Well, here's the dope on the hurricane...Miss "Dolly".

We here in SA will get some rain, maybe, and that's fine, but the 'cane is STILL dumping on the Lower Rio Grande Valley. It's "netherlands" down there, barely above sea level, and the dikes are in poor shape. I hear the dYkes are doing OK, though.

My cousin, the dimwit, opted to stay in the Valley as Dolly said "Hello". Now cuz is stuck down there in her nice but very soggy 'hood.

There are several cats in the "family", so well as a huge effing parrot (who bites anyone he can at every opportunity, except, for some reason, me...Maybe I don't taste good to parrots.)

Also, there are two enormous dawgs (Labs) and two weasels (Ferrets). The whole darned menagerie and cuz are prisoners in their own home.

It's still raining! The power is off, and it's HOT and HUMID. The animals are ALL inside and things are getting ripe. Did I mention the mosquitos?

Sooooo....One of our legal beagles owns an airboat.

He has volunteered to tow it (with OUR Hummer) down there, rescue the whole mob, two-legged, four-legged, feathered, etc., so we can bring them up here.

I'm going along, as is the foreman from the ranch (interpreter, if needed). The foreman is here now, having driven all the way from the ranch when summoned at just before Midnight.

Y'day, I called our vet and made arrangements to board the dawgs and cats. Thank God cuz has "papers" on the parrot or he wouldn't make it past the quarantine checkpoints.

I spent y'day afternoon calling around to borrow cages in which to tote the various beasts...Wot fun!

Actually, the parrot will be kept here with us, as will the weasels...POP!...and the cuz.

I'm gonna be off the air until late this evening or tomorrow AM at the earliest.

WHY? Oh, Dear God, WHY didn't that idiot heed advice to pack 'em all up and scoot before the storm arrived?

Well, off we go. 4:45 AM...Grumble.

In other news, this coming weekend's KKKoven get-together (to introduce the Thai LadyBoy eunuch to a very small and select group and whereat "she" promised to do a seductive Dance Of The Seven Veils, using only six veils,) has been postponed. Too bad, but I don't think my cuz would be too thrilled. Then again, one never knows, now does one?

Yoli

First Mate and Entertainment Director

Noah's Ark II

Shuffleboard, anyone?

__________________

Give it back to Mech-hic-ko .

You're lucky I didn't do the job commute thru Texiz this time. I would have seeded that big cloud from 30,000 feet by flushing twice There is a whorible side to me.

If it did not make it to Crawford TX and destroy at least on ranch there I am not impressed, I thought everything in Texas was supposed to be bigger.

River

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:20 pm If it did not make it to Crawford TX and destroy at least on ranch there I am not impressed, I thought everything in Texas was supposed to be bigger.

River

Once, a fellow I know was in Alaska. He ordered a Texas size steak at a restaurant. He got a 4 ounce hamburger. Not everything is bigger or better texas-wise. Next time he ordered an Alaskan Sized Steak.

After Katrina, I grew tired of hurricanes! Sultry days without air conditioning are just the tip of the problem. Knowing the people suffer and die makes them awful. A small storm can refresh you. The low presssure feels good. The rain and wind makes one feel good, but flooding, wind damage, and other factors make them a pain.

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:20 pm If it did not make it to Crawford TX and destroy at least on ranch there I am not impressed, I thought everything in Texas was supposed to be bigger.

River At least that one ranch ought to go! I had not thought about that place!

I lived in New Orleans twelve years. That a hurricane had not destroyed it long ago had long shocked me, not that it did not fail until after Katrina. To me, the city always felt vulnerable.

For a long time, I wondered about how soon the social structure would collapse. What surprised me was that the structures were stronger than I imagined that they would be. Remember that the people at Audubon Zoo saves almost all the animals (the zoo did not flood). Many people who lived in the Garden District or Uptown did not flee. They stated and defended their property just as some home owners on Esplanade did.

New Orleans has a complex social history that is not always easily reducible to clichés and simple images. Remember how both the Coast Guard and the Wildlife Department worked fairly well after the storm.

Professional people maintained Charity Hospital. Ochsner Hospital in Metairie and within walking distance of my old apartment in New Orleans remained functional during and after the storm. That did not surprise me. That the police department largely failed also did not surprise me, because that system fails even without hurricanes.

