Alternators vs Generators

Automobiles and some kitplanes use alternators. Older automobiles use generators. Traditionally generators produce less electric current. Unfortunately more recent technical literature smudge the difference and thus give out misleading and inaccurate information. While both alternator and generator produce direct current(DC) at the output terminal, they get there by mechanisms which are generally opposite.

The alternator spins a magnetic field within the center of the device. Alternating current and voltage are induced in stator windings which are mounted in permanent fixed positions around the inside of the alternator housing. The coil of the field magnet is wound around the interior of the rotor which spins at the center of the alternator. This field coil must be energized by direct current(DC) from the battery if the alternator is to work. The rotor is mechanically constructed such that large iron flanges from the ends are project toward the opposite end, to produce multiple magnetic dipoles around the outer circumference of the rotor. As the rotor spins the magnetic field which extends out from one flange into the stator core and back into adjacent rotor flanges produces electric voltage and current within the stator coils. The alternating current(AC) produced within the stator coils passes through a diode bridge which converts it to direct current(DC). An electronic regulator adjusts this current so as to maintain a fairly constant and acceptable voltage level. The output voltage and current is presented at the main output terminal, which is usually red. Some designs also have a negative ground terminal which is usually black. Other models simply ground to the case.

On the other hand the generator reverses the position of the field coil, moving it from the rotor to the interior of the housing. The electric voltage and current is induced within coils wound generally lengthwise around the exterior of the rotor. Typical winding patterns cross the rotor diagonally from end to end. There are several of these coils, the ends of which are connected to armature plates which are positioned opposite each other around a holding mechanism at one end of the rotor shaft. A set of spring loaded conductive graphite brushes mounted in the housing press against these alternate armature plates as the rotor spins. Current is generated as each of the coils pass through the magnetic field produced by electric current passing through the external field coils. The generator thus produces a direct current(DC) at the output terminal without the need of a diode bridge. An external voltage regulator modulates the current and voltage routed through the field coil to obtain voltage of the needed value.

In short any device which needs diodes is an alternator. Generators typically produce less current than and alternator, and run somewhat cooler. Technical manuals which I have reviewed recently refer to the electric charging device in the subject vehicle as a generator. I could probably live with that, except they go on to claim the visible winding in the alternator is the field coil, which is entirely false. The current induced by the alternator is in fact produced within that visible stator winding. Significant diagnostic opportunities are thus missed. As an example you can tell if the field coil of an alternator is working by testing the end of the rotor for the presence of the requisite magnetic field.

Communion

The Christian tradition of which I am a member at least claims the belief that each Christian should take part in a service which involves the eating of a small wafer of unleavened bread followed by a small cup of wine or grape juice, every Sunday. For a collection of reasons we generally refer to the drink as the fruit of the vine, and Sunday, as the First day of the week. We also tend to follow the communion part of the service with the collection plate. Even though leaders of the service regularly say the collection is not related to the communion, small children often make that connection. In the real world convenience often trumps impressions, even in church. More often though, actions speak louder than any words spoken or not.

Once many years ago a co-worker of mine, a devout German Catholic fellow from Cincinnati was visiting the south, somewhere along the North Carolina-Tennessee border. His wife who had grown up in the Methodist tradition, then converted to the German Catholic tradition when they were married. Perhaps in the Methodist tradition, she was much more relaxed about religions issues then he was – especially when the Holy Communion is involved. So a few days after they returned from vacation, she was relating their frustration with finding a church which would serve them communion on Sunday. Apparently people who practice the German Catholic tradition believe skipping communion even once is a one way ticket to hades – given that it was more than just important that he find communion. His wife apparently had not yet developed such concerns, as she hilariously described several hours of racing up and down mountain roads fussing and cussing in a desperate search for a church with a priest who would serve the Holy Communion to a German Catholic couple. At the time, I along with everyone else thought this was a pretty silly situation, however, today, I have a pretty good idea of some of the irritation my friends from Cincinnati felt that day.

Due to the storm in the northeast, and transportation company stupidity, buses scheduled for Nashville, Tennessee were triple booked for the weekend. One member of our vacation party had to be at work at 9:00AM Sunday morning, so we picked that person up at the train station where we had dropped them at a hour or so earlier, and headed for Nashville at about 8:30 PM Saturday night. We dropped them off at the apartment they share with friends, then rushed back down I-24, getting a room at a Comfort Inn in La Verne, about 1:00 AM, give or take an hour or so. Since the Nashville metro area is the geopolitical center of our non-instrumental restoration version of the Christian tradition, we decided to find a church, since it would be pushing pseudo reality a bit far to get to any church were anyone really wanted to see us.

So this Fine Bright Sunday Morning (FBSM) we get up, shower, get dressed, and discover a critical part of our internet is missing. Then we discover the La Verne phone book includes neither map nor yellow page listings of any congregations of our particular non-instrumental restoration tradition. The white page listings are at best confusing, because someone in our tradition has deciced it is no longer cool to use either of our trademark names. This results in a situation where we resort to driving down the road checking signs which say things like Grace Church, Brushy Hollow Church, or The Church at Stoney Creek. If we are lucky we will find one which has really fine sign print under the name which says something like “(a church of the non-instrumental restoration tradition)”. We drive and we look. We drive down I-24. No luck. We get on US-41. We find a church here or there, but by 9:30 AM services are apparently over, and most everyone is gone. By lunch time we find our way to Monte Eagle. Finally, a church, but the parking lot is packed, and the service which started an hour earlier, is mostly over. We drive down the street where we find a store named Fred’s.

We step inside where we find ourselves transported back in time to 1975, eleven years before I met my friends from Cincinnati, and five years before I met Amy. Unfortunately it would be thirty years before Lifeway would have their handipak communion to go packages. They are closed on Sunday anyway.

The Leak

Everyone with a brain has known the eventual outcome of the SCOTUS decision to review Roe Vs Wade. After all, this and a couple other decisions are the presumed motivation for the culture war that divides our country. On the right side of that war, hysteria over the “leak” has set in. Supposedly someone at the court “leaked” the opinion which may not be final, but is the substance of the decision. At this point in a SCOTUS case the decision is made, only the legalese is in flux. People on the right hoped to contain the political damage by playing up other issues between now and then. People on the left would love to make the upcoming election about one issue in particular, any issue, especially one with potentially gives them a 70% advantage. Otherwise the court has its own difficulties which put it somewhere in the middle.

The legitimacy of the court is at stake. By their own action the US Senate has already undermined SCOTUS by repeatedly manipulating the affirmation process during the last few vacancies. Additionally the courts approval of laws which delegate enforcement to private citizens via civil complaint is but one indication this SCOTUS has become unglued. That reversal of a decision made long before Roe Vs. Wade potentially opens precedent which could be used to push civil rights law back to the 19th century. You can’t really make it legal to take out of bounds action according to the political issue at hand, which is the pretense in these decisions. Either the precedent that citizens cannot take punitive private enforcement action stands, or it does not. Once the precedent for exceptions is made, there will be more exceptions, until effectively there is no law. This new precedent might live beyond the current imbalance of power.

