55 Years Ago: Blackwell, Oklahoma F-5 Tornado, May 25, 1955

My wife was seven years old and living in Blackwell, Oklahoma in 1955. When the tornado came through town she, her two year old sister, and pregnant mother were hiding under a bed in their small house a few blocks from the tornado's path. Her father, of course, was watching it go through town. I recently found these pictures from LIFE Magazine published in a May 1955 issue. I'm posting copies of the pictures for her and for her family and friends that lived through this F-5 monster storm. Better and more pictures from LIFE are available from their archives.

1955 Great Plains Tornado Outbreak

"The 1955 Great Plains tornado outbreak was a deadly tornado outbreak that struck the southern and central U.S Plain States on May 25-26, 1955. It produced at least 46 tornadoes across 7 states including 2 F5 tornadoes in Blackwell, Oklahoma and Udall, Kansas. The outbreak killed 102 from 3 tornadoes while injuring hundreds more. Unusual electromagnetic activity was observed, including St. Elmo's fire ...

The Blackwell tornado formed in Noble County at around 9:00 PM CDT before crossing through the eastern portions of the Kay County town of Blackwell as a 500-yard F5 wedge. It claimed the lives of 20 people in Blackwell and injured over 200 before crossing and dissipating into Cowley County, Kansas. In addition of destroying nearly 200 homes, the tornado also demolished the town's main employers including the Acme Foundry and the Hazel Atlas Glass plant. The local hospital also sustained major damage. Most of the western half of the town spared the worst of the damage..." ----Wikipedia

Photos from LIFE Magazine.

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled , Believe Also In Sean

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me."
John 14:1

Every so often I force myself to watch most of the programs on Fox News. Know thine opposition!

After an hour of revisionist twisting of basic facts and common sense each night Sean Hannity signs his show off with the phrase, "Let not your heart be troubled...". He troubles the heart, mind, and gastrointestinal tract and then in supreme gall tells you not to be troubled. Of course the Bible verse he is spouting half of, also has Jesus saying, "... if you believe in God, believe also in me." However I'm none too sure that Sean doesn't associate the last unspoken half of his sign off with just his own self. I'm sure he won't admit that, who would after all? But the level of self righteous judgement that spews forth from him every evening reeks of messianic hubris.

By the way Sean when are you going to bring back Pat Boone to be on that Great American Panel of yours? I found Pat to be most amazing.

Who Is On Second ?

Less Is The Same: The 7.5 oz. Dr. Pepper - Coke - Etc.

A Sweet Drink Tax avoidance?

Saving the environment?

Less for the same?

I was surprised the other day when I walked past a soft drink display at my local WalMart. It was a ways away from the other soft drinks, but yet it had all of the major brands. The catch was they were all 7.5 oz. cans in a plastic ring 8 pack

Say what?

Yes Matilda, they are changing the size. The can size reduction is 5/8ths the size of the now standard 12 oz. can, but the 8 pack is a 1/3 increase in the number of cans. Or to look at another way they are selling you 60 oz. of soda per pack rather than 72 oz. which equals one standard can less than before. Now at WalMart they were selling the 7.5 oz. 8 pack for $3.98 or 50 cents per can. You can bet that price won't stay that low for long. It will climb right up to the edge of the price point and never leave there.

So here we are.

The New Coke again.

The new everything again.

Only 90 calories! That's the pitch. Less than 100 calories per drink will be the ads.

They of course brought out the half standard cans (6 oz.) several years ago. They seem to sell well enough but didn't become the standard size. Then late last year they tried out the 20 Coke/DP/etc. pack as a replacement for the 24 pack. Nope it wasn't a hit.

This 7.5 oz. size seems to be an all out attack to sell us less for the same.

The old 6 oz. Coca Cola

Now I was raise drinking 6 oz. DP's and Cokes, and I've watched over the decades as the soft drink pushers have peddled larger and larger version of their product until now the push-back from the culture and the government is too large to ignore.

So now the Wizards of Soft Drink OZ have given us their decision: 7.5 oz.

What do you think?

Less is enough?

Bottoms up!

Bury Ostrich Eggs All The Way To Mars

Another brilliant idea........

One of the problems with manned spaced flights to places like Mars is that you got to carry your food with you. I have recently watched a couple of TV shows about this and read about it in some scientific publications.

All of the solutions seem to be some exotic type of space farming. Well maybe if your in a Starship headed out to the edge of the Milky Way a space horticulture system is a solution.

But for a trip of a year or three there's a better way.

In the Kalahari when Bushmen traveled long distances they did not attempt to carry all of the water and food they needed with them. Instead they cached it along the way. Let us say they were going on a trip to a place eight days away one way. They would start a trip with all the water and food they could carry (water was carried in sealed Ostrich eggs from which it would not evaporate) let's say they could carry six days worth. So they walk out two days, bury a cache of of two days worth and use the remaining two days worth to get back. They take another six days worth hike out three days, and bury one days worth of supplies and come back using the two days worth remaining and one days which was left at the two day cache. Now they have two days of travel supplies cached and are carrying six days so they can make the eight day trip.

Remember Disney's " Man In Space Series"

Want to go to Mars in a lighter faster ship. Send the supplies, food, water, fuel, materials, out in separate ships (Ostrich eggs) with them rendezvousing with the passenger ship at the times they will need them. All the way there, while they are there, and all the way back.

So maybe they have already thought of this but if they have it hasn't been shown in the simpleton's media I frequent.

FREE OIL: Lousiana Govenor Jindal To Boost Tourism With New Free Oil Festival

"All Of The Oil You Can Carry Festival"

Satire sometimes becomes reality. The Movie "Network" is such a fine example. So maybe this satirical suggestion might actual be of some practical value. Why not have all Americans scoop it up out of the Gulf or off of the beaches and take it back to their home where it belongs? You know sort of a Lousiana Dunkirk Scale Oil Cleanup.

Thanks to Fake Consultant for his viewpoint:

To attract tourists, Louisiana governor announces free oil giveaway
Submitted by fake consultant on Fri, 04/30/2010 - 2:45am

Baton Rouge (FNS)—Facing both a massive oil slick from a sunken offshore drilling platform and a second year of declining tourism revenues along the Louisiana Gulf Coast caused by high gas prices, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today introduced a new tourism promotion that he reports is going to “...make lemons into lemonade”.
Jindal, flanked by British Petroleum's Director of Marketing Dick Timoneous and the Executive Director of the Louisiana State Tourism Board, Jenna Talia, announced that the “All The Oil You Can Carry Festival” would officially commence today just east of New Orleans, and last at least through the month of May. MORE....

Actual Forecast Map

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

Ever dance around a Maypole holding the ribbons and moving in and out so that the ribbons form a pattern on the pole?

I have.

Ever find a May basket on your doorstep with fresh wildflowers picked by a young girl who was hiding in the bushes, watching you, and waiting for you to come find her and catch her and give her a kiss.

I have.

But unfortunately I didn't know the tradition and didn't go looking for the girl, who waited and waited for me to do so, and thus I blew the whole thing and pissed her off, and I didn't get a kiss that day.

However she married me anyway.