(C) Steve Douglass
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, December 24, 2012
You can track Santa's flight HERE!
Merry Christmas to all!
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Dust Bowl gets great review!
By Ned Martel, Published: November 16
This past April, there was no Pulitzer for fiction. Judges and prize administrators struggled to find the right work for right now, and then they gave up. One aftermath assessment: Novels have gotten twee.
In televised nonfiction, on the other hand, Ken Burns has no problem with the big picture. His documentaries for PBS are never not epic. He knows how to make chapters of America’s past seem urgent, whether he’s obsessing over a sport (baseball) or a musical genre (jazz). He’s unafraid of going wider, too, having assembled sagas on World War II and, most famously, the Civil War.
Like good novelists, Burns finds quiet awakenings amid everyday travails, no matter the time period. There’s no real problem with doing this, except the PBS impresario tends to exhaust interest in an epoch as if he’s conducting an honors seminar in the history department. Halfway through, while we’re all furrowing in airless archives, a question often arises: Can this be taken pass-fail?
With “The Dust Bowl,” Burns keeps himself to four concise hours and ably sifts the story out of the dirt. As the filmmaker chronicles farmers in the southern Plains during the Depression years, he looks more carefully at fewer people and distills deeper meaning.
Over 10 years, farmers tore up grasslands to plant more and more wheat, which soon was worth less and less. Next, winds blew away good soil and then more winds brought bad soil to the surface. In towns called Follett and Enid, the filmmaker has found important things to discuss about ecosystems and economies and how they collapse.
More important, Burns also presents novel-worthy characters against an apocalyptic backdrop.
One Job-like figure in the desertified Oklahoma Panhandle is a farm wife who describes endless chores in her elegant magazine dispatches.
Caroline Henderson, a homesteader with a Mount Holyoke degree, is perhaps Burns’s most apt protagonist. She sounds like Laura Ingalls Wilder with an adult awareness; imagine her as the first mommy blogger.
The land changes under Henderson’s feet. Amber waves become arid dunes. Morning in America leads to darkness by noon. She keeps somber vigil as Manifest Destiny comes to a screeching halt.
Not every viewer will be in the mood for a glimpse of the moment when thousands of poor Americans confronted what looked like end times. It’s unsettling, in the season of the “fiscal cliff,” to delve into four hours recounting some previous battered economy, when recovery stretched from wait-till-next-year to wait-till-next-decade.
Somehow, Burns takes care of viewer and character alike. For sure, the pain of infanticidal winds addles the brains of both farm marms and PBS viewers. Hack coughs lead to “dust pneumonia,” which claimed one family’s youngest girl and eldest matriarch in the same week. On the day of their double funeral, a massive storm engulfed mourners, compounding the pain.
That Palm Sunday devastation, in 1935, blew Plains dust all the way to Franklin Roosevelt’s desktop in the Oval Office, and the viewer can practically feel some film of inescapable particles settling, even after the documentary’s gusts have waned. As narrator Peter Coyote pulls back to a wider world, the discussion takes a needed break, turning to Washington players such as Henry Wallace and Harold Ickes, New Deal Cabinet members who debated whether to plow anew or abandon for good, respectively.
As ever, the screen scans historic images — strong, clear, artful ones. Photographer Dorothea Lange trains her lens on wind-whipped faces. Burns knows by now how to pull emotion out of first-person documents and underscores the testimony with piano chords and violin whines. Woody Guthrie finds his voice. And one of many older survivors recalls her mama’s hymn that hoped for “higher ground.”
Obviously, there are American themes of endurance and pluck, but also hype and hubris. In on-camera testimonies, unsparing eco-historians such as Timothy Egan make sense of the sadness, with ample narrative skill. A viewer will understand arcana about soil conservation and grassland water retention, plus how the government came to pay farmers not to farm, a policy that endures.
Wheat prices soar and sink, and fields of dreams become nightmare landscapes. When survivors finally overcome starvation and disease, many pack up and head to California. There, real-life Tom Joads look as hearty and humble as Henry Ford but get mocked as unwashed and defeated Okies.
“The Dust Bowl” is worthwhile not merely as it documents past perseverance but also as it informs future struggles. Leave it to Burns, our mop-topped maestro of American fact, to find the heroine, Caroline Henderson, who can speak for herself and also bring it all home: “Behind the characteristic American nonchalance, one detects a growing anxiety, especially about the coming winter.”
The Dust Bowl
(two hours each night) Sunday and Monday
at 8 p.m. on PBSa
One Job-like figure in the desertified Oklahoma Panhandle is a farm wife who describes endless chores in her elegant magazine dispatches.
Caroline Henderson, a homesteader with a Mount Holyoke degree, is perhaps Burns’s most apt protagonist. She sounds like Laura Ingalls Wilder with an adult awareness; imagine her as the first mommy blogger.
The land changes under Henderson’s feet. Amber waves become arid dunes. Morning in America leads to darkness by noon. She keeps somber vigil as Manifest Destiny comes to a screeching halt.
Not every viewer will be in the mood for a glimpse of the moment when thousands of poor Americans confronted what looked like end times. It’s unsettling, in the season of the “fiscal cliff,” to delve into four hours recounting some previous battered economy, when recovery stretched from wait-till-next-year to wait-till-next-decade.
Somehow, Burns takes care of viewer and character alike. For sure, the pain of infanticidal winds addles the brains of both farm marms and PBS viewers. Hack coughs lead to “dust pneumonia,” which claimed one family’s youngest girl and eldest matriarch in the same week. On the day of their double funeral, a massive storm engulfed mourners, compounding the pain.