Another source of instability involves one long time justice who appears to have involved himself in political affairs which are considered illegal for federal employees of the court. His refusal to recuse himself during consideration of related cases is at odds with court history, and appears to be more than enough cause for impeachment. Historically the only SCOTUS judge ever impeached was convicted for doing substantially less of the same sort of thing. More recently there are rumblings of financial issues which may be involved. Given the current political situation impeachment is probably not practical, but that does not clear those involved if the Justice Department should decide to investigate.

Simultaneously, the select committee appears ready to present much of their case to the public in the next six weeks. There is little doubt this will lend substantial new narrative to the January 6, 2021 fiasco, none of which is likely to be favorable to the current owners of the conservative party. One could imagine that by mid summer grand juries may be busy with potential congress critter indictments related to all of this. If SCOTUS waits until July to release a formal reversal of Row Vs. Wade, it might create a political firestorm which could turn the nation firmly against the party of the SCOTUS majority.

Given the well known desire of the Chief Justice to maintain some semblance of legitimacy, the “leak” looks more like a PR move by the court. Think of the leaked decision as a trial balloon, to gage just how substantial their opinion needs to be in order to provide sufficient legal justification and political cover. Forget the idea that somehow they are above politics. That was a long, long, time ago. One final thought, conservatives always telegraph their intentions by accusing the opposition of whatever they are going to try. Remember who was actually ready to do just that?

Me thinks maybe this was an inside job, and it is how corporate PR works these days.

The Ultimate Mystry

GOD is the ultimate mystery. When we first look out into the universe we see the planets and nearby stars. Ancient peoples imagined some of these to be deity. The telescope allows us to see the stars of our own galaxy. A mere hundred years ago our universe was our galaxy. Those who hoped to find GOD out there did not. As our technology and understanding of the physical world improved we are able to peer into thousands, millions, and then billions of galaxies. Nowhere have we found deity.

All of that is to say we may contemplate GOD throughout all of time, yet we remain unable to get physically close to him. Even if we saw Him somewhere in our own galaxy, getting there would be well beyond our abilities. The nearest star is generations away. Our only avenue for “getting close to GOD” is through the assimilation of his attributes. It only happens when the things which are important to HIM become important to us. What else can worshiping Him in Spirit and truth actually mean?

There is a reason Jesus Christ came at the high point of the worlds most cruel empire. There is a reason compassion spread through that empire, destroying it like a smoldering fire. There is a reason the Imperial Church suffered the same fate. When the Evangelical church follows the path to political power, and abuses that power, it will suffer the same fate.

If these “issues” which are so desperately important to us are not mentioned anywhere in scripture, have nothing to do with justice, mercy, and compassion, then why do we spend so much time worrying about them? Those who spend so much of their time worrying about how “close” we are to GOD, are busy checking off items on their own self generated checklists. The Pharisees were experts at that. As I recall Jesus Christ had some very special words for them.

Equally Unequal

No one even pretends to believe that any individual is equal to every other in everyway. We do believe that each of us have talents, some of which are unique, but probably not as unique as we imagine. We believe that everyone should have the same right to exist, and that we should all have the same voice in collective decisions, whether it be in the local, state, regional, national or global community. We believe that laws should be made for the common good, and those laws should be applied equally without respect for ethnicity, person, politics, privilege, or wealth. All of this can be summed up by saying that we believe in the idea of fair. If not, then why even bother with the game? No one is interested in playing if the acclaimed always win!

As Christians we spend a lot of time talking and worrying about salvation, but Jesus Christ came into this world to do far more than offer a plan of salvation. Jesus emerged in the Roman region of influence at a time when the Roman Emperor was the top of the hierarchical pyramid. Many if not most presumed to be gods, and many were declared so by the Senate upon their demise. Some were treated as if they were gods during their lifetime. An emperor was the single most privileged, feared, and wealthy man in the Roman world. The Roman Empire was as close as humanity has ever been to a perfect authoritarian system. Everyone in that empire lived in fear of those higher up, except for one man: The emperor himself. A few emperors claimed to live in fear of their chosen deities.

Rome established itself as a political and economic center beginning sometime in the seventh century prior to the current era. The city and its region of influence evolved into a Republic, which chose to defend itself against the aggressions of rising imperialism further to the east. The republic eventually found itself in charge of most of the civilized world of that time. In the years before the current era, the political outlook seems to have turned inward. This seems to have resulted in a rising partisan gridlock which prevented the continuation of rational government. The solution was to appoint a dictator, at first on a temporary basis. When the gridlock returned, the dictatorship evolved into an all powerful imperial force.

The appointment of a dictator effectively ended the Roman Republic as well as the stalemate. Even though Julius Caesar may have been a logical choice, the idea of dictator changed the outlook of the Roman world. Julius was assassinated by Brutus approximately forty years before Jesus Christ was born. Within 80 years, a young man with a woeful lack of experience, was proclaimed emperor because of kinship. This man presumed to have a statue of himself placed within the temple walls at Jerusalem. This created the political climate for the Jewish Rebellion two decades later. It was strongly opposed across Judea, especially in the Jewish heartland This effort eventually ended with Caligula’s assignation, however the idea is revisited by the following Roman leaders. Some of us believe this is the beginning of the abomination that brings desolation, mentioned in Matt 24.

Every individual in the Roman world eventually became trapped by their place in the economic and political hierarchy of the imperials state. Despite all of this, Jesus Christ established a “way” out of the trap. By all accounts the coming of Jesus Christ is a major intervention in the history of human civilization. Within a bit more than four centuries the Roman hierarchy collapsed, in no small part due to efforts of the least powerful to spread compassion within the community. The idea changed western civilization, and eventually the hierarchy, from bottom to top. That part of the mission was accomplished when Constantine saw the Cross in the sky. Within another hundred years or so the Roman Empire itself had collapsed. In some sense the church took over the empire and the empire took over the church. The Imperial Church arose a few centuries later as the primary benefactor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Once again humanity finds ourselves at the crossroads of extreme wealth and power. If we give in and agree that we are not all equal under the law, that wealth, political influence, and physical power, should have an advantaged consideration, we join the social and economic hierarchical pyramid scheme of our own Julius. The early chapters of the book of Daniel describes a dream by the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar. In this dream a statue appears which is said to symbolize the ascending dominate power structures of that time, starting with Babylon, and ending with Rome. Although Babylon is described as the golden head, and Rome the feet, the statue could just as easily represent the accumulation of wealth toward the imperial city, which in some sense was the expertise of Rome.

