Introducing Dour Kitty

This is a vase I bought at a yard sale yesterday. I love the pink with the glitter. But my favorite part is the kitty's expression. The frown is molded in the ceramic and then accented with paint. For some reason, this just strikes me as hilarious and I think it will become a fixture. He's already sitting on the shelf in the kitchen and when I have more flowers, I will pick some and put in there. Of course, I'll share another photo at that time.

I've dubbed him "dour kitty" and from now on, anything I discuss on the blog that is lacking in some way will get one through five "dour kitties" to illustrate disillusionment, disappointment or disgust.

Today I will be awarding a dour kitty to weather forecasters. Only because I know they have noble intentions are they getting only one dour kitty.

Greg, Mark, Terry, Sharon and I went to see Watchmen this afternoon (NO spoilers). The guys had read the series, Sharon and I had not. I enjoyed it, but it is violent. I mean, really violent. At times I felt like I needed some background, but it was a good movie. The look of it is great. I'm sure it will win a slew of awards for direction and shooting and editing and all of that.

In the middle of it, the movie ground to a halt, the lights came on, and someone announced there was a tornado warning and we should all proceed to the exit to go to the tornado shelter. So, we file out, like everyone from the other theatres is doing, and we go out into the waning rain and walk a short distance outside to a mall corridor.

We were some of the last folks out and we never actually went inside. Instead, we stood outside and looked at the clouds. The non-tornadic clouds. Like we've never seen clouds before.

This dour kitty is for weather forecasters. They pretend to know what is going to happen and get people all worked up. Witness that today we had a 30% chance of rain. It has poured, more than once. I realize that we may not be able to know exactly what is going to happen. I can accept that, but then stop pretending you know and acting all authoritative.

People die because weather forecasters exaggerate the danger when there is none. Trust me, there are only so many times you can be herded out into the rain to look at clouds before you start to doubt the wisdom of the weather people who are telling you to do that. Eventually, you start ignoring them, because they've cried wolf too many times. Then, when something major does happen, you're caught completely unaware.

The only reason so many people in Greensburg survived is because they called it a "Tornado emergency" because it was so dire. People took that seriously. Thank goodness. But, if they had called it a warning, more people would have ignored it because you can only get motivated to spend time in your musty basement for no particular reason only so many times. And those of us who live in Kansas have been sent to our basements multiple times for no real purpose.

I don't think for a moment that forecasters have anything but the best of intentions, but they need to be more honest about what is and is not a real emergency. And they need to be honest about what they do and do not really know.
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