Crystal-clear again this afternoon on California’s north coast — and way-warm!
A unbelievable 70.3 degrees right now with just a hint of a breeze. A kind of unusual day for up here, due mainly to the absence of wind, as the high earlier I guess hit 72.
Tropical almost for the Lost Coast.
And not much moisture — California is on track for 2013 to be the driest calendar year on record. The weather has become more dry than wet.
Yesterday, the NOAA released its ‘outlook‘ for weather this winter, and the biggest nuisance won’t be snowstorms and such, but drought, which will still hold firm in the US Southeast and Southwest, which includes California. And we’re to expect above average temperatures, too.
Speaking of warm, Dr. Jeff Masters earlier today: October 2013 was the globe’s 7th warmest October since records began in 1880, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). NASA rated it the 8th warmest October on record. The year-to-date period of January – October has been the 7th warmest such period on record. October 2013 global land temperatures were the 8th warmest on record, and global ocean temperatures were also the 8th warmest on record. October 2013 was the 344th consecutive month with global temperatures warmer than the 20th century average.
Just as the bullshit-ominous climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, puttered through its last day — and while the fiddle fiddles these clowns are arguing over elementary points of a 2015 deal, which wouldn’t take effect until 2020.
What a pisser.
Meanwhile, the vast-bulk of the news this Friday was on the various forms of celebrating the 50 anniversary of the JFK shooting. ‘Tis the season for such stories — and a ton of “where were you?” recollections in a ton of media collections.
One for the profession — United Press International scooped the planet:
UPI’s White House Correspondent Merriman Smith was in the motorcade, in a press car four cars behind the president’s open limousine, as John F. Kennedy drove through Dallas on Nov. 22.
As the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository, Smith heard three loud bangs that he recognized as gunfire.
Sitting in the middle of the front seat, Smith grabbed the car’s radio-telephone and called the Dallas bureau.
Wilborn Hampton answered and handed the phone to Southwest Division Editor Jack Fallon, who dictated a bulletin to staff editor Don Smith.
Teletype operator Jim Tolbert filed the bulletin that gave the world the first word that shots had been fired at Kennedy’s motorcade.
Hampton meanwhile phoned a police dispatcher who confirmed the three shots and said there was a rumor the president had been hit.
The press car followed the limousine as it raced to Parkland Hospital.
As Smith ran up to the limousine parked at the emergency entrance, he saw Kennedy face down on the back seat, with Jacqueline Kennedy cradling her arms around the president’s head.
Smith saw a secret service agent he knew and asked him about Kennedy.
The agent, Clint Hill, responded: “He’s dead.”
Smith went inside, found a phone and reached Fallon, who dictated the flash: “Kennedy seriously wounded, perhaps seriously, perhaps fatally by assassins bullet.”
Primitive operation compared to the nowadays. And a good read with Smith’s first-person account included, which carries some potent shit at not only Parkland Hospital, but aboard the dramatic flight from Dallas back to DC — when LBJ took the oath of office.
A history now American folklore of a sorts.
An oddity in perspective, taking in account Smith’s 50-year-old story above, highly-emotional and personal, then imagine Twitter — from Mediaite:
The JFK assassination has been live tweeted today by a number of outlets, including NPR’s @todayin1963 Twitter handle, the History Channel (the only time, apparently, we’re ever going to get anything non-Pawn Stars related from that network), and CBS News.
A lot of people found it dumb-ass, and not historical, as said one Tweeter: 50 yrs ago, JFK told Jackie, “If there’s a Twitter in the future, I hope they don’t do some kind of macabre live-tweet of my last 24 hrs.”
But it’s the weekend now, and it’s just Friday.
(Illustration above found here).