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Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

Statement on the Capitol Violence

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As most should know by now, on Wednesday, a group of apparently pro-Trump insurrectionist thugs illegally and violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. I strongly and unconditionally repudiate this behavior, period. I am resolutely consistent in condemning violence, regardless of who perpetrates it. No exceptions. People I might agree with on some issues do not get a free pass on this one!

This has been my consistent position throughout the social turmoil since late spring, whether the riots in Portland, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver…or this invasive lunacy at the Capitol. All who engage in these crimes need to be tried in the court of law, and where guilty, punished to the fullest extent of sentencing, no mercy. Violence has no place in any of the above settings — least of all inside the chambers of the beating heart of the republic.

One of the few people I’ll name here, officer Brian Sicknick, who was a military veteran, died in the invasion. This has been reported as a head injury, but more recently, potentially a medical disorder. A woman was shot by different Capitol Police while trying to climb into a broken window and enter. Meanwhile in other areas, police appeared to allow the rioters in willingly — apparently continuing a pattern of law-enforcement over-permissiveness toward rioting that we’ve seen in other cities since the summer. Regardless, this was an unconscionable attack on our core of governance during one of their most important, Constitutionally required functions: counting and certifying electoral votes. Whether you or I agree with how those votes were attained is irrelevant when it comes to having a violent outcome. I’m deeply saddened for our once-great nation to have arrived at this point.

The perpetrators, as it already is evident, were largely but not entirely Trumpers, as the left and most media claim. Nor were they all Antifa, as some fringe Q-maniacs insist. Instead, it’s already clear there were some substantial proportion of real Trump supporters (probably still a majority) and some embedded false-flag infiltrators. To wit, the former: the woman who was shot in the back by Capitol police as she entered a broken window was a USAF veteran and strong Trump supporter, with a history of Q-Anon support on her social media. Others there already have been documented photographically and by background to have attended and supported MAGA rallies elsewhere. The “Viking hat” guy in the House chambers has been photographed quite obviously, with the same beard and similar garb (but different face paint) at both Trump and anarchist/Antifa rallies, but seems to be a Q-Anon supporter. Another trespasser at the Capitol had a hammer-and-sickle tattoo, which is not exactly a MAGA symbol. Two others in Trump garb were identified as participating in the anti-Trump NYC demonstrations at the end of October.

This also smacks of at least a minority participation from the gaggle of general thrillseeking thugs who look for opportunities to make mayhem, who like to fight and destroy for fun, using the ambient protestors’ ideology as a pretext. There’s abundant historical precedent for this, from modern soccer hooligans all the way back to the street fighters of the Weimar Republic, who played Communist one week and Nazi the next, just to get in on the action. We can’t assume any particular arithmetic proportions of ideology (or lack thereof) amongst all these hoodlums until all the backgrounds of all the participants (arrested or not) are exposed and out there for evaluation. Does it even matter which extremism is at play, and in what proportions?

Regardless of their apparent or real leanings, I will not glorify any of these deranged thugs and give them the attention they crave, by naming them nor showing their pictures. I hope we find out more about the fuller backgrounds of all who are arrested for this, which I hope are all who unlawfully busted into the Capitol.

I unconditionally reject all rioting, no matter the specific composition of the insurrectionists in DC or the rioters in other cities, no matter their actual or portrayed motivations. This was morally and legally wrong. The left doesn’t get a pass, and neither does the right. And to the extent either side of whacked out extremists has been infiltrated by the other in false-flag operations, that is a particularly vile, evil and diabolical deed.

Media haven’t been as helpful as possible either. Those proclaiming the Capitol breach as something new or unique are pushing bogus clickbait hyperbole. Unfortunately, violence has taken place inside the Capitol on several occasions, including a few in the lifetimes of many still around today. In 1954, domestic terrorists from Puerto Rico fired from the spectators’ balcony on representatives, wounding five. Jimmy Carter actually commuted the sentences of these nutjobs in 1978 and 1979. In 1971, the so-called “Weather Underground” (a radical Marxist group not related to today’s “Weather Underground” that provides actual weather data) set off a bomb there, among other prominent places. In 1983, a somewhat related, far-left, female domestic terrorist group detonated another bomb there.

