Wednesday, April 20, 2011

20 April 2011 And Texas needs rain!

            The state of Texas is in flames.  This has nothing to do with the normal inflamed condition of Texans engaged in dealing with the world beyond Texas's borders. It has to do with current weather and long-term climate that has reduced much of the Texas land area to a conflagration waiting for a spark. 

            Texas has a huge portion of Gulf of Mexico coast line, several rivers of note, and a climate pattern that subjects it to immense thunder storms, and hurricane-powered deluges.   The eastern part of the state has the swampy nature of Louisiana while the western edge is high desert.  Texas has a water distribution dilemma, as if the landmass has been tilted, allowing west Texas water to drain eastward. 
            Obviously there is no way to flatten out the area that is Texas in order to change the water distribution.  The aquifers involved are massive and located deep beneath the surface.  Centuries of rainfall are needed to replenish those sources of water.  There will be no refill process in Texas.
            A song called “The Merry Minuet,” written about the inability of people to co-exist, contains the source line,” and Texas needs rain.”  The preceding line, “There;s hurricanes in Florida,” sets the stage for the unhappy condition of the state of Texas. 
            Texas is often struck a glancing blow by hurricanes that enter the Gulf of Mexico.  Once in a while Texas receives a direct hit.  In either instance, Texas is the recipient of more water than it can store, re-route, or deflect from occupied parts of the state.  Unfortunately, this rain does not fall in West Texas. It causes floods in the Eastern and South Eastern regions of the state. 
            West Texas has the occasional blizzard, the random but rare ice-storm, and immense squall lines spawning tornadoes and torrential thunder storm rainfalls.  But these water sources come and leave quickly.  What they leave behind is too often only cracked mud and dead foliage. 
            That parched vista of dead and dying plant life is just waiting for the fuse to be lit.  when it happens, the grasslands and deserts of Texas are ready to keep the night lit up like images of a demonic inferno.   The good people of Texas at least part of them, are only too willing to believe that the current wildfires are some sort of biblical punishment,   And, as in the Dust Bowl days, there are sky-pilots eager to use climactic patterns to increase their take when the collection plates get passed. 
            The governor of Texas, a reactionary, courting big business backers and teavangelist voters, has previously threatened that Texas will once again secede from the communist-controlled U.S.  His assertion is that Texas can stand alone as a republic.  In light of the current fires, he has waffled and is begging the Federal government, that band of elitist, educated, secular, non-Christians for disaster relief.
            Texas probably needs disaster relief.  It certainly needs rain.  But given the political nature of Texas, given the way it is distorting history in its textbooks, and the voting habits of its citizens, I'm willing to allow them to leave the union.  Perhaps Mexico will take them back.

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