midwest will be trying to pick up their lives.

As many of you know, I write a couple of columns a week over at sprocketink,com. It's a site where we take the news of the day and give it a sarcastic, snarky spin. After the Moore tornado, one of the founders of the site wrote about it. However it wasn't sarcastic, it wasn't snarky. What it was, was a first-hand account of someone living 25 miles away from Moore. It's very worth your time to take a read.

It's called Crutches and read it here: http://sprocketink.com/crutches/

Now spend a minute or two of your day holding some good thoughts for a lot of good people who seem to be caught on nature's Merry-Go-Round, and be thankful you're not riding on it too..

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Debating the Debate: You Haven't Done Nothing

So did you watch the debate last night? I listened to it...sort of.

C'mon, it was game 162 of the regular baseball season and it meant something. The outcomes of several games actually determined the playoff schedules. And, at the top of the list..my beloved Yankees. Yes, we did it, we won the AL East. It's a long road til the World Series and I don't have illusions of grandeur, but there is that Kentucky Wildcat thing...hmm. But that's a story for another day.

Back to politics. ugh.

Every four years when you think the candidates can't get any worse...they do. Now due to the fact that I write a couple of blogs, I thought I should at least pay a little attention to last night's pissing contest.

So, I had the Yankee game on TV and the debate streaming on the laptop, listening through my earbuds. During commercials, I switched to the testosterone tiff to get the visual effect. From what I could assimilate...Big Bird won by a huge margin. Everything else was pretty much blah, blah, blah.

I've decided during this political season, for each presidential debate, I should showcase a song to reflect my feelings of the moment. No, I won't be watching or commenting on the vice-presidential debates unless something REAL FUN happens, because quite frankly...who the hell cares. After the vice-presidental debate when Dan Quayle (Mr. Potatoe Head) was handed his hat and told in no uncertain terms by Lloyd Bentsen to "go home little boy," and was still voted in as VP, I realized that no one really gives a shit who the VP is going to be...unless it is Sarah Palin. But I digress.

So one tasty treat today. Mr. Stevie Wonder, who always gets it right.
"You Haven't Done Nothing"

"We are amazed but not amused

By all the things you say that you'll do

Though much concerned but not involved

With decisions that are made by you

But we are sick and tired of hearing your song

Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong

'Cause if you really want to hear our views

"You haven't done nothing"!

It's not too cool to be ridiculed 

But you brought this upon yourself

The world is tired of pacifiers

We want the truth and nothing else

And we are sick and tired of hearing your song

Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong

'Cause if you really want to hear our views

"You haven't done nothing"!

Jackson 5 join along with me say

Doo doo wop - hey hey hey

Doo doo wop - wow wow wow 

Doo doo wop - co co co 

Doo doo wop - naw naw naw

Doo doo wop - bum bum bum 

Doo doo wop

We would not care to wake up to the nightmare

That's becoming real life

But when mislead who knows a person's mind

Can turn as cold as ice un hum

Why do you keep on making us hear your song

Telling us how you are changing right from wrong

'Cause if you really want to hear our views

"You haven't done nothing"!

Yeah

Jackson 5 sing along again say

Doo doo wop

Doo doo wop - oh

Doo doo wop - co co co 

Doo doo wop - sing it baby

Doo doo wop - bum bum bum 

Doo doo wop - um 

Sing it loud for your people say

Doo doo wop - um um um 

Doo doo wop - stand up be counted, say

Doo doo wop - co co co 

Doo doo wop - ow

Doo doo wop - bum bum bum 

Doo doo wop - ah hum"

Politics...what a way to make a living.

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