In the dream, the statue is destroyed by a rock cut from the mountain. This rock itself then becomes a mountain. Daniel’s interpretation indicates this scenario is a metaphorical description of a coming presence which will destroy the imperial authoritarian social and economic system evolved from the time of Babylon and perfected by Rome. In retrospect the prophecy of Daniel, written well before the advent of Christ, is describing the impact of the early Christian community on the social and economic order that is Rome.

Even today, those who are inclined to follow authoritarian paths have lamented the fall of Imperial Rome. Somehow in our season of political stalemate, we must remember that Julius was made Emperor because the senate tired of the political process and a well evolved political stalemate. We must also remember the stalemate, just like ours, was caused by partisan alliances. In some sense the problem was not the politics or ideas, but the political alliances which made compromise and resolution impossible.

How dare we as Christians lend our voices to the partisans who would lead us back into such a monstrosity?

American Morning

January 20, 2020 was Inauguration Day in America. For the first time in our history the transfer of power was not completely peaceful. Two weeks prior five(5) people died as a direct result of an insurrection which cannot be seen as much less than an outright attempt to coerce the transfer of power despite the results of the election. Many people, some within government, appear to have been involved. That attempted coup was eventually thwarted, and the election finally certified. There have been arrests, and no doubt there will be more. The former president was impeached again within a week of the affair, and now there will be a trial, although it is not clear exactly when. Today, our capital city and the federal triangle is an armed camp. That may be the case until most of the radicals and instigators are rounded up.

Much of this involves the former president and his various personality cults. The TV star personality which lives to scream “You’re Fired!” is attractive to many people. It’s kind of like the American Civil War and slavery in the south prior to 1860. Most southerners were probably not slave owners, however a lot of them imagined themselves as someday having a farm large enough to need slaves. Most of our hopes, dreams, and aspirations are a product of where we exist, and among the hardest things to give up. If we choose to fight, those artifacts of the mind will probably be involved. Today a lot of people dream of being the boss and able to tell someone “You’re Fired!” without thinking too much about what it is like to be on the receiving end of that assertion. So even if there is little possibility, many still dream of being that guy.

Historically former GOP presidents and their party began cultivating a political chasm between urban and rural America several decades ago. In more recent times less moderate regions of the GOP seem to have openly angled for a war between urban and rural America. This is usually prefaced as a liberal versus conservative conflict, however at the heart it is urban versus rural. It often manifests itself as having to do with 2nd amendment rights, because that gets everyone outside the city excited. Some of this seems to have to do with the rise of more densely populated urban areas beyond the I-95 corridor of the American northeast. Urban and suburban population density is so high in some of these places that a majority of a states people easily live in seven or ten of a hundred counties. For those of us who moved to the cities decades ago, it seemed we were forced to leave home because of the lack of jobs and opportunity. Many of us remember being told by local business people back home that “We don’t need people like you!” We are thus not very sympathetic to their plight. That is still the case, but today the desperation in rural America is far worse.

For example the small town nearby is the county seat. It is situated more or less in the middle of a square county in Alabama. There are a couple small towns over across the river from Georgia. There used to be factories here. There is still a fragment of a forestry business. There are a lot of tree farms. It takes a forestry crew maybe a week to harvest a fifty acre tree farm. A few more days for a chipper crew to gather most of whatever is left, after which a spray crew poisons any hardwoods which might have survived. Within a few weeks another crew plants the property with long leaf pine seedlings which will grow for the next forty years. Each of these timber crews is five to seven men, and most crews seem to change roles seamlessly. Most people who live here are retired, otherwise they probably work somewhere else. Opportunity here simply does not exist, and whatever did, has recently left as another small operation is bought out and closed by an offshore conglomerate. Maybe while watching the video of the insurrection you heard that guy yelling “What about us?” at a line of Capital Police officers who were trying to engage him. Perhaps now you have some sense of what he is yelling about. Today there was a riot in Portland. The people arrested are all rather young. None of them seem to have lived in the immediate neighborhood. So why are they trying to burn down the local office of the opposition party? Is it because everything they know about politics is a lie?

Meanwhile the opposition party is puttering along seemingly happy with the rainbow coalition which seems to mostly keep it in business, if and when it can get enough urban voters to see the fact voting rights, democracy, and life as we know it, are all simultaneously under siege. Basically business supporters of the GOP took away every possible opportunity available in rural America while GOP politicians told those same increasingly desperate people that somehow abortion, democracy, liberalism, and socialism were the reason. Unfortunately, no one countered this GOP propaganda, and soon enough it became truth. When the most recent GOP president began to mount a hostile takeover of the party he used the rural misinformation network already in place to make those voters his own. This ever present cocktail of conspiracy theories and fake news soon convinced voters in rural America that the opposition party is profoundly evil. More than a few of the people involved with the insurrection appear to have been recruited into this misadventure by rhetoric which demonized the opposition voters in large urban areas.

It was a terrific ceremony, with a lot of special people. I loved it. As far as the former SofS comments he may in some sense be correct, but maybe not like he thinks. It is easy to see culture only as the shards of pottery and fragments found in the trash bin of history, while we ignore the misery which obviously accompanied them. We often ignore it, and sometimes see ourselves as having none, be we have a unique American culture. Part of that culture is freedom and democracy. Part of that culture is our institutions and the governments which support and facilitate our freedoms. In some sense we have spread it around the world. Many people throughout the world embrace it and even vote for it with their feet. How dare we change the rules and tell them it was all a lie? We do not need to become the cultures they left. Most did not come here to change us, but to be changed by us. We certainly do not need them thinking otherwise. Many of them will find places to enclave because back home is familiar and friendly. And it takes a bit to get used to freedom and opportunity. We need to make it easy for their children and grandchildren to leave the enclave and join whole heartedly in this uniquely American experience. That was on display today. To that end equal opportunity regardless of ethnicity, gender, and race is an absolute requirement.

The Huntsville Tornado

A few days ago once again we here in Abalama had another tornado outbreak. That tends to happen in the spring or almost anytime cold air from farther north meets up with warm wet humid air from the Gulf of Mexico. We do not typically have mile wide funnels. The vortex is typically smaller in dense wet heavy humid air at lower altitudes. Also forget seeing a funnel here, unless it is at night, and there is simultaneously lots of lightening. Funnel clouds here and on up to Virginia are typically obscured in rain, so you will not see it coming. Unless of course you are unfortunate enough to be close to a really strong one with a glowing funnel. Yes they sometimes have an electric component.

Sometimes people go ranting when local school administrators cancel classes for weather of any kind. If you have ever had a tornado wreck your day, or been stuck for hours in an Atlanta snow and ice storm, you have a definite vision of what a severe weather reality looks like. An Atlanta ice storm is just about as much fun as a hurricane. If you are home when the power goes out you are stuck in either case. The rant poster has obviously not experienced real severe weather so it is perhaps best to ignore and forgive them. Pray they do not ever have to deal with a tornadic reality.