This afternoon on public television, I saw a news report on public about schools in New Orleans. It was about eighteen-year-old men and women who read on the fourth grade level who cannot graduate from the eighth grade. I suppose that New Orleans is not unique. Those students were there before the storm and they are still in New Orleans. And no one knows exactly what to do in response.

The social history of the place is complex and not well understood outside the city. A hundred years ago, New Orleans was in many ways progressive, though I am certain that it was a mean and competitive place to live.

The collapse of the old agricultural system during the twenties flooded New Orleans with illiterate people from Southern Mississippi. That transformed and overwhelmed its public school system. As a result, a large percentage of people in New Orleans could not read when I lived there. Many of those people had come from other parts of the South, not Louisiana.

We have to grasp how to teach people and how to teach them in ways that make them independent. New Orleans has some of the best educated African-American people in the United States. We forget the complexity of the place. I am thinking about the remarkable book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. That work by Paulo Freire bears on the situation in New Orleans. We have rebuilt in New Orleans a system that obviates thinking.

Yoli reporting.

We got down there after some aggravations but we have returned with our traveling zoo. The cats and dogs are at the boarding facility and the weasels, parrot, and the cuz are safely here.

The Valley looks like unalloyed Hell. Although Dolly was barely a Cat 2 'cane when she made landfall at Brownsville and degraded fairly rapidly, the wind and water really did a number. Y'see, the lower Valley is only a very few feet above sea level and they had nine days of rain less than two weeks ago.

What used to be a magical area has, in recent years, turned into an ugly place, thanks to the influx of you-know-who from you-know-where. There are housing "developments", called colonias, consisting of slapdash houses and inhabited by uninvited immigrants. These are located in the least desirable patches of real estate and don't hold up well in wind and flooding.

Cuz's condo is in a nice spot but on very low ground. As a result, her garage was flooded to about two feet in depth and there was a roof leak that pretty much rendered the kitchen and living room a mess. She has adequate insurance and has a very large chunk of change in the bank (See: Huge divorce settlement.) so all will be well.

The area has an effective private security arrangement so there is no concern re looting. She'll head back down there in a few days and go about setting things straight. She'll have lots of help.

We discarded the contents of the refrigerator and freezer, 'cept for some stuff we put in coolers and brought back with us.

I, and other family members, are going to make a concerted effort (See: Nagging.) to get her to relocate, BTW.

Soooo, here we are. Cuz is snoozing peacefully in the big house. The weasels and the man-eating parrot are ensconced below me in the carriage house. Ash(leigh) is out on the town...not really...She's on a two day trip to Waco. (Waco? Wot fun!...NOT!) Still, she might meet some cute Baylor U. coed who wants to toss her Baptist upbringing for a night and explore Sapphic pleasures. Well, it COULD happen:D

We didn't really need the airboat but we were asked to "lend" it to some relief workers assisting some colonistas who were stranded. So, the owner of the rig drove it off into the fray and did his good deed for a couple of hours. That thing is LOUD! Scary too. I rode in it for "demo"...Wheeee!

And now, after some quick perusal of some other posts and my PM box...off to ZZZZZZZZville.

Love to all and sundry,

Yoli

Fearless Adventurer

kristoff wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:26 pm Once, a fellow I know was in Alaska. He ordered a Texas size steak at a restaurant. He got a 4 ounce hamburger. Not everything is bigger or better texas-wise. Next time he ordered an Alaskan Sized Steak.

Good one. Isn't it amusing when they poke fun at Baja Oklahoma?

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:54 pm Good one. Isn't it amusing when they poke fun at Baja Oklahoma?

I love living in Texiz (no state income tax, good roads, lotsa hunting and fishing in both fresh and salt water, great malls!) but when college football season rolls around I'm an Oklahoma girl all the way.

Here's a sample of what I get off on: First the Wronghorns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHB7mcs1ykw

And: Now the Aggies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHB7mcs1ykw

Can you tell that Lil' Yoli is counting the days? Football and the first of the hunting seasons (Dove) start in just over 30 days!

'Course, we can shoot those ^$%%#!~ wild hogs year-round...clocks too

Yoli

Goddess of The Hunt/Sooner Fan/Homecoming Queen

Worship me...NOW!