Rear View Mirror

Big ass scary headline on weather.com.

Heavy Snow, Significant Ice the Next Two Days
A final swath of snow, sleet and freezing rain will lead to dangerous travel from the Southern Plains into the Ohio Valley and East starting Wednesday.

"East." That’s me! Oh nooooooooo! NOT a new blizzard!

It's winter storm Thor. Why did the storm namers have to go with Thor? Thor was always my fav of the Marvel heros. OK, so was Silver Surfer. I wouldn’t want a late winter, oh-my-fucking-god-I-am-SO-sick-of-this-fucking-shit tempest named after him either. Could we just call it George or Fred? You know, names that I’m already not too keen on?

Oh wait, I think the weather.com folks are mostly talking about the Midwest and the South. Here in Boston, we’ll MAYBE get a little snow—there’s an 80% chance of snow showers, AKA a dusting. We may get a WHOLE inch. Pffft. With six feet of the stuff on the ground, who’ll even notice another inch? Hardly worth getting the plows out for that.

I used to work with this guy, back in my press room production management days, who’d get a real solid stiffy whenever big storm “events” came around. This was in the early ‘90s—the planet was better behaved back then—weather "events" weren't the norm. The effects of Climate Change weren’t quite so persistently obvious.

Also, just FYI and shit:

Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.

The other 3%? Dimbulbed OR, more likely, greedheaded, shortsighted, whores for the industries whose big fat earnings are imperiled by the populace realizing that we’re killing ourselves and our planet with our addiction to fossil fuels. Cutting down the rainforests to graze cattle so that everyone can have their daily dose of Carl’s Jr/Big Mac/Wendy Burger is surely not helping either. Do the planet a mitzvah—take the train, plant a tree or three and stop eating beef!

And go look at the NASA Global Climate Change site. Really. It’s a totes fascinating place.

OK, OK, back to the guy with the bad weather hard on....

Eh, he was creepy. The sort who thrived on potential but not actual disaster. At heart, I think life, taking risks, scared him. You know, the type who goes to the Italy Pavilion at Epcot in order to "experience" Venice. The type who, after seeing Saving Private Ryan, feels he’s been in an actual, real war. The kind of fellow who gets a headache and thinks he’s got brain tumors.

He was also an alky. Now, at this great distance, not having worked with him in maybe as many as 20 years, I can see that he was a deeply fearful soul. A sad thing, afraid to seek out and embrace a larger life than the one he’d been dealt.

Some folks are best known in the rear view mirror.