I have seen a lot of snow and ice storms. The key is preparation. Granny says to always have fresh bread. Then stay home until the driveway and surface streets are safe for venturing out. A tornado is a very different affair. The only real way to be safe is to not be where ever it is. Otherwise know of a safe place to take cover, and get there before the storm. That is not always possible, and sometimes there are no safe places. Sometimes an F5 twister will peal the asphalt up off the highway. So be prepared for when the not quite safe room gets rolled around like a barrel with you in it. Well anchored buildings made of concrete and plenty of rebar are best.

After working too many 65 hour weeks trying to resurrect a hopeless third party software contract for the government, our family drove to my sister’s home in Virginia for the weekend of Friday, November 10, 1989. We returned on Tuesday November 14, so I could go back to work the next day. While at Irma’s house on Monday morning, my wife looks and me and says “Wednesday is not a good day. I am going to cancel my ENT appointment.” I am like ok, whatever. That appointment had been made for 4:30 PM. She called and cancelled the appointment, and we didn’t think a lot more about it.

After driving home to Madison, I was up and at work early Wednesday morning. As I recall our contract was with another contract company which had a contract with the prime. All of them were in NYC, or DC. We tried to be at work by 7:30 central time. It made things easier if they had forgotten about the time difference when trying to call for the latest updates. As noted earlier the contract was hopeless, but none of the technical people were aware of that when we signed on. When I returned to work that morning I quickly discovered that I had been brought in so the locals had a “ferriner” to blame. Well you can’t rightly blame someone who is your buddy, so you bring in somebody like me that no one knows. And most places in the south someone who is not from here is a ferriner. BTW a yankee is anyone who is from further north than the speaker. Shortly, I was told to get my stuff and leave. So I did. My wife had been right. Wednesday was not a good day.

I got a call from the local office that afternoon to come sign some paperwork. So I headed back toward Huntsville about 3:30. Arriving there the weather was looking ominous. I had not paid much attention to the forecast, so I was not particularly aware of the imminent tornado threat. As I walked into the building there was a fairly wide cloud overhead trailing off to a narrow thread at the western horizon. I was in the office only a few minutes. When I got back outside the weather had changed dramatically. The sun was no longer visible. The sky was gray, with lots of wind and some rain. I got in my car to drive home. I made my way back to US 72 west, heading under the overpass toward home. Half a mile further west I noticed two vortexes rotating in opposite directions. They were about 50 foot wide. They were moving across this huge cotton field heading southeast, directly at me. There was no time to escape. As the first vortex hit the car, the wind moved it into the left west bound lane, The next vortex rotating the opposite direction followed a couple seconds later. Me and the car were blown back into the right hand west bound lane. I eventually arrived home safe but maybe a bit more concerned about the weather.

When I got home, the Huntsville tornado was the local news. The tornado had touched down in a golf course on the east side of the military base. It had crossed Memorial drive at Airport road, hit the Catholic high school gym, some shopping and small business areas, an apartment complex, and some medical buildings. Reportedly the funnel missed the hospital by maybe fifty foot. From the Airport road area the funnel crossed the mountain to the east of Memorial Drive. On the other side of the mountain Jones Valley Elementary school waited in the path. Many students were still there waiting for their parents to pick them up. As the storm approached their teachers had enough time to get them into an interior hallway in the center of the building. There were no fatalities in the school itself. As I recall nine people died in their cars along the road and at the intersection which was the school entrance. The school was completely wrecked. It looked as if it were in a war zone.

We were lucky that day. My wife’s ENT doctor had an office on the second floor of a large wood and brick medical building just west of the hospital campus. Her appointment was at 4:30 that afternoon. The clocks found in the debris of that building were stopped at 4:37 PM. The only thing left of the building was some of the first floor framing. Very little was left above the four foot mark. On a later visit to that doctor we discovered that all of his patients had canceled that afternoon. He heard the noise, grabbed his assistants, headed down stairs. He said as they stepped off the last step, the building disintegrated around them. Nothing much was left there. Wednesday, November 15, 1989 was not a good day.

The Media is a lot of People

First you have the local radio and news paper guys. They actually hire a few reporters who keep the emergency services scanner on all the time and show up promptly to get pictures and video when something breaks. Experienced reporters who freelance make their work available to local stations, news papers, and the news wire services. A story that is picked up by a news service is meaningful, because it helps establish credibility as well as extra cash. Everyone wants to get published, so the wire service is probably not relying exclusively on just one reporter. Today they can also verify things directly from press releases of the responsible agency at the scene, before choosing the report to make available to their subscribers. TV reporters also respond and report on major incidents, but they are typically locked to a specific local station and network. TV reports are generally less appropriate for the wire service. So if you want real news check the traditional news services: Reuters, AP, BBC, and sometimes your local news paper if they write their own stories.With the exception of Faux, CNN, and MSNBC the nightly news programs have not changed all that much. They still mostly read the news they write, from a teleprompter with occasional stories from field reporters. For the most part CBS, NBC, and ABC are TV versions of the news wire services. In short they go with more fact based stories than not. Many stories are run a few days late anyway. In addition all of the traditional evening news programs are long on commercials and relatively short on content. This system excludes much of the content which exists in alternative channels, leading to attacks on the “mainstream” media, for not reporting everything.As I have written elsewhere, I believe liberal and conservative are outlooks. When a group of individuals come together to achieve some common collection of goals, they tend to be more inclusive in order to build support for their ideas. While accumulating the power to effect the desired change the developing group is more inclusive and thus liberal. Once success is achieved, however, the leadership becomes more exclusive and thus conservative to protect their ideas, place, position, and power. After success the primary goal changes from acquiring power to maintaining the party and the status of the leaders, thus a transition in outlook from liberal to conservative.For whatever reason success engages a desperate need to remain successful. The primary operators of these efforts are often not the leaders of the initial group. If someone on the fringe is heavily invested in the project, they are quite likely to be tempted to intervene if the original leaders fail to meet expectations, or otherwise increase the the chances the fringe operator’s activities will be discovered. Consider Stalin’s rise to power. In a more mature organization the fringe operators seem likely to be protected and tasked to do more dirty work of the leaders. They are always available for tasks the leaders cannot risk getting involved with. Fringe operators are almost always expendable. Consider the Watergate caper. In that case Mr. Nixon was a bit too much of a fringe operator himself to trust the project with a chain of intermediaries who could provide him with plausible deniability. On the other hand Reagan skated away scot-free largely because he did not make that mistake during the Iran-Contra affair. But I digress. Party politics has always involved an ongoing conflict of message. During the American Revolution the British message was drowned out by the number of printing presses producing pamphlets and argumentation supporting the revolt. Things are not much different today, except our technology makes it possible to deliver the message much more quickly, and on a far more massive scale. In this context when there is a conflict of message, fringe operators are the first messengers, and truth is the first casualty. In the business of politics the only thing that actually matters is winning. In that context, all political parties have a collection of operatives who do things candidates do not have time for, and public officials cannot otherwise legally get involved with. They are often involved in polling, message shaping, and opposition research. They are the people who figure out the issues which will get voters to the polls on election day. Some are involved in attempting to reformat the message of the opposition. In more recent times they attempt with some success to redefine the message of opposition candidates. Occasionally they serve as fixers when a candidate has private behavior issues. In summary the political operative spends most of his time as a fringe operator at the edge of real political power. These people are motivated beyond anything most of us can imagine. These are the people an elected official should never put in a position which requires sworn testimony, because to them winning is far more important than truth.