One troubling element to this latest incident was that Capitol Police pulled open gates and barricades, and waved in some of the rioters. Then they did the same with the doors of the building. What the hell was that all about? Who ordered them to stand down, and why? What purpose is accomplished by letting the rioters pour in, as has been done by police overpermissiveness in other riots in other cities this past summer? These questions need to be asked, even as I doubt we’ll get satisfactory answers from the (ir)responsible officials giving orders. “An investigation” is being promised, but I’m not optimistic we’ll get candid answers, even after the House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms and chief of Capitol cops stepped down, and even if some low-level people and frontliners are fired as fall guys for stupid decisions made above them. After all, that’s how government works — especially in DC — find seemingly culpable people to take the fall, while the real masterminds evade justice. It’s a DC bureaucratic tradition.

As for the “defund police” progressives who now are complaining about the lack of stricter law enforcement at the Capitol: Which way do you want it, you hypocrites? A cop (a hero) got killed here. Are you celebrating that “another pig died”, as you so often do? Or are laws supposed to be only selectively and unequally enforced to the benefit of criminals on your side? As far as I am concerned, the laws need to be enforced strongly, equally, viewpoint-independent, under rigid neutrality with respect to the “cause” represented by the rioters. Whether burnings, beatings and destruction are perpetrated by Antifa, BLM sympathizers, white supremacists, Trumpers, roaming hooligans of opportunity, or just local street criminals taking the chance to cash in on chaos, the effect on the property and people abused is just as awful.

The cause seemingly represented by the attacker, if any, does nothing to change the healing of a guy’s skull that has been bashed in by a brick, nor does it matter to the lost inventory in a looted, burned-out store. Still, anyone being bused in from out of state to participate in or supply any of these riots should face federal charges, given the crossing of state lines to commit the vile acts.

It’s not hard to imagine that, even as they outwardly condemn the Capitol events, some leftists are quietly celebrating, even cackling in smug satisfaction, for it gives them propaganda leverage. Indeed, I’ve seen several tweets from left-wingers already overtly cheering what happened, for the same reason. Go to Twitter yourself and find such posts. It’s not hard. Saul Alinsky would love this. It will be used until the end of time to portray all conservatives or Republicans as violent, anarchic and/or fascists. You just watch. Never mind that they too have been egging on violent “protestors” (rioters) at Portland, Seattle and BLM events, for months…and months…and months. No one in the lot of them is better than Trump in that regard.

Neither side is blameless in the ramp-up of sociopolitical violence in this country. “Both-sides-ism!” you say? Damn right it is. Absolutely, unapologetically, it is. Because it’s factually true. Sue me. Both sides of extremist bozos indisputably are inciting and committing riotous violence, factually, period. No question. And it’s morally wrong. Meanwhile, Red Commie China, Russia and Iran are laughing and doing whatever they can online to keep it happening. It is in the best interests of our national enemies to divide and conquer any way possible.

I have not been a Trump voter, for several reasons elucidated up to twelve months before he was inaugurated in 2016, and but know many who are. It’s not all “a cult” as the so much of the left over-simply claims. I understand and empathize with why many people I know, who felt betrayed and belittled by politics as usual, and ignored or ridiculed in their misfortune by the powers that be, voted for Trump, and elucidated this back in July 2016, also before that election. Some of them rightly have come out to condemn this insanity at the Capitol. A minority of them (and it is a minority) persist in being lemmings following along his cult of personality, including some Christians. That needs to stop. This man is a bonafide scoundrel, a con artist and grifter, who only has been using you as entertainment, taking advantage to further his ends. He’ll make money off of this post-Presidency, some how, some way, especially seeing as he’s in very, very deep debt. Just watch.

In the meantime, he knows he lost, and finally has indirectly admitted as much, after seeing how much hell-raising he could get away with until he checks out of there on the 20th. In the process, he almost singlehandedly has wrecked what once was a Grand Old Party and set the noble cause of conservatism back decades. And in the January 2016 essay linked above, I told you this was going to happen. Yes, I’m saying “I told you so!”, because guess what: I did. In a bass-ackwards way, the left couldn’t have asked for a better ally than The Donald. What a selfish, shortsighted moron. It was foreseeable, because I did. And I’m nothing special. Anybody with half a brain could and should have seen this coming.

A Christian Perspective

I’ll offer an independent review of the Trump Presidency in a few weeks, once it’s fully done. [Hint: it’s actually going to be fair and evenhanded, not all negative, most certainly not all positive, from the perspective of someone who voted neither for him nor Democrats. You bet this lunacy will be included.] Still, to see some Christians turning a blind eye to the worst of his behavior is disturbing. It boggles my mind how some Christians can cherry-pick and “re-interpret” Biblical concepts to justify supporting someone who quite ironically, is a multiply adulterous, handicap-mocking, chronically dishonest, unrepentant heathen.

