If GWB was still president, and given recent events, I\u2019m sure he would have been asking his advisers what all the fuss was about a turkey coop in Europe.<\/p>\n
But apropos my topic for this piece, I\u2019m equally sure he would have had his military folks taking a close interest in southern Alberta right now.<\/p>\n
You see, we\u2019ve got oil and<\/em> WMD here.<\/p>\n That\u2019s Weather of Mass Destruction. It\u2019s been here since June 28th\u2014and so far it\u2019s showing very few signs of going away any time soon. On June 28th, a hailstorm combined with up to 100km\/hr winds shredded our back yard, wrecked the siding on two sides of our house, ripped shingles from our four-year-old roof, and parts of the beautiful cedar fence I built last year look like they\u2019re acne-scarred. Since June 28th, we\u2019ve had several torrential rainstorms, thunder and lightning every day (admittedly, some days featured just the occasional rumble), and more high winds.<\/p>\n And as I write, we\u2019ve got a weather advisory for funnel clouds and a high flow advisory for our local river.<\/p>\n No matter what the cause, weather patterns are changing. Maybe they\u2019re always changing, but I guess a person would have to live for several hundred years or more to form their own opinion on the subject.<\/p>\n If I look at weather patterns here compared with when we moved to Canada in 1994, I see a big difference. Weather events seem more extreme; more violent. (I won\u2019t try to extend my argument by assessing weather patterns in England in the thirty-nine years I lived there\u2014trying to remember now what those weather patterns were like would be like trying to remember how healthy my diet was back then\u2014my assessment would be confused by my assessment criteria back then compared with now, by wishful thinking, and by old-timers\u2019 memory soup.)<\/p>\n But back to southern Alberta and the WMD.<\/p>\n The pattern has got so protracted and tiresome that I\u2019ve been thinking that some kind of divine retribution is being meted out. I\u2019ve also thought about the possible need for divine intervention. Problem is, I have no idea which weather god I should worship, thank, appease, beg, or sacrifice to.<\/p>\n My first thought was Zeus. He\u2019s the sky and thunder god, and also happens to be the king of the gods in the ancient Greek religion. Sounds like a pretty influential guy\u2014a good mix of power and portfolio. Thing is, I don\u2019t know if southern Alberta is part of his territory. And even if it is, how would I address the problem with him\u2014a rousing rendition of \u201cHail to the Chief\u201d perhaps?<\/p>\n Next I thought of Thor, the Norse god whose department deals with thunder, lightning, storms, and oak trees. He also protects mankind. But I don\u2019t have any oak trees in my yard, and in any case the original storm happened on a Tuesday, so Thor would probably just redirect me to the second window along from his. Given that Tiw is the god of single combat, I assume I wouldn\u2019t get help there either (because then it wouldn\u2019t be single combat). In any case, I\u2019m not alone in wanting to fight this weather off.<\/p>\n So much for the Norse pantheon.<\/p>\n What about the ancient Roman faith system? Jupiter is the go-to god here; he and Zeus hold the same position in their respective pecking orders. But apparently he\u2019s partial to a sacrificed castrated white bull, and I\u2019m not sure that the local feedlot would co-operate, even if they had one.<\/p>\n And to be honest, I wouldn\u2019t hold out too much hope of a Roman god helping out. I mean, what have the Romans done for us?<\/p>\n According to Wikipedia (yep, I had to consult something<\/em> to learn what my other options are!), there are many other weather gods to choose from. There are K\u2019awaiil and Cocijo, Maya and Zapotec gods of lightning respectively, so at least they\u2019re operating on the same continent. There\u2019s Ehacati, the Aztec god of wind; not totally relevant to the current topic, but who might have been worthy of mention in my piece about a flatulent Swedish footballer<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are Egyptian, Maori, and Hindu weather gods, and apparently even one god out of the Caribbean who, apart from being god of thunder and lightning, is also responsible for rallying the other storm gods. Guatauva is his name, and given his portfolio and rallying responsibility, sounds like the kind of god to have inside my tent peeing out rather than outside my tent peeing in. However, I wasn\u2019t able to discover how to attract his attention in a positive way, and gods being the touchy deities that they are, I don\u2019t want to risk offence by offering a male kookaburra as sacrifice when a female kookaburra was the correct protocol. So discretion being the better part of valour (or so they say), I\u2019ll pass.<\/p>\n In fact, this whole appealing to deities thing might be a risky business in general, so I think I\u2019ll give it a miss.<\/p>\n But back to southern Alberta and the WMD.<\/p>\n As far as I know, WMD, and hail in particular, are universally hated. That hatred crosses all boundaries\u2014race, religion, ethnicity, gender\u2014so I feel safe in calling for its proscription, although, knowing my luck, there\u2019s some PC loony out there that will argue for the rights of poor defenceless hailstones. Let\u2019s face it, car dealerships hate hail, farmers hate hail, homeowners hate hail, greenhouse owners hate hail; everybody hates hail. Hail doesn\u2019t have a leg to stand on, neither anatomically nor ethically. It can\u2019t afford a decent lawyer, and legal aid will get it nowhere, so its proscription should be a slam-dunk (which by coincidence is the sound hail makes when it hits your car\u2019s bodywork.)<\/p>\n It should therefore be possible to universally agree that WMD should be banned. So let\u2019s petition the UN for a resolution that will lead to the proscription, confiscation and dismantling of Weather of Mass Destruction.<\/p>\n Although\u2014if GWB was still president, I\u2019m sure he would have felt entitled to get the job done without all those tiresome civilized formalities.<\/p>\n All in all, I\u2019m glad GWB isn\u2019t still POTUS. There\u2019s no way I want US troops stomping all over my back yard destroying my\u2026 wait\u2014didn\u2019t the WMD already do that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If GWB was still president, and given recent events, I\u2019m sure he would have been asking his advisers what all the fuss was about a turkey coop in Europe. But apropos my topic for this piece, I\u2019m equally sure he would have had his military folks taking a close interest in southern Alberta right now. You see, we\u2019ve got oil… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[129,134,131,132,128,130,133],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake","tag-hail","tag-jupiter","tag-potus","tag-thor","tag-weather-gods","tag-wmd","tag-zeus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1610,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}