In the US we have two major parties, one of which is rather adapt at building and maintaining a collection of constituencies who can sometimes work together, while ignoring each other’s faults and disagreements when they feel the need to win. The Democratic party is currently trapped by the sheer number of their constituencies. Their party has transitioned from liberal rationalism toward a progressiveness that sometimes appears to approach the irrational by seeking change because change is supposedly possible. The opposition party has used this ongoing transition to motivate its operatives and drive its own voters to the polls at major election cycles. Currently the pool of additional progressive constituencies is mostly empty. Meanwhile, they seem to have permanently alienated a major segment of the majority ethnic group within our country. In addition their existing constituencies are too interlocked to openly accept any faction fleeing the purge to ideological purity within the opposition.

The other party has not been successful with serious constituency building since Nixon. Reagan won in 1980 primarily because he came to understand that declaring he was against abortion would guarantee his party thirty percent of the popular vote. Consequently the GOP has been a prisoner of that decision, because they cannot resolve that issue nor attract additional constituencies. A Log Cabin Republican co-worker once ask why his party should fix anything that secures thirty percent of the vote, when his party has no other common goals with that block of voters. More or less simultaneously conservative Democrats abandoned their party in favor of the GOP, establishing the trend toward the current conservative vs liberal alignment. In addition the GOP has been consumed by an ongoing purge to ideological purity for several election cycles. This has forced most liberals, many moderates, and even a few from the olde money Boston – Cincinnati families to abandon the party. Currently their primary constituencies are the established commercial business lobby, olde money, and Evangelical Christians who oppose the SCOTUS ruling on abortion. Recently the party is abandoned by longstanding and prominent members of their conservative ideological base.Often the political operatives have no occupation other than political consulting work. When their party is in power their reward may be a real job somewhere. Otherwise they spend their time attempting to make trouble for elected officials and prominent members of the party in power. Political operatives have to be well connected in order to engage in their work. Washington is an expensive place. Income and status are important. Maintaining the operative lifestyle requires lots of resources. Otherwise they have to find a real job, dig deeper into the trust fund, or find a few clients in a somewhat friendly foreign country. Most operatives probably feel at home with the constituencies of wealth and power. Consequently the conservative party has a number of extra-party groups, operatives, and fringe operators who spend significant time shaping it’s message, while harassing the opposition. This activity appears to have increased as the constituency building by the opposition party became increasingly progressive. Prior to the 2016 election a constellation of focus groups, think tanks, and lone wolf political consultants engaged in an unprecedented level of political messaging intended to destroy the viability of any and all opposition candidates.My dad had a shortwave radio which I found fascinating from the time I was a small child. It was a tube radio, circa 1938. Anytime Dad replaced a tube or realign the string and knob which turned the tuning capacitor, I was close by, hoping for a chance to get a better idea how the radio worked. Lots of extra stations lived on the short wave bands. There were weird ones with people repeating endless sets of numbers. There was a few time stations. I liked the one in Britain, complete with the proper accent. By the late 1960s I had learned enough about radio to repair Dad’s radio myself. At some point I came into possession of an old car radio which had much better gain than Dad’s Stewart-Warner. I do not recall for sure, but a neighbor or relative probably gave it to me. As a teenager I became an aggregation point for broken electronic stuff. Sometimes I still fix stuff for donations, with the understanding that if it cannot be repaired for a reasonable cost, I have the option to keep the remains for parts. I remember this radio was from a GM vehicle. In any case I disassembled it and built new tuning coils to pick up the short wave bands. This involved constructing a new mechanism with an electric drive motor, and a manual alternative for extremely fine tuning. In any case the new tuning mechanism was larger than the original radio. I could pick up stations in Australia, Europe, Southern Asia, South Africa, and the Soviet Union. Radio Moscow was of particular interest, as they spent a lot of hours everyday beaming English language programs to North America. I found their programs fascinating. As I recall they spent a lot of time lecturing about stuff. Sometimes it seemed that maybe they were in a different universe. Their description of America was certainly not where I lived. Occasionally they had a news and weather break, in which a lot of time was spent discussing the sunbathers in their bikinis taking a dip and sunning themselves on the banks of the river Volga. Shortly afterward they would give the current temperature as maybe -35 degrees. Even if the temperature they gave was in Celsius it would equate to 3 below zero Fahrenheit, which is far too cold to be out in a bikini with the wind blowing 20 miles per hour. This was not a description of winter swimming found on YouTube were someone leaves her winter clothes at the sauna, then ventures out to a hole in the ice for a dip, then mostly frozen, skimpers back inside the sauna. The Radio Moscow description of winter 1972 sounded a lot more like Miami Beach. We lived on a farm on the highest ridge between the higher mountains of southwest Virginia. I could see snow on Mt. Rogers, Whitetop, and Brumley Mountain much of the winter. I remember Dad digging a path to get out the back door through 4 feet of snow in 1958. I will never forget the feeling of 25 below Fahrenheit. As a teen I often had to dig through several inches of ice on our pond so the cows could drink. It was instantly obvious that accuracy was not one of the prerogatives of Radio Moscow circa 1972. That was my introduction to something called propaganda.Propaganda was a major activity of both sides during the cold war. The perpetrators use a number of methods in an ongoing attempt to create confusion and distrust of the established information sources in a target audience. The goal is to replace primary sources with alternatives, and at a minimum create doubt about the accuracy of the primary reporting agencies. The propaganda agency wins if confusion is created. It has been reported that during WW2 the US placed fleets of inflatable ships off the southern coast of Europe to convince nazi intelligence the D-Day attack was coming from the opposite direction. During the cold war the Soviet Union spend thousands of hours trying to convince the rest of the world that a socialist paradise existed near the arctic circle. At the same time the US used Radio Free Europe to counter the never ending reports from Radio Moscow. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Empire used propaganda to misdirect their populations. The Soviets however seem to have been the most successful propaganda makers of all time, as they seemed to have no concept of truth. There is also a rumor they have no zero, and anything “southern” is evil. There is a reason for that, but I digress. After the fall of the Empire many old Soviets seem to have made their way to America. Arriving here they needed something to do in order to feed themselves. Some times it seems obvious where they went to work.Political “mudslinging” has long been part of the American political scene. After the Internet arrived mudslinging morphed into the political meme. The meme is used in an attempt to change the message of a political opponent by replacing the public memory of the opposition statement with a fragment of propaganda. For instance in an fairly recent oped piece Elisabeth Warren made a statement citing a medical journal that it was as safe for a woman to have an abortion as having a tonsillectomy. This is in response to state efforts restricting OB/GYN admitting privileges to hospitals which do not allow abortions. A meme quickly appeared on Facebook indicating that Ms. Warren equated an abortion directly with a tonsillectomy. The meme maker is attempting to modify the candidate’s message so that voters remember the incident differently from what actually transpired. Memes are another form of propaganda from the political operatives tool box. They are an effective way to sling political mud when no one has the time to fact check every assertion in every meme. Mems are also used to attribute motives to individuals in the opposing party.Conspiracy theory is another form of propaganda in which political operatives sometimes indulge. One of many ways to build a conspiracy theory is to collect a timeline of events, then remove the dates and times, after which one or more persons play the what if game. Removing the event timelines makes it possible to logically build a case for connecting events which are not otherwise connected. An example of this is the uranium mine deal, construed to involve HRC even though it happened long before she was in the state department. Long running conspiracy theories include several involving the Kennedy assassination, the moon landings, and UFOs. The Whitewater affair seems to have gained credibility as a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory primarily serves to disrupt trust of government officials and institutions.Fake News is a propaganda tactic which often seems to start life disguised as satire. An operative establishes a site on which fantastic fabrications are posted as satire. After the satirical story has been published for a while, a second operative cherry picks quotes form the first satire article, presenting them as if they are fact, but without attribution. These articles sometimes include a good mix of speculation and sometimes what if conspiracies. Soon a third operative quotes the article of the second, and a fourth the third. At some point the operative who originally quoted the satirical piece removes his original article and re-writes it quoting one of the more recent articles. As the round robin articles continue speculation gets replaced by assertion. This tends to obscure the origin of the piece, such that only fact checkers who maintain a full archive of such web articles will be able to figure out how the fabrication evolved. Often the source of a fake news article can only be speculatively defined. When the fact checker is able to mine the data and expose the hoax, the operatives turn on the fact checker, claiming the non existence of the article of origin is proof the fact checker is some how biased against their party. Additionally the operatives and their candidates create additional information chaos by attacking the traditional news media for not reporting these fabricated stories.In summary the best way to avoid becoming mired in political propaganda is to avoid interaction with the people, institutions, and networks which distribute such. It is extremely hard to do news analysis without getting involved in one of the activities listed above, so stay away from programs which are short on events and long on analysis. Cable TV news analysis is probably mostly a hoax. Much of it is simply sensationalism designed to take up air time, while keeping an audience glued to the TV set. Recently I watched a couple hours on one of the more prolific news analysis channels. Multiple anchors asked a series of slightly different questions, to which the same characters in their panel of experts made the same replies. Obviously they had three experts who made one statement. Each anchor framed his or her show for the evening around those comments. Each of these new shows was at least half an hour long. So now along with fake news we have fake reporting, fake analysis, and fake news programs. As for who to blame: The weather guy. About 20 years ago the Atlanta weather people discovered they could mesmerize an audience for several hours simply by turning ever weather event into a TV event. I don’t know where they got the idea, but it has grown, evolved, and infect all of the TV news scene.