Spare me the hackneyed rationalization and fallacy, “God uses troubled men”. Yes, he does. It clearly isn’t true here. Those men, such as Paul and David, were outwardly and obviously redeemed by the Lord. I see no evidence of such here; in fact, his latest behavior is quite the evidence to the contrary. That’s not casting judgment, it’s reporting what I see based on the evidence at hand. Do not risk God’s wrath by using nor condoning the devil’s methods to do the Lord’s work!

Much of what leads to these riots smacks of idolatry. Trump has become an idol to a vocal subset of his voters. “Subset” means some, not all! Idol worship is rampant amongst some Trumpers, but no doubt on the left too — Bernie bros, Che and “the environment (for the eco-terrorists), anyone? Not just people can be idolized…ideals inconsistent with the Bible also can be idols! That includes retaliation and violence, no matter who perpetrates it, no matter why.

Yet the so-called “Christian Left” (a phrase I also consider to be a complete sentence) is no better, through their haughty smugness, as they employ all manner of interpretive contortions, rationalizations, cherry picking, and outright false teachings to own the “fundies” on social media. Meanwhile, this bunch of heretics supports and endorses abortion and sexual sin all across society, while selectively condemning the sins of Trump and his lemmings. Their behavior isn’t helping the Church, either, and in many ways is diabolical and seditious toward God.

Truth is in between and off to the side of the deceived idolaters and the “Christian Left”, and that Truth resides firmly, solely and exclusively in the Holy Word. Not me, not any other imperfect and fallible human, but only the Word of our Lord! How hard is it to see that neither sexual sin, nor abortion, nor violent rioting, nor cult-personality idolatry of any public figure, are Christ-like behaviors? Because they’re not.

And neither was this riot, nor any of the others. Think about it. How are violence and destruction of property in DC and Portland, or criminal mobs looting that Target store in Minneapolis, exemplary of Christ-like behavior? Answer that question honestly, please. Since when is the proper response to violence…more violence? To hate…more hate? How again is that Christ-like?

Imperfect as MLK was, he was a wise Christian leader and so correct on this count. These destructive, reprehensible and violent behaviors, whether apparently by Trumpers in DC Wednesday, or by the Portland/Minneapolis/Seattle/Baltimore rioters much of the last few years, are born of the World (mortal man), not of the Word (Jesus Christ). These all, right and left, are worldly, lost people behaving in un-Christ-like ways. And we as a nation have, are, and will pay for these sins at the judgment hand of God.

Musings on JFK, 22 November

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Realizing, to my own surprise, that I’ve never said much on this medium about John F. Kennedy and his legacy, this date serves as a good reminder to make note of that era. I can’t do so in any way that would do full justice — that would take hundreds of pages of writings — but here’s a summary, for posterity’s sake as much as anything.

22 November 1963: 57 years ago this afternoon, my dad was on a hotel balcony downtown, watching the motorcade. He heard (but didn’t see) the moment of the shots, since he was around the corner and a few blocks away on Commerce St. The motorcade was struck by bullets on Elm, a few dozen feet west of Houston St. He recognized immediately those were rifle shots echoing through the urban canyon, and dreaded hearing the news he immediately suspected was unfolding, even before sirens began to wail. It only took a few minutes for word the President had been hit by a shot to spread to his portion of the crowd.

My mom, who he wouldn’t meet until a few years later, was still living in Houston, raising children from her deteriorating first marriage. She saw this awful news unfold in her childhood home city on TV broadcasts. For her, it was a time of deepening turmoil and inner darkness of her own — a life rapidly emptying of joy outside those kids. This didn’t help. Even though she voted reliably Republican her whole long adult life, she admired Kennedy, and told me she would have voted for him in ’64. [She knew a lot about LBJ and his underhanded shenanigans in Texas, rightly didn’t trust him, and very reluctantly pulled the lever for Goldwater.]

Being born five floors above and several years after where JFK was declared dead, then growing up in Dallas in the decades following, I learned a lot almost by effortless osmosis about Kennedy the man and the president, as well as the murders of him and Oswald. Too much, really…the word-of-mouth and self-published conspiracy theories drifted on the air like contagious viruses, almost endless in their creative untruth. At times the utterances, from sources like, “heard it from a friend of Ruby” to “cousin Clem worked in the Depository” to “my buddy was a DPD detective and he said there’s no way…”, and so forth, make Infowars-style fringe stuff you now see online now seem lame by comparison.

