Does Jesus cause weird weather?

Some 20 years ago, there were seven years when California rainfall was much below normal. Meteorologists claimed the drought coincided with higher than average temperatures of Pacific waters around the time of Christmas. when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus; the Spanish influence in California caused the naming of the meteorological phenomenon as "El Nino" for the infant Jesus. This year, the opposite condition, cold Pacific waters, called "El Nina" (Unless we got it backwards)seems to have led to some great skiing on Thanksgiving.

Now, those with good memories may be thinking, is not this writer the incurable punster who is fond of saying "Isn't a meteorologist a person who can look into a girl's eyes and tell whether?" Jokes aside (temporsrily)that drought had severe and unexpected consequences; not only did farmers appropriate the water that could grow grass in Beverly Hills, but electrical consequences were surprising. Normally an 8 foot copper rod is driven into the earth as "ground" at the supply pole, another is driven in at the user's pole. It is expected that grounding currents can flow through the earth because there is a lot of it, but conduction may fail IF THE EARTH IS TOO DRY. The result was that a lineman atop a 40 foot ladder yeached for the ground wire and got a jolt that knocked off the ladder. He was very lucky to survive;
this safety engineer was never told whether he returned to full effectiveness when his fractures mended.

In about a week, the Arts Director of this house leads a group of nearly 30 to an opera named "El Nino", by a MUSIC PROFESSOR at Berkeley. Now we are very acquainted with the rainstorm Beethoven wrote into his Pastoral Symphony; Rossini seems pleased to make people carry embrellas in several of his operas. We may report, post facto, whether there are "shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night". Several years ago, this same opera company presented an angel with one wing in an opera about "Francis of Assisi". What next?

I choose Edgar

On Wednesday, there were two news artricles concerning middle-aged men shedding tears of gratitude for their recent successes. John Boehner(rhymes woth "no-brainer") was pathetircally grateful that Republican victories sending them to the House of Represesntatives would make him eligible to be elected Speaker of the House, thus eligible to be President ahould sudden death overtake President Obama and VP Biden. His success is strongly rooted in his ability to make consecutive statements which absolutely contradict one another. e.g. "The Stimulus Plan is a failure" and "I have brought all these jobs to Ohio". Is it any wonder that politicians are uniformly distrusted?

Monday evening, it was pretty thrilling to us neighbors of San Francisco to look at the tv screen as the left and centerfielders of the baseball team formerly owned by George Bush watched the ball hit by one Edgar Renteria as it flew over the fence. For that hit and for otherwise inspiring his team, Edgar was chosen Most Vauable Player of the 2010 World Series.(Edgar's body is so damaged that he will probably never play another game of baseball. Indeed, the next day he received a severance package from his team.) It is left as an exercise for the student to guess which tears of joy your blogger identifies best with.