Politics and Religion

Pre-philosophical religious practice appear to originate from either a general fear of the unknown, or the attribution of special significance to some obvious benefactor. Most deities in the ancient pantheon appear to fit into this puzzle, for lack of some better term. Perhaps this should not be surprising given a complex environment which cannot be immediately understood by the inhabitants. Needless to say effects of the power of suggestion, heard mentality, peer pressure, and mass coercion are obviously primary contributing factors to the evolution of primitive religion.

Primitive people are know to worship the things they eat, while agrarian societies have worshiped the animals which serve them. Check out the golden calf of Exodus 32 as an example of this. Others have worshiped their ancestors. Some believe the house hold gods of Genesis 31 may be associated with ancestor worship. Some portend to to see the future through the spirit of a deceased ancestor, friend, or other acquaintance. Another example is given in the 28th chapter of the First book of Samuel as King Saul’s request to the witch of Endor to bring back the prophet. After the rise of civilization, the more ancient deities appear to be associated with the land and people of a particular tribe. An example is found in Second Kings 5:17 where the man from Aram requests earth to take home with him so he can worship the God of Israel.

Abraham, the Judean ancestor originates from the headwaters region of the Babylonian rivers. This area is known to have ancient and continuing Zoroastrian influences. He and his family travel down river to Ur. Later he returns, crosses into the coastal Mediterranean region and travels south toward Egypt. In Genesis 14 he encounters the king of Salem, who seems to have a similar outlook. While there is scholarly discussion as to the origin and context of these verses, taking them at face value suggests that Abraham and Melchizedek share a philosophical and religious heritage. His monotheistic religious philosophy is maintained through out extensive travels in the region, despite the fact that polytheism appears to be the predominate religious practice.

Abraham appears to travel with his flocks and herds along the water ways between the relatively small named places which comprise early civilization. His descendants continue this lifestyle and their monotheistic practices. Later they settle in Egypt, where they are eventually enslaved by the Pharaoh. One of their number is raised and educated in Pharaoh’s house hold. In time he becomes their leader, directing them from slavery back into the deserts of Sini. They are led into the Jordan valley, where they establish themselves and become a nation. Their first leaders are judges who give religious direction and settle disputes. Later a king is appointed, at which time religious and political power are separated. Monotheistic practices persist until after the time of David the King, circa 950 BCE. The nation of Israel was challenged by the aggregation of local kingdoms first by the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians. Monotheism seems to have been largely abandoned by the time the armies of Babylon sacked Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The Persians displaced Babylon and allowed the exiles to return within a century. , Greeks, and eventually Rome. The period between the aggregation of local kingdoms

Even now individuals of the middle east and southern Asia are associated by name with their ancestral country, city, or village of birth. Early Christians were similarly identified. Saul of Tarsus is one prominent example. During the early Roman times people and the gods they worshiped were known to be associated with the land they inhabited. Part of Romanization had to do with convincing conquered populations they were worshiping the same gods as Rome, perhaps under different names. The reasons probably have to do with the amount of time spent in worship, which is time spent not paying tribute or making things to send to Rome. Paul the Apostle mentions two thousand deities on Mars Hill in Athens. The Romans admired most things Greek, however the habit of collecting deities was likely not one of them. By the time Rome ruled the world, the sheer number of deity, temples, and statues demanded simplification.

By the the time the city of Rome was 700 years old the republic was the most powerful political entity in their known world. That gave divisive political interests the opportunity to make troubles. Politics in the republic appear to have declined into political disarray, with the somewhat democratic republic having generally failed because every issue before the senate divided the votes evenly enough that no consensus could be reached. The eventual result of this general inability to resolve anything ended with the dictatorship of Julius. After the assassination of Julius, the republic transitioned to empire under Augustus.