Every 22 November, and really, many days before and after, offered another yearly lesson in newspapers and on TV. It was an informational dump truck of known facts, analyses and remembrances, most of it recycled, banal and unoriginal, unloaded amidst the continual dribble of conspiratorial innuendo available year-round. The November barrage was at once tedious, tiresome, somewhat dreaded, yet somehow infused annually with fascinating nuggets of new insight, in the sea of regurgitated remembrances. Interesting discoveries and legitimate new ideas would pop out from time to time, much as one might see a large mass of drab metamorphic rock containing an occasional glistening garnet or flake of gold.

Anyone paying half a measure of attention in Dallas during those times couldn’t help but swim in everything known about Kennedy, plus all the rumor and concocted bullcrap. Aggregated over a couple decades, it was hard not to learn a good deal about JFK and related events in that setting, especially for a very news-thirsty kid interested in issues. As I said, this could take hundreds of pages, with all the rabbit holes one could follow. The most simultaneously controversial and boring one — the Warren Commission report — still seems closest to truth, all these decades later.

In office, the reality of JFK’s life, the affairs, scandal, coverups, and medical problems, was no match for the Utopian image of Camelot that he and his family encouraged via a highly compliant and complicit press. So much of it was a big, fat lie, a cover-up the media were knowingly perpetuating. And yet…the inspiration both Camelot and his speeches offered was necessary and vital to a nation standing fearful under a thousand Swords of Damocles in the form of Soviet nuclear missiles. Even born of deflection and a lack of openness, they served a good, noble purpose.

A man whose difference between image and reality was as vast as any President’s could be, JFK regardless articulated with eloquentce and vivid clarity, a powerful and clear vision for America to reach greater heights. He set a standard for Presidential inspiration of the People through great speeches, sometimes backed up by deeds, that none since but Reagan has attained. His courage in setting a hard line on Khrushchev in Cuba stands as one of the ballsiest acts by a leader in world history. He started the Peace Corps, which has done great deeds for the impoverished and embattled overseas, and for the lives of youth who have gone over to serve them.

To be fair, evaluating his short but extremely eventful Presidency must include the failures, including but not limited to the short-fused debacle of Bay of Pigs, and for longer-term impact, ratcheting up involvement in Vietnam that haunts this nation to this very day. Coming from well-to-do families, the First Couple were about as gracious as could be publicly, but they couldn’t help it: in many blue-collar eyes, the Kennedys nonetheless oozed a nontrivial, passive-aggressive element of elitist snobbery, marinated in the bubbling cauldron of longstanding blue-collar resentments toward the upper crust. This was a common denominator in many (by then) middle-aged to old adults I knew who did not like JFK at all.

In his frequent use of Christian themes and Biblical verses in speeches, I believe JFK was being genuine, not consciously hypocritical, despite the despicable and inexcusable way he treated Jackie. Most people who attain that level of power have great capacity for compartmentalization, none more than JFK. To deal with some of the massive issues of the day and not go certifiably insane, one would need such an inner circuit switch. Too bad his legacy forever will be tarnished by misusing that powerful ability, for the purpose of turning off the Catholic marital morals of his upbringing for dalliances with Marylin Monroe, Judith Exner, Mimi Alford, and likely others.

But JFK was also a pragmatic and effective leader, notwithstanding the patently absurd facade of Camelot. He advocated for lower taxes to help the economy, businesses and workers, championed a strong military (being a WW2 vet himself, then in the darkest depths of the Cold War), NASA and other sci-tech support, deficit control, encouraged the arts, worked against racial discrimination, cited and encouraged faith many times in his speeches, despite his own many sins. These acts bettered the nation and engendered much-needed goodwill across party and class lines.

It’s hard to imagine that combination of governance positions today from any President of either major party. Issues-wise, it’s a winning formula, and for the lack of it, we’ve deteriorated this century. Were a president of either party to run on the exact platform he laid out (adapted to today’s issues of course), I’d vote for that, despite minor misgivings about the viability of some elements.

Instead, each party lacks half of what’s needed to take this nation forward. Can you imagine, for example, a low-tax, pro-life, pro-military Democrat citing the Bible, directly or indirectly, in most speeches? Join the club; I can’t either.

For all his many then-hidden demons, and Vietnam notwithstanding, I’d call Kennedy’s densely complicated presidency a net positive for the country. In today’s extremely polzarized cancel culture, however, I suspect JFK would be torched with no mercy from his left flank, and Eisenhower from the right. [Nixon and LBJ, by contrast, each had somewhat Trumpian mean and vindictive streaks a mile long, and likewise would be the type to egg it on for his own benefit, unfortunately.]

On a societal and individual level, too many have lost sight of, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Instead it’s all about what the country must do for me, me, me.

