A Presidential Love Polygon; Friday Looks Lousy October 22, 2008

Rainfall Total Forecast Through Sunday Morning

The National Weather Service in Wilimgton put out a Freeze Warning for their area for Tuesday night, which includes our extreme Northeast counties of Gallatin and Trimble counties. Our area had a frost advisory for Jackson and Jennings counties, put out by the Indianapolis office and then our extreme eastern counties were put under the same advisory by the Louisville office. I don’t get it. Our dewpoints were in the 20′s and clouds were overspreading the area. As of this writing early Wednesday morning, I have my doubts. Nevertheless, high clouds will dull the sun on Wednesday and Thursday they will thicken up as the day goes on. We think that general rainfall will hold off until Thursday night and then carry through a chilly and wet Friday with Saturday not being much better, though improving. Sunday is the pick of the weekend. There is some indication in some of the data that suggests a sharp chill down early next week. Let’s wait and see how it shakes out. The computers sometimes get confused during a seasonal change. Invest 91in the tropics has really taken a beating but continues to lurk just off the coast of Belize, though nothing is imminent. It’s so uninspiring that there aren’t even any spaghetti models to show.

Most "Active" President?

On This Date in History: On October 22, 1919 a baby girl named Elizabeth Ann was born to Nan Britton. That was no big deal to most people, unless you were aspiring to become President of the United States.

The Lovely Couple

Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding won his first term as Senator in 1914. He said he found the upper chamber of the Congress “a very pleasing place.” He was handsome and popular, having served in the Ohio State Senate and as Ohio Lt. Governor, though he lost a bid for Governor. He gave the nominated speech for President Taft at the 1912 Republican Convention. Let’s see…first term Senator from Midwest…handsome….popular…active in state politics and key speaker at a convention. Sound familiar?

Anyway, there was a snarl in the nominating process at the 1920 Republican convention and in one of those “smoke filled room” stories, party leaders agreed to make Harding the candidate. It is unclear if those party leaders would have even considered Harding had they known of his affection for the ladies.

In 1927, 3 years after Harding’s death, Nan Britton published a book

Florence Harding: Infintesimally Scorned Woman?

called The President’s Daughter. In it, she claimed that she had fallen in love with Harding when he was 45 and she was but 14! In 1917, Nan moved from Ohio to New York and wrote Harding for help in finding a job. She said he came to her and “tucked $30 in my brand new silk stocking.” She claimed that they had a long romance but that she had burned all of the love letters that he had written her as per an agreement between them. She said that he had burned her letters too but, after his death, the real Mrs. Harding, burned all of his correspondence and up in smoke went any corroborating evidence. But, the charge remained that Elizabeth Ann was the only child of Warren G. Harding.

Wife of Harding's Friend

Warren G. Harding love letters to his mistress did eventually show up. Trouble is, they weren’t to Nan Britton but instead belonged to Carrie Phillips, the Ohio wife of one of Harding’s best friends. Not sure if that makes Warren his best man. The letters show that Carrie “was the love of Harding’s life.” Their 10 year affair began in 1909 when the two couples were touring Europe. I’m trying to figure out what Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Harding were doing when Mr. Harding and Mrs. Phillips were horsing around. Anyway, Warren didn’t just write letters to Phillips, he wrote novels. They were often as long as 40 pages and were sexually explicit.

But…there’s more! People today often try to make up excuses for their behavior. Well, Warren’s not around to do that but he has modern clinical analysts to do his bidding. There is a school of thought that President Harding was a victim of satyriasis. That is an unmangeable, excessive need for sex. They point to the fact that he kept a room next to the Oval Office reserved for quick action with any number of women that may wander his way. They also suggest it as a reason for his habit of writing such long, rambling, graphic love letters.

I don’t know about all of that but I do think that, aside from the Teapot Dome Scandal, this type of catting around may be a good reason why many scholars over the years tried to make the case that when he died in 1923 it was murder and not food poisoning followed by a heart attack. If it was murder, it sounds as if there would be a long list of suspects, starting with Mrs. Harding and then carrying on through a long list of women as well as their husbands, boyfriends and fathers. One thing for certain, if a love triangle involves 3 people, then Warren G. Harding would have to be described as being involved in a love polygon.

