Tuesday: that leviathan

Tuesday: what, then? It's forecast to be 111° F in Mobile today, and 111° F in Jacksonville. What's happening? Our high here in St Andrews is forecast to be 90° F at 12 noon - - there's a sense of a battleship getting its range and bearings on us. How long, O Lord?

And that leviathan that you created for the sport of it - - orcas, the dorsal fins of the adult males are six feet high, turning against us, killer whales. They already have an ugly reputation for chasing down the calves of other whales, and tearing their liver from them. Terrifying people by ganging up to ram boats at sea, sinking some boats and in at least one case following into port a boat they've damaged. From the web: "Killer whales (also called orcas) are apex predators, meaning they are at the top of their food chain. They feed on fish and squid like other odontocetes (toothed whales) do, but will also target seals, sea birds and even whale species far bigger than themselves."

Why do they not eat humans? Scientists say it's because we're not part of their regular diet. I say "not yet," but here's a story for you, about the image above:

"an image you often see on paintings and wood carvings – a giant totemic killer whale, with the images of sea creatures and faces artistically contained within the whale’s body.

"The image tells the story of the Tlingit legend of the creation of the killer whale, which goes as follows: Natsilane was a charismatic and skilled wood carver who married the Chief’s daughter. Jealous of Natsilane’s popularity and talent, his brothers-in-law devised a plan to abandon Natsilane at sea during a traditional sea lion hunt. Left to die on a small rock in the middle of nowhere, Natsilane was summoned under the waves by a sea lion. The sea lion asked him to heal his son who was injured by a spear during the hunt. After pulling the spear point out, the Sea Lion Chief granted Natsilane great powers and helped him back to shore. Still angry about being abandoned, he began carving a great whale out of different types of wood. The first two carvings, when set in the water, simply floated away. But the third, made of yellow cedar, came to life. Natsilane sent it to exact revenge on his brothers-in-law. When the killer whale found them, he smashed their canoe and killed the brothers. But Natsilane felt badly about what he had done, and when the whale returned to him, he instructed it to never harm humans again."

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In other news today, we humans have drawn so much water from under the earth's surface that we've caused and are causing the earth's axis to shift. Eventually this'll bring on the film "2012" in which the North Pole shifts to somewhere like Nebraska as I recall, with earth's crust breaking and rising up, unimaginable tsunamis, &c. IDK, eh? Retired and up to my own tricks, on my computer screen last night I watched, "Day After Tomorrow" in which all this came on sudden and unexpected (by all but one man, a scientist and computer geek, the hero) sudden, instant worldwide freezing, and I rode an incredible Atlantic tsunami into New York City while the hero's teenage son, who was there with friends for some sort of contest, scrambled to get out of the water's way aa a rich New Yorker kid was trying to steal his girlfriend. I got impatient with it and scrolled to the end, where someone in either a spaceship or helicopter was looking back at earth and commenting about its atmosphere, that the air had never seemed so fresh and clean.

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More? In either The New Yorker or The Atlantic, read a long, very degrading essay about Ernst Jünger, whose WWI diary "The Storm of Steel" I read and thoroughly appreciated earlier this year or last year, found out that Jünger also published a diary of his WWII experiences, and ordered that from Amazon. Titled something like "A German Officer in Paris" it's supposed to be here Saturday and will be my next read. An enlistee who became a junior officer in the trenches of World War One, Jünger served in World War Two as a Hauptmann in the Wehrmacht, most of his Time as a staff officer in Paris during the German Occupation of France. He was an extraordinarily gifted writer who, wittingly or unwittingly, exposes his own contemptible characteristics as a human being.

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Kristen has plans to drive to Atlanta this week to help her lifelong friend Carol Anne pack up to move home to Panama City. Linda and I will mind Pacey THE Cat while Kristen is away. He's a good kitty.

RSF&PTL