It's an old chestnut, but still worth hauling out and dusting off...now and then.

Actually, I never tire of it. Truly great writing is timeless, don't you think?

I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong--Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke.

Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.

Sure, a hearty volcano can be enjoyable. Burning rivers of lava: so picturesque. But a volcano is stationary, like Dennis Hastert after a big lunch. It doesn't offer the same dramatic suspense.

Hurricanes are in unpredictable flux. They move, change direction, strengthen, weaken, lose an eyewall, repair an eyewall; they seem to have volition and opera-diva personalities.

So there's something disappointing when a hurricane doesn't make landfall, or peters out into a puny Category One...

That's by James Wolcott, a probable ascot wearer who speaks on behalf of nature, and I'll bet he was just kidding! Okay? Get over it already!

It's still "Rose Wilder Lane Week" here at C.V. (only one day left!) so I'll just get out of the way and let her offer an observation...

The energy of heat, cold, storms, floods, drought, is the deadly enemy of every human being. His second enemy is the living energy of other creatures, the animals, the plants, that kill him and that he kills for his food and other uses.

Everyone must constantly be defended against these enemies. Farmers and sailors and doctors always know this. Linemen know it, and engineers, chemists, truck drivers and railroad men and oil drillers and sand-hogs and construction workers and airplane pilots and weather forecasters—all the fighters who protect human lives in modern civilization, and keep this civilization in existence.

These men, who know the human situation on this earth and stand the brunt of it, enable others to forget it.

The thinkers—scholars, teachers, writers, politicians—fed and warmed and lulled like babies, can forget their real situation. But their acts recognize it...

Tomorrow, we go shopping in Paris. Perhaps to a charcuterie?

Au revoir!