The National Religion? Old Lady Nabs Football; Cool and Damp End to Week; Invest 91 October 21, 2008

Rainfall Total Forecast Tue through Sat night

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A front coming through on Tuesday is pretty worthless except for what happens down the line. We get clouds and then sunshine in the afternoon. On the tail end of the front in the central Rockies, an area of low pressure will form and start progressing our way. Clouds will increase late Wednesday with rain overspreading the area on Thursday and carrying through Friday with rain chances tailing off on Saturday. The window for about 60 hours of good, soaking but not excessive rain will be wide open. We’re nearly 3/4″ behind in rain for the month and have been running a deficit for each of the months since June. So, don’t complain about the crummy end of the week.

Lucy Shows How it

Gimme Back My Ball, Lady! There are always the scenes from movies about kids playing ball and the ball going over the fence into the mean old man’s back yard and he won’t give it back or he has a mean dog or something and the kids try to find some ingenious way to get it back. Well, the real thing happened in Ash, Ohio. A bunch of kids were playing football and it went over the fence. It landed in an 89 year-old woman’s back yard and she refused to give it back. So, what clever manner filled with all sorts of fun-filled hijinx did the kids use to get their ball back? One of the kids’ father called the police and now the old gal faces petty theft charges. Good use of police and judicial resources, eh? Click Here for the Story

On This Date in History: In America, it is said that sport has become a religion. When I lived in Birmingham, I went into an art store and saw a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest for $550. The busts of Jesus and Robert E. Lee went for $600. If you wanted one of Bear Bryant, you had to let go of $650. Now, in a number of churches you will often find stained glass windows. They can be quite beautiful and often depict scenes of religious significance. Sometimes a church may devote a section to the history of that particular church or something else related to the community. I’ve seen one Episcopal church with a whole series of windows showing the progression of the early history of the United States. But, I have never heard of a stained glass window devoted to the holiest of activities in America: sports.

Step Up To the Plate Instead of Pass the Plate?

Well, on this date in 1951, the world’s largest Gothic cathedral unveiled their stained glass window devoted to sports. In 1924, the daughter of the Episcopal Bishop of New York became enthralled with the Olympic games of that year. She somehow talked her father into devoting an entire window to…”the glory of sport.” Now, that may be a stretch regarding the term “glory” as it relates to divinity so it was no doubt a tough sell when trying to raise funds to install the grand window at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. So, who better to turn to than famed sports writer Grantland Rice. So, Rice did his best of persuasive prose when he wrote, “One of the main objects of both (sports and religion) is to build up the spirit of fair play, square dealing and clean living.” That argument seems a little thin to me.

Apparently it took a little more than hyperbole to raise the cash because the original

Earnhardt Immortalized in Stained Glass

design was altered. The modern sports figures captured in glass were shrunk to just a small area with the larger depictions reserved for biblical “athletes” like Elijah and Samson. To cap it off, the window was dedicated to Saint Hubert, who is the patron saint of hunting. Try to think of what sports figures of today would earn a place in your devine stained glass windows. I bet that NASCAR fans would insist upon Dale Earnhardt.

Invest 91 Satellite 1021 0445Z

Invest 91 Spaghetti Model 1021 00Z

Tropics: Invest 91 As I recalled yesterday, I had mentioned some time ago that if Tropical Depression 16 hung around long enough, then the odds of it turning north would increase. The remnant of TD 16 did not go to the Pacific across Central America but instead hung out in Guatemala for a time and then over the weekend re-emerged in the northwest Caribbean. Yesterday, the National Hurricane Center determined that this feature would move back west. By Monday, the storm was generally stationary. Now, the determination is that it may be drifting west. However, the latest spaghetti model still reveals that there are a number of models that want to pick the storm up and move it north and then northeast toward

Invest 91 Spaghetti Model Intensity Graph 1021 00Z

Florida. There are fewer machines that claim a westward or even southwestward trajectory. While the latter is unlikely, climatologically speaking this time of year storms from this point of origin have a northern or northeastern favored direction. Climate is just an average so it can’t be taken as gospel and I suspect that the climate portions of the mathematical equations used for the computer models are influencing the solutions since other parameters are probably pretty weak and this would be the cause for the deviation from what had been forecast earlier by the National Hurricane Center. Lately, their verbiage has been a little less commital and for good reason….my notion still holds. The longer it hangs around, the greater the odds that eventually it gets caught up in a more climatologically favored route. Nothing is imminent nor even probable at this point….its just worth watching.

TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK

NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 200 AM EDT

TUE OCT 21 2008

FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC…CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO… 1. AN AREA OF LOW PRESSURE DRIFTING WESTWARD OVER THE GULF OF HONDURAS CONTINUES TO PRODUCE DISORGANIZED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS. SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SYSTEM IS NOT EXPECTED DUE TO PROXIMITY TO LAND…BUT LOCALLY HEAVY RAINS ARE POSSIBLE OVER PORTIONS OF HONDURAS…GUATEMALA…BELIZE…AND THE YUCATAN PENINSULA DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. ELSEWHERE…TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

$$ FORECASTER BERG

Raid Across the Border on American Town; Rain Late in the Week; The Resurrection in the Tropics-Invest 91 October 20, 2008

Rain Totals Forecast This Week; Ours will Come Thu-Sat

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I told you so!

Another Colonel Klink Moment. I told you that the official low in Louisville wouldn’t get to 36…but we said 39 and it was 41 at the airport. We’ll claim a partial victory. Now, no one lives at the airport so the low in your backyard was probably in the upper 30′s. Scottsburg and Bloomington were down to near freezing, yet they were not in the Frost Advisory area, which I still cannot figure out. Anyway, after another chilly Monday morning, the afternoon will get to the upper 60′s. A weak front comes through Monday night and there may be a very insignificant shower or two but the real story with this front will be when it comes back. The tail end of the boundary will develop a low in the Southern Plains and then come back our way, bringing rain and murkiness for late Thursday through the first part of Saturday.

Invest 91 Spaghetti Model

Also another Colonel Klink Moment regarding Tropical Depression 16. If you recall, I had said that if it stayed around long enough it might be a trouble maker. Well, now it’s called Invest 91 and has re-emerged just off the coast of Belize. The National Hurricane Center hasn’t said that it had its genesis from Tropical Depression 16 but it is. Anyway, the official forecast calls for it to go back into Central America, but you can see from the Spaghetti model that there are some computers that want to take it back toward Florida. My guess is that these guys are being influenced by the climatology parameters in the equations. Nevertheless, what I said before still holds. Invest 91 is in no way an imminent threat but, as long as this guy lurks, eventually it may get picked up toward the north and so it needs to be monitored.

Unsuspecting Town Before Confederate Raid

On This Date in History: On this date in 1864, a group of Confederate raiders were basking in the success of a raid into Union territory. Big deal, right? I mean the Confederate Army was wandering all over the North during the Civil War but by October 1864, most of the action was taking place in Southern territory. But, these guys didn’t strike where you might think.

This was the cavalry…about 20 of them organized by Confederate Agent George Sanders and let by Lt. Bennett Young. The plan was to quickly swoop into an unsuspecting town. This they accomplished when Young stood on the steps of a local hotel with guns drawn and proclaimed that the small town was in the possession of the Confederate States of America. The Rebels galloped up and down the Main Street and forced the locals into the village green. Then the cavalrymen went to the town’s banks and took all of their money. There they forced patrons and bank tellers to pledge allegiance to the Confederacy. I guess that they were in a hurry to leave, which doesn’t sound like the town was really in possession of the Confederacy…more like just a short loan as they left after about 30 minutes of marauding. They tried to burn the town but somehow only managed to burn down a shed. And as they scampered away, much of the money they stole fell to the ground but they still managed to make off with about $200,000.

And so, on this date in 1864, the cavalrymen were no doubt counting their loot…in Canada, though they were eventually held by the authorities. You see, this little known of raid was the farthest excursion north of any forces of the Old South. The town was St. Albans. And it resided near the scenic Lake Champlain in Vermont! The raiders on this date in history were safe, in Canada, from which the entire caper began.

Local Hero?

Here’s the kicker….Bennett H. Young was just 21 when he led the raid. After creating an international incident, he returned to the Confederacy with the money as a hero. He was promoted to General. He returned to his home state after the war and became one of the state’s best lawyers. The state? Kentucky. And the town in which he practiced was Louisville. I’m not certain, but I believe he was a member of Second Presbyterian Church. Here is a brief biography.