Violence, Naked Science and “Twister Outbreaks”

Naked Science is at it again.  I watched “Twister Outbreak” this morning on the National Geographic channel.  

Our American world is under attack again….”Kentucky is about to be terrorized!” 

The invasion of  “the killer tornado” has arrived!  Chicago is exposed to creeping death and destruction!   Global warming  tells us we should be worried that “Some tornado will visit you right on your doorstep soon!

How can the modern American science industry, both the classical and the leftwing political, use television to spread their words of knowledge and propaganda?   Sex and violence are the normal pheromones stirred by Hollywood.  Victims, killers, beauty befouled, tense music, scarry words, death and destruction panoramas…..there’s the formula!

Except for belly dancers and strippers, Naked Science  does it all…..for ratings and often politics.  Battles occur.  Good guys are trying to come to the human rescue……to save us from ourselves……to save us from the violence yet to come, known and unknown.  “This could be nature at its worst; the largest storm on Earth”.    (Until the Naked Science program on hurricanes which immediately followed “Twister Outbreak” on the National Geographic channel…..where  even more lives are killed by nature’s wrath.)

“The ultimate nightmare?….”The worst is yet to come…..a super twister attack on Chicago!”  ” Over 45,000 could be killed!”

“Science could be the silver lining behind the darkest cloud!” 

A few years ago there was a grand sweep of tornado activity across the midsection of  central and western Dixie westward…..the most massive invasion of tornados in recorded history…..which is in very, very short supply.   The narrator identifies El Nina and the Jet Stream, with the latter being pulled a bit northward of its usual path, as nature’s culprits…..with mankind hiding in the bushes.

“What are the odds Global Warming is causing the Jet stream to move northward?” is asked…..but not definitely answered…..to the producers’ credit, I believe.  “Tornados are moving into territory where least expected….northward”    Researchers have “noticed something alarming.”  The tornados are “crossing state lines”, into Kentucky…..and then pictures of downtown Chicago are presented to the sweating audiences.

I find tornados  incredibly enticing.  Apparently surprising to the producers of  “Twister Outbreak”, tornados visit Minnesota and Wisconsin rather regularly.  Ours are usually puny compared to the champions cooked up along “Tornado Alley” and in some places in the South.  But there is still great damage we in the North can boast about.   When I hear those exciting sirens blasting their tornado warning alarms, I immediately go outdoors.   Women go for shelter…to basements and such.  I see  a lot of guys outside drawn to the same excitement which draws me. 

“Where is it?  Do you see a funnel?….Look at those black clouds over there!!!   The chorus of male voices spreads throughout the neighborhood.  The electricity in the air is overwhelming….the colors of the violent heavens…..the tease of quiet and silence dancing with violence…..the sweep of hot and cold across the face and body.   The exhiliration of  “the good to be alive” abutting the sword of death.   What more can one want…..as long as one survives to talk about it.

I fled  to a basement only once in my life….in May of  1965.  We were expecting our first born.  I was a school teacher who also coached the boys’ tennis team.  We were practicing  at  a park in northeast Minneapolis.   It had been a perfectly clear day …in the 80s.  Around 4:30 a curtain of BLACK was drawn across the northwestern sky advancing to conquer the clear, beautiful blue sky still sun lit ….now getting not dark blue, but BLACK.   At 5:00 we quit the practice.  I noticed that the BLACK had move eastward rather slowly, but there was more of it despite the bright sun.  Suddenly the sun was captured and disappeared.   The sweat of the day quickly cooled…..and a breeze showed up, the beginning  of its ascent. 

I quickly drove  some players to their homes and then took off for our own home in Kenwood.  No cell phones, remember. 

No rain had fallen yet.  No traffic….no pedestrians….no sounds beyond the building wind.  Downtown Minneapolis was empty of human noise and life.  I and  my car were alone.  I had to get home to be with my wife.  She’d be wild with worry.    I didn’t bother to stop for red lights….there was no need.  Absolutely no one was around.  I expect the sirens had been blaring for almost an hour.

Eleven twisters came across western Minneapolis and around the north and western perimeter of the cities and eventually dumped mercilessly on Fridley, a norther suburb.  Scores of homes were destroyed.  Fridley was isolated from civilization for several days.  A  man drowned  when the  Volkswagon he was driving was picked up and dropped  into Lake Minnetonka.   The siege lasted more than five hours before the all clear sounded at around 10:30 PM.   My wife and I were in our basement listening to the weather developments via a battery radio.  Electricity was out.   I still managed  occasionally to run outdoors to satisy  curiosity and exhiliration.  I didn’t stay long.   It was very black and very noisy and truly threatening.

I believe that storm was the record “twisters” to hit the Twin Cities….but there isn’t a lot of record available. 

No politicians and climatologists in the pay of anyone blamed mankind for the sins of “Twister Outbreaks” in 1965.  Naked Science, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid were unknown then.