Blog Dis
An active season is expected...
2026-02-12
The body count will grow in 2026. I'm referring to tornado season, rather than the body count of those linked in the release of millions of infamous E-Files. Weather forecasters anticipate that in 2026 alone, there'll potentially be over 1,400 tornadoes to hit the USA in the Central Plains, that is to say in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa and Texas. Not all will be lethal. It really only takes a handful to leave their devastating mark.
Oh my lawd! The horror of experiencing the ferocity of a tornado has never been ticked off on my bucket list, nor do I hope that I face one. Ever.
Tornadoes make for great news coverage, only they're a form of moving and evolving despair, as residents return to the scene of destruction, to assess damages. The looks on their faces, total and utter hopelessness is enough to throw me into a tailspin of despair. I think of these things, when a new year begins, as much as I wait for seasons to change, to bring me two steps closer to cycling season, and the glory of summer. Know that devastation will be viewed as another form of seasonal change, which means our small worries won't compare to the harrowing worries of others. I will watch these broadcasts, covering the tornadoes, like I do every year, after which I'll give myself a swift kick in the caboose, because I know myself intimately. I am mindfully aware that I can wake up with a cloud of dark thoughts hanging over my head, until I put my situation into perspective. Canada may be frigidly cold, biting, hard-as-nails freakin' cold in winter, and Ottawa takes the whole cake, only my problems pale in comparison when I consider the devastating loss that families face every year in tornado season.
It's unnatural to compare apples to oranges, in terms of disasters befalling some countries and not others. Every year, India reports in excess of 500 deaths associated with the mosquito-transmitted disease of malaria, based on the range of up to 19,000 or more who end up contracting it (and this doesn't include the rural areas, where it's estimated that the number of deaths can range between 100,000 to 200,000). There are also monster-sized earthquakes in Europe, with Greece and Italy being hot spots. We know that death comes in every shape and form. But for some reason, and whenever I watch on the news the destruction brought on by earthquakes and tornadoes, I think that must be the straw that breaks the camel's back — not only have you lost your home and every possession: clothing, photographs, family heirlooms, and mindless other collectibles, but you also don't have a place to go home to, in order to that you can cry in peace, to soothe your sorrows.
The nesting instinct is so strong in all species that nature is rife with examples of territorial wars over prized hunting grounds and nesting spots. Humans are no different. In fact, we've legalized and legitimized the ownership and purchase of property and our sense of self-worth is tied up with the amount and the quality of property owned. Some men and women work their entire lives just to be able to afford their own home. After all, without a place to call home, you have no sanctuary to retreat from life's challenges. So every year, my heart goes out to earthquake and tornado survivors. I do metaphorically kick myself in the rear, as I stated, to remind myself that I'm wholly grateful for being able to afford to live alone. My place may be small and don't doubt that it isn't small, yet it's my space and I get to call the shots.
I haven't, as you may have noticed, touched on the civil wars that appear to be concurrently waged every year throughout the world, most notably the ongoing war in Ukraine, now into its fourth year, the Sudan, almost to the point of constant civil wars, going on for decades, and how territories in Gaza have been bulldozed over, every life uprooted or destroyed over the loss of loved ones.
Allow me a brief moment to digress... Back in 1994, I visited with a well-known clairvoyant who had never advertised her services or appeared at psychic fairs, none of that self-promotion. She told me one day I would experience a tornado firsthand. "No!" I said in reply. "I don't want to know this... the idea terrifies me." But should this happen and should I get swept up in a tornado, hopefully by then my stuff will have long been shattered by the ravages of Mother Nature's ferocity and I won't care about not having a place to come home to, because eventually the tornado will die down. And, as is often the case, cars, clothes, and furniture will turn up in the oddest places, stuck to the side of a building, like ornaments collected and tucked away in a cardboard box, in somebody's place.
If this post is coming across as detached, it's surely not intended to be this way. There's never a subtle way to dialogue on the subject of disasters.
Oh my lawd! The horror of experiencing the ferocity of a tornado has never been ticked off on my bucket list, nor do I hope that I face one. Ever.
Tornadoes make for great news coverage, only they're a form of moving and evolving despair, as residents return to the scene of destruction, to assess damages. The looks on their faces, total and utter hopelessness is enough to throw me into a tailspin of despair. I think of these things, when a new year begins, as much as I wait for seasons to change, to bring me two steps closer to cycling season, and the glory of summer. Know that devastation will be viewed as another form of seasonal change, which means our small worries won't compare to the harrowing worries of others. I will watch these broadcasts, covering the tornadoes, like I do every year, after which I'll give myself a swift kick in the caboose, because I know myself intimately. I am mindfully aware that I can wake up with a cloud of dark thoughts hanging over my head, until I put my situation into perspective. Canada may be frigidly cold, biting, hard-as-nails freakin' cold in winter, and Ottawa takes the whole cake, only my problems pale in comparison when I consider the devastating loss that families face every year in tornado season.
It's unnatural to compare apples to oranges, in terms of disasters befalling some countries and not others. Every year, India reports in excess of 500 deaths associated with the mosquito-transmitted disease of malaria, based on the range of up to 19,000 or more who end up contracting it (and this doesn't include the rural areas, where it's estimated that the number of deaths can range between 100,000 to 200,000). There are also monster-sized earthquakes in Europe, with Greece and Italy being hot spots. We know that death comes in every shape and form. But for some reason, and whenever I watch on the news the destruction brought on by earthquakes and tornadoes, I think that must be the straw that breaks the camel's back — not only have you lost your home and every possession: clothing, photographs, family heirlooms, and mindless other collectibles, but you also don't have a place to go home to, in order to that you can cry in peace, to soothe your sorrows.
The nesting instinct is so strong in all species that nature is rife with examples of territorial wars over prized hunting grounds and nesting spots. Humans are no different. In fact, we've legalized and legitimized the ownership and purchase of property and our sense of self-worth is tied up with the amount and the quality of property owned. Some men and women work their entire lives just to be able to afford their own home. After all, without a place to call home, you have no sanctuary to retreat from life's challenges. So every year, my heart goes out to earthquake and tornado survivors. I do metaphorically kick myself in the rear, as I stated, to remind myself that I'm wholly grateful for being able to afford to live alone. My place may be small and don't doubt that it isn't small, yet it's my space and I get to call the shots.
I haven't, as you may have noticed, touched on the civil wars that appear to be concurrently waged every year throughout the world, most notably the ongoing war in Ukraine, now into its fourth year, the Sudan, almost to the point of constant civil wars, going on for decades, and how territories in Gaza have been bulldozed over, every life uprooted or destroyed over the loss of loved ones.
Allow me a brief moment to digress... Back in 1994, I visited with a well-known clairvoyant who had never advertised her services or appeared at psychic fairs, none of that self-promotion. She told me one day I would experience a tornado firsthand. "No!" I said in reply. "I don't want to know this... the idea terrifies me." But should this happen and should I get swept up in a tornado, hopefully by then my stuff will have long been shattered by the ravages of Mother Nature's ferocity and I won't care about not having a place to come home to, because eventually the tornado will die down. And, as is often the case, cars, clothes, and furniture will turn up in the oddest places, stuck to the side of a building, like ornaments collected and tucked away in a cardboard box, in somebody's place.
If this post is coming across as detached, it's surely not intended to be this way. There's never a subtle way to dialogue on the subject of disasters.