By the city of Rome’s 950th year civil wars had engulfed the empire. Prior to Hadrian, Roman emperors had built temples to local deities to pacify subservient populations as well as to stimulate their local economies. To some extent Rome had assimilated the deities of conquered populations as a way of keeping their loyalties. After Hadrian, if not before, more effort appears to have gone into simplifying the deities, in part by determining that everyone was actually worshiping the same five or seven, so that all who venerated Jupiter as he rode across the sky, worshiped under that Roman name.

Roman policy had a lot to do with keeping the public peace. Thinking seriously and speaking openly about making trouble could cost one his or her life. Following the difficulties of the preceding century, the promise of the Roman peace must have seemed enticing. Initially the Judean civil and religious structure was not immediately disrupted, however Roman alliances with a collection of unsavory characters challenged public goodwill. One of these, Herod the Great, rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. His own destructive tendencies and later intrigues of his heirs created a need for a Roman governor rather than a local ruling hierarchy. By this time local Judean politics and religion were woven into a tight matrix which did not like each other and did not appreciate outside interference. The partisans involved had learned to make the threat of Rome part of their interactions. These local political and religious intrigues may have been a primary cause of the Crucifixion.

In contrast Abraham’s descendants arrive with a philosophy which collides with the religion of that time. The result is perhaps not unlike a collision of galaxies. There is a lot of space between stars, and thus few actually slam into each other, however everyone gets pulled around a lot, the results last for a very long time, afterwhich nothing will ever be the way it was before.

Judea presented a special religious problem simply because there were no Roman equivalent to the singular God of the Hebrew religious society. Having been used by religious leaders, and having financed the rebuilding of the temple, perhaps the Roman hierarchy felt compelled to take action. In their quest to extend political domination of Judea into the religious domain several attempts were made after 40 CE to enshrine Caesar worship on the temple mount. While this abomination which brings desolation standing in the place where it ought not, was given as a sign to Christians to leave Jerusalem, the Judean Zealots saw it as a sign to gather, take over, and defend the city.

Several years ago I started writing one of my first books. At some point in that mis-adventure I got into a simulation. The full piece may someday be published entirely, but for now lets just say it has to do with the evolution of religion, and the role religion has played in the development and maintenance of power. I know that some of my friends in the religious community will blow a few circuits over that line, but all should know by now that I love fixing short circuits and frustrating those who keep large herds of sacred crows. The simulation indicates that if fear of the unknown exists, power figures will ultimately find a way to use it to influence their subjects. Future leaders, who are subjects before their rise, learn to venerate these symbols of the unknown. The symbols present expectations which the future leader must attempt to fulfill. The diety thus created, eventually serve to limit the excesses of the leader.The early Christian Way seems to be more of a way of life than a religion. In this sense the ancient Judaeo-Christianity traditions appear to share philosophical space with Zoroastrianism, a more ancient set of beliefs and practices thought to originate in Iran and central Asia. Zoroastrian thought appears to be one of the most ancient monotheistic philosophies, having influenced the major surviving religions of central and southern Asia. For more information search the Open Bible.By the time Christianity arrived, Rome was a very troubled empire. Expansion to the east became increasingly difficult. Two centuries later, Hadrian built a wall across England to protect the frontier instead of conquering the dissidents. Caesar was mostly not in Rome during those centuries, simply because he was out with the army attempting to keep or impose the pax romana. The empire of Rome was built on technology, mainly in the form of roads. All roads led to Rome, but as the distance increased, the time and effort needed to respond to difficulties increased in something like a geometric progression. By the time of Constantine, the empire was simply too large to be effectively governed in the fashion expected by the primary citizens.To make some sense of this, one must understand that empire evolved from the aggregation of kingdoms starting about 1000 BCE. Prior to this kings went out to make war in the spring, perhaps to settle land disputes before crops are planted and flocks led out to pasture. This practice is mentioned in Chronicles and Samuel of the Hebrew scriptures. This evolved to include asimilation of competing hierarchies thus making for a stronger and more stable kingdom. This process evolved from city states to the first regional powers. The first of these major aggregate empires was Assyria, which succumbed to Babylon, which was taken over by Persia, which was taken by Greece. The Greek empire split into four parts after the death of Alexander. Two of these remnants became the Roman empire. Rome extended this nominal space to the western ocean and halfway across the Isle of Britain. The primary business of these aggregate empires was to collect and funnel goods and services from the remote regions to the principal city. The residents of such empires were essentially slaves. They served the robber baron who administered the affair. In the book of Daniel a dream of the Babylonian leader is described. In the dream, parts of a statue represent this progression of aggregate empires. Each empire in the aggregate series is a composite. Each aggregation requires increased oppression to maintain uniformity, peace, and profit is increased. Central to many of these disagreements is religion. By the time Rome aggregates south east Europe, the Eastern Mediteranian, and north east Africa, Religious practice has devolved to the worship of Rome’s primary gods, which are associated with the five visible planets. Although the Emperors claimed the power of a god, and hoped for a position among the gods, they also seem to have had a deep fear of their primary gods.Christianity arrives squarely into this mix in a fashion that only Deity could have imagined. The Christian message is that leaders are servants. This idea found traction in the underprivileged masses of the Roman world. The underprivileged masses included almost everyone except the Emperor himself and the principal families of Rome. Even wealthy citizens could be dragged to Rome to appear before the emperor. Those who were less than citizens were simply thrust through with sword or spear on the spot, unless a crucifixion was needed to further terrorize the local population. Christinanity seems to have somehow found traction in the hierarchical matrix of official Roman society. At first this seems to have involved Jews which were also Roman citizens. Saul of Tarsus is an example.I believe there is another. We know her as Mary Magdalene. Historically she was probably known as Mary of Magdala. Magdala was a fishing town on the sea of Galilee. Remember that some of the Apostles were fishermen in that area. Writers of the middle ages spent an enormous amount of time trying to fit her into the known matrix of Jesus Christ and his associates. The problem is that she does not fit. Late modern writers have generated enormous speculations while attempting to fit her into the family matrix of Jesus. None of these fit either. The problem is that Mary of Magdala has an assumed status in the early Christian community which is not explained anywhere. She is wealthy. She has status at both the crucifiction and resurrection. The problem is no writer ever tells us why, everybody seems to just know she is somehow special. Why is this lady among the first witnesses of the resurrection. Why do the apostles even go look when she makes her report. Because she has status. Magdala is a tax generating town, with Roman political apparatus. If she is a Roman Citizen by birth and some how related to an influential Roman family, she would automatically have credibility within all of the communities present. You can bet no one is going to talk much about it, and almost certainly no one will dare write much of anything. They don’t have to, because everyone in the original time frame knows.I find it interesting that Christian Worship is never actually described in the accepted Christian scripture. Christ and his Apostles frame Christianity as a way of living far more than worship. We have a lot of traditions concerning worship, but other than meeting in the Synagogue, praying, reading scripture, and perhaps singing, the texts are mostly silent on the issue. Christianity appears to have become more religious after it was adopted by the failing empire of Rome. The Church took over the empire. Simultaneously the Empire took over the church. The temple and cult of Zeus was part and parcel of the empire. Certainly the atmosphere, if not practice, was carried over to the Imperial church. For more on that read the book Hadrian’s Empire – When Rome Ruled the World. There is a chapter on religion and how it was used to control both populace and emperor. Prior to imperial adoption, Christianity was not symbiotically related to political power. Micah 6:8 ESV: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