The only way to dial down or dilute this hyper-polarization, and to invite a sense of compromise back into the fold, seems to be one or two viable third parties. This is to reduce both the numeric and auditory volume of the Rs and Ds to levels more amenable to public accountability, requiring coalition governance more akin to Israel or some multiparty European states that forces a measure of cooperation for the sake of the republic’s survival. That isn’t extreme, in light of how the duopoly as it now stands is driving us slowly off a cliff.

Tribute to Bob Johns

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I posted this tribute to my personal Facebook page soon after I learned my old colleague, friend and meteorological mentor Robert H. (Bob) Johns had passed away just shy of his 78th birthday, following a long struggle with a neurodegenerative disorder causing progressive aphasia and memory problems. The text is reproduced here for the open record…with a few edits and photos added.
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Presenting Bob with a “Weather and Sports” trophy for his retirement (SPC Photo)

R.I.P. Bob Johns: friend and mentor to many (including me), former SPC SOO & lead forecaster, formally published scientist, consummate pro on shift, and good sport always — even though he didn’t follow sports.

Bob left a massive legacy in my field. He is best known scientifically as the lead author of the seminal, foundational study on derechoes, but he published other well-known formal and conference papers too. His last scientific article in 2013 was a definitive, major study where he led several collaborators on retrospectively documenting the path of America’s deadliest tornado: the Tri-State event of 18 March 1925.

Bob’s career in severe-storms forecasting spanned parts of 5 decades after he graduated from OU and was part of what’s now the NOAA Corps (formerly U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey). In the early/mid 1990s, during a period of massive turnover at the National Severe Storms Forecast Center/Severe Local Storms (SELS) unit, Bob took me and several other newly arrived, scientifically eager “young pups” (as he called us) under his wing and taught us a great deal about severe-storms forecasting and analysis — both in his “SELS workshops” and as a SELS lead. He was super-serious and thorough on shift — all meteorology, all the time — and a practically peerless analyst with driven attention to detail in the charts he drew.

Bob Johns early in his tenure as a lead forecaster, analyzing charts at SELS-Kansas City, 1982 — the same year he issued the first “Particularly Dangerous Situation” tornado watch for the 2 April 1982 violent tornadoes in southeastern OK and northeast TX.

Bob grew up watching storms in Terhune, Indiana (see this fascinating biography of Bob, by John Lewis), and remained a deeply devoted lifelong weather buff, even through his viewing of the violent 10 May 2010 east Norman/Little Axe tornado from his front yard. But he had a lighter side too. My adult kids have fond memories of digging up rose rocks at his house in rural east Norman when they were little, including a large “Pride Rock” (Lion King reference) shaped barite specimen I still have in front of the house today.

Four NSSFC staff members in Oct. 1973: Roy Darrah (L), Bob Johns (then a “young pup” himself), his mentor Larry Wilson, and longtime forecaster Frank Woods.
Famous photo of Steve Corfidi (L), Jack Hales (middle) and Bob Johns (right) at shift-change briefing, SELS_Kansas City, 1984.

Bob and I had some great conversations on the quietest of weather shifts. He didn’t care much for storm chasing when I got to SELS, but after I took him a couple of times, he also admitted he learned a lot, mostly about storm behavior and how the laboratory of the sky can enlighten and inform the forecaster at work. He also gained an appreciation for the beautiful and artistic side of storm observing, and that it wasn’t just a thrillseeking sport; indeed, he was with me for this inspirational end-of-chase moment in northeastern Kansas.

Even though he didn’t like sports, Bob was a good sport, and took friendly ribbing about his disdain for sports well. I even got him to wear a Cowboys jacket a few times at work when he was cold, and to wear a homemade Cowboys poster around himself for a charitable fundraiser. He once told me that *if* he liked football, he would be a Cowboys fan…”But make no mistake, I don’t like football!”. 🙂

Bob would only do this for a worthy charitable cause, but that he did. Whatever amount I donated, to whatever the cause was, was well worth it. He indeed was a good sport!

In addition to the football+weather trophy I therefore gave him at his retirement, for which you can see the humored joy on his face in the topmost photo, fellow Hoosier and hoops coach Bobby Knight (yes, that one) sent him a heartfelt, page-long, congratulatory retirement letter.

Former SPC director Joe Schaefer (L) presents a surprised Bob Johns with a framed congratulatory letter and autographed photo from then-Texas Tech (former Indiana University) basketball coach Bob Knight, as Peggy Stogsdill (R) looks on. SPC Photo.

Bob’s influence on severe-storms science, and numerous students and colleagues therein, will ripple positively through generations. My condolences to his family and all his other many friends throughout our profession.