That Palm Sunday devastation, in 1935, blew Plains dust all the way to Franklin Roosevelt’s desktop in the Oval Office, and the viewer can practically feel some film of inescapable particles settling, even after the documentary’s gusts have waned. As narrator Peter Coyote pulls back to a wider world, the discussion takes a needed break, turning to Washington players such as Henry Wallace and Harold Ickes, New Deal Cabinet members who debated whether to plow anew or abandon for good, respectively.
As ever, the screen scans historic images — strong, clear, artful ones. Photographer Dorothea Lange trains her lens on wind-whipped faces. Burns knows by now how to pull emotion out of first-person documents and underscores the testimony with piano chords and violin whines. Woody Guthrie finds his voice. And one of many older survivors recalls her mama’s hymn that hoped for “higher ground.”
Obviously, there are American themes of endurance and pluck, but also hype and hubris. In on-camera testimonies, unsparing eco-historians such as Timothy Egan make sense of the sadness, with ample narrative skill. A viewer will understand arcana about soil conservation and grassland water retention, plus how the government came to pay farmers not to farm, a policy that endures.
Wheat prices soar and sink, and fields of dreams become nightmare landscapes. When survivors finally overcome starvation and disease, many pack up and head to California. There, real-life Tom Joads look as hearty and humble as Henry Ford but get mocked as unwashed and defeated Okies.
“The Dust Bowl” is worthwhile not merely as it documents past perseverance but also as it informs future struggles. Leave it to Burns, our mop-topped maestro of American fact, to find the heroine, Caroline Henderson, who can speak for herself and also bring it all home: “Behind the characteristic American nonchalance, one detects a growing anxiety, especially about the coming winter.”
The Dust Bowl
(two hours each night) Sunday and Monday
at 8 p.m. on PBSa
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
In October - sometimes the wind doesn't blow....
- and then the balloons go up.
click to enlarge
(C) Steve Douglass
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Storms bring welcome rain - and a little damage to Amarillo area
About 7 p.m., the weather service recorded 0.39 of an inch of rain at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport, 0.47 of an inch northwest of Canyon, 0.09 of an inch six miles northwest of Fritch, 0.26 of an inch southeast of Pampa, 0.06 of an inch in Hereford and 0.44 of an inch in Bootleg, Goehring said. Residents reported wind damage at Southeast Park Complex at Southeast 46th Avenue and South Osage Street with at least one utility pole snapped and a tree uprooted, but no injuries were reported, Goehring said.
Xcel Energy spokesman Wes Reeves reported 800 houses lost power in the Borger and Fritch areas Wednesday evening, but crews restored power to those houses in about an hour. The weather service warned of high winds, hail and flooding Wednesday afternoon as severe thunderstorms hovered above Potter and Randall counties, meteorologist Andrew Moulton said. “We’ve gotten reports of what we believe to be at least quarter-sized hail near (the Tradewinds area),” Moulton said. “We’ve measured over 60 mph winds in multiple locations, especially east of the city.” Residents also reported flash flooding near Westgate Mall, he said.
READ MORE AT AMARILLO.COM
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Wall cloud capture from last night's storm in Amarillo
Photo by Steve Douglass
Link to VIDEO here!
Saturday, July 28, 2012
July storm at sunset
A dying storm cradles the setting West Texas Sun one more time before it slips behind the far horizon.
Click to enlarge
Photo (C) Steve Douglass
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
Significant sever weather risk today - especially Tuila/Plainview area
..CENTRAL/SOUTHERN PLAINS...
WIDESPREAD THUNDERSTORMS HAVE BEEN ONGOING OVERNIGHT ACROSS PARTS OF
KS/OK/MO.
THESE STORMS HAVE RESULTED IN A WELL-DEFINED OUTFLOW
BOUNDARY THAT EXTENDS ROUGHLY FROM AMA-SPS-ADM-FSM. EASTERLY LOW
LEVEL WINDS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE BOUNDARY WILL HELP TO TRANSPORT
AMPLE MOISTURE WESTWARD INTO THE TX PANHANDLE. MOST MODEL SOLUTIONS
AGREE ON STORMS FORMING ALONG THE DRYLINE/REMNANT OUTFLOW BOUNDARY
BETWEEN 19-22Z...AS A WEAK SHORTWAVE TROUGH NOW NEAR THE 4-CORNERS
AREA APPROACHES THE REGION. THE 12Z AMA RAOB ALSO SUPPORTS RATHER
EARLY INITIATION WITH STEEP LAPSE RATES AND ONLY A MINIMAL CAP.
STRONG DEEP LAYER EFFECTIVE SHEAR AND MEAN FLOW ORTHOGONAL TO
DRYLINE WILL PROMOTE DISCRETE SUPERCELL DEVELOPMENT WITH VERY LARGE
HAIL POSSIBLE. THE TORNADO POTENTIAL WILL BE DEPENDENT ON THE
EVOLUTION OF THE REMNANT OUTFLOW BOUNDARY...BUT THERE DOES APPEAR TO
BE SOME RISK OF A FEW TORNADOES DURING THE EVENING FROM SOUTHWEST KS
INTO THE TX PANHANDLE AND SOUTHWEST OK. DURING THE EVENING...STORMS
MAY GROW UPSCALE AND SPREAD EASTWARD ACROSS PORTIONS OF
WESTERN/CENTRAL OK WITH AN CONTINUED RISK OF HAIL AND DAMAGING
WINDS.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Epic West Texas Thunderstorm
I had a nice chase with storm chaser Brady Kendrick yesterday. No tornadoes but we intercept this beautiful thunderstorm in NE of Panhandle last night.
Epic skies in NorthWest Texas!
Click to enlarge photos.
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