The Ring

Once I had a history instructor who told us that politics is a ring. There is a spot somewhere on the ring were people are reasonable and rational. That point is probably best known as classical liberalism. Philosophically, American conservatives have traditionally been slightly to the right of this point, while American liberals have traditionally been slightly to the left. Historically, Americans have not been ideological purists. Sometimes they even steal each others positions, mostly in order to get votes. An example is individual liberty. Conservatives claim the cause of individual liberty which is actually a more liberal idea, while liberals claim the idea of gun control which is a more conservative idea. One of the classic benefits of the two party system has been this dance around that reasonable and rational midpoint. Prior to recent times and the civil war era, neither group wondered far from reasonable and rational.Further to the right on the ring things are increasingly imperial. Further to the left lives the tyranny of the masses. If you go far enough left or right you will find yourself exactly opposite the point of reasonable and rational.

That is a very dangerous place indeed. There you have tyranny of the masses managed by a singular hysterical maniacal authoritarian ruler. Civility does not live there. Winning is more important than anything. No action is too evil to visit upon the adversary. The twentieth century simultaneously had two of those characters who found themselves in the same physical space, but on opposite sides of the political ring. The final result of that confrontation was the greatest war in human history.

I first learned of the political ring from Coach Santillo during the 1968-69 school year at Abingdon High School, Abingdon, Virginia. Even today the analogy still works.

Winds of October

We have lived in places affected by hurricanes for a lot of years. I am fascinated by weather. Consequently, I have watched a lot of hurricane radar footage. As I recall Michael was the most tightly wound and symmetrically organized storm I have ever seen on radar. Radar pictures from the inbound Michael also show significant tightly wound banding. The gulf coast has known some of the most dangerous hurricanes in recorded history. All three Cat 5 storms which hit the US in the 20th century came ashore in the gulf. All quickly intensified prior to landfall.

Hurricanes which develop out over the deep ocean begin as a field of hot humid air in which multiple super cell thunder storms arise. Observation indicates super cells develop an internal rotation as hail and heavy rain fall to the surface. This rotation is induced by a downward flow of cold air as hail and cold rain drops fall to the surface. Colder air causes the volume of the warm humid air to decrease as the rain drops precipitate out. Consequently air pressure in this region of condensation is decreased. A horizontal inflow is induced by this local drop in pressure. The inflow develops all around the column of precipitation.is created by this pressure drop caused by condensation and precipitation. A vortex begins to develop as the inflow becomes massive enough that air and water molecules begin to collide at the center of the column. As the vortex develops, the column of air begins to spin, and eventually the super cell itself begins to rotate.

When several super cells develop internal vortex structures in close proximity, a larger vortex structure may develop to enclose them. This requires at least two vortex structures rotating in the same direction with at least one spinning in the opposite direction between them. The centrifugal force of this larger vortex soon consumes the humidity which drives the rotation, causing the internal vortex structures to dissipate. As this larger structure develops, cold air flows down the inside the tube thus formed, such that precipitation is enhanced within the wall of the structure. As the internal pressure decreases, the rate of inflow, precipitation, and spin is increased. This vortex structure becomes the eye wall of the hurricane as an equilibrium between these values is reached.

As this larger area of rotating air develops momentum, a low pressure region develops because of the centrifugal force. The gathering storms begin to rotate around each other. As rotation begins dry cold air begins to flow down the sides of the eye wall. This helps keep the condensation engine running.As this occurs an area of higher density air develops within the spinning column. As colder more dense air falls down from above, the temperature and pressure differentials within this rotating column of air creates a great deal of precipitation. The as the volume of the air decreases due to precipitation, more humid air from the surrounding field of high humidity is drawn in. This in turn contributes to faster rotation. collapse because hail develops in several super cell storms.

These storms rarely become Cat 4 or higher. I believe that in part this is due to the fact the circulation of the storm tends to limit the influx of cold air to an area very near the eye wall. Simultaneously, the lower pressure at the center of the eye vortex increases the rate of evaporation, some of which contributes to the humidity engine which drives the process. As the hurricane approaches land a new set of dynamics develop. On land, cooler moist air is heavy and seems to follow river valleys. Obviously the Mississippi provides such a conduit farther west in the gulf. The Mississippi river valley reaches almost to Canada, and thus serves as a potential conduit for much cooler air, from much farther north. In the eastern gulf the Chattahoochee river valley extends north to the ridges and valleys of the southern Appalachians. A bit further west the Tallapoosa river valley extends from the Mobile, Alabama area to the western side do the same set of ridges which form the western boundary of the Chattahoochee drainage basin.

US Highway 431 is generally the western boundary of the Chattahoochee river valley along the eastern border of central and south Alabama. The river flow is perpendicular to the nominal west to east flow of air and weather. Radar observations appear to indicate the Chattahoochee river valley contributes to an otherwise unexpected perturbation of the nominal flow of air and weather, which sometimes extends from US 431 on the west side to the central highlands of western Georgia on the east side. Rainfall has been observed to cease within one hundred foot of US 431. Rain gauge observations farther east often observed to be remarkably different that those from farther west. Radar weather maps published by the US National Weather Service confirmed these observations. On other occasions the exact opposite has been observed. I strongly suspect that a flow of air over the river provides the stimulus for these effects. Given the size of the river valley and the higher altitudes of the head waters in north Georgia it seems logical that cooler air sometimes follows the path of the river to the Apalachicola area of the Florida Panhandle. Presumably similar effects are likely for the Tallapoosa and Mississippi river valleys as well.

In addition to the favorable conditions, my observations indicate intense hurricanes which migrate beyond the tropics need a substantial source of warm moist air flowing north from equatorial regions, as well as an inflow of cooler air flowing south into the vortex. Rapid intensification would appear to require temperature differences significantly above nominal. Once this flow begins the cold air from above the eyewall is supplemented by cool air at ground level, leading to the observation of significant banding, and rapid intensification. The temperature differentials present in the fall would thus make possible the extremely rapid intensification. As the strength of the ground level inflow develops, air from the Tennessee and Ohio drainage basins is quickly pulled over the ridges which separate these river system.

The result appears to be catastrophic hurricanes.

BTW I am NOT a meteorologist, but I have watched this process for a number of years, and it seems to lend a logical and somewhat rational explanation to an otherwise random process.