Here’s a news report from yesterday about the substantial snowfall in the Florida Panhandle. Great googly moogly!
It didn’t snow where I am, but the white stuff wasn’t all that far north of my location. I haven’t seen snow in decades and briefly considered driving up to gawk.
But then I remembered I don’t know how to drive in snow, and neither do lots of other people who would be on the road. So I thought “fuck that!” and stayed home with a hot mug of Irish coffee. Good call!
In a press release, our contemptible wretch of a governor used the occasion of the unusual weather to pucker up and kiss ass by referring to the body of water on the west side of the state in the manner demanded by Emperor Tang:
WHEREAS, an area of low pressure moving across the Gulf of America, interacting with Arctic air, will bring widespread impactful winter weather to North Florida beginning Tuesday, January 21, 2025…”
God, it’s all so stupid and embarrassing, and you can’t escape by ignoring the news. Even the fucking weather bulletins are subject to the Sharpie treatment.
The Florida Politics site set out to gauge public sentiment on changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America by asking some residents of Cedar Key what they think. Here are a couple of samples:
Cedar Key, a quaint fishing town in Levy County, is a cluster of islands that extend about three miles into the Gulf of Mexico from Florida’s mainland. One resident for more than a decade, 78-year-old Air Force retiree Thomas McKee, said he sees no reason for changing the name.
“Donald Trump is just blowing his horn again,” he said.
McKee, who isn’t registered with a political party, said he thinks many residents will continue to use the Gulf’s original name, which dates at least to the late 1600s. “It’s been too long the Gulf of Mexico to be all of a sudden known as the Gulf of America,” he said.
Amy Henderson, a Cedar Key resident and registered Republican who owns a gift shop and hotel overlooking the Gulf, was initially surprised by Trump’s proposal. Her first thought, however, was practical: “I would have to change a lot of T-shirt designs.”
But, she added, “Anything that shows pride for America, I am 100% for.”
The national pride angle sure doesn’t resonate for me. I’ve never been more embarrassed to be an American.
Anyhoo, my favorite comment from the surveyed Cedar Key residents came from the town’s mayor:
For Cedar Key’s Mayor, Sue Colson, the name change is a distraction from the country’s aftermath of natural disasters — including three major hurricanes recently that hit her town in a span of just 13 months. She offered a different moniker for the Gulf instead, an homage to a popular seafood harvested in the shallow waters nearby.
“I prefer it to be the Gulf of Clam,” she said. “I’m serious. If we’re going to do it, then everybody’s going to call it what they want.”
It makes sense from the mayor’s perspective. Apart from tourism, Cedar Key is known for its clams.
It wasn’t nicknamed “Clamalot,” when my ancestors arrived in Cedar Key about 180 years ago, but after they cut down most of the trees to sell to pencil factories and hurricanes washed away the rest and fishing fleets were destroyed by storms and then by gill net bans, the town settled on clam cultivation.
So “Gulf of Clam” — why not? Like the mayor said, we get to call it what we want.
Most people who live on it just call it “the Gulf.” That’s appropriate too, and not just in the geographical sense. “Gulf” can also mean an abyss or seemingly bottomless chasm, and I kind of feel like we’re in that right now.
Open thread!
Just Say No to Gaslighting: Sometimes a Nazi Salute Is Just a Nazi Salute
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Vacation note to myself: should I ever book a stay in Cedar Key, make sure to figure out which hotel this moran owns and not book there. Taking a dump in the lobby might have to be added to the list of things to do while there.
Elizabelle
Laughing. It’s so true. Gonna watch some Canadian police procedurals so I can learn their accent. Might, um, come in handy.
Elizabelle
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think Miss Amy is going to be sad she allowed them to quote her by name.
Would avoid her gift shop and hotel on general principle now. WTG, Amy.
Professor Bigfoot
“The Gulf of Clam” really sounds like a bad fetish pr0n movie. [snicker]
But I can already hear the morons whining “There’s no global warming, look, they got snow in Florida!”
Gawd, y’all, I’m so tired of dumb-ass people.
NotMax
“The Gulf of Clam”
I can dig it.
:)
Shalimar
We have interstate cams so I can see that very few people are out on the roads here. I also have a lot of professional training in driving on snow and ice. Still not going anywhere since I don’t have to. No matter how good you are at it you have to react to other people, and the other people around here are incompetent enough to cause accidents for anyone.
kwAwk
I think Gulf of America will go over about as well as Willis Tower.
NotMax
Gulf of America is the new Freedom Fries.
//
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Climate Change is a better description.
My Ohio born and raised BIL married a lovely Cajun woman and lives in Baton Rouge. 6 inches of snow and still counting. He is actually laughing now. We will see when he is still housebound on Friday.
They have no snowplows. They have no snow shovels. They have no salt. They barely have warm clothes.
Leto
I mentioned yesterday that my parents are in Bonifay, there in the panhandle, and my mom sent me pictures of the snowfall. Think they got about 4-5″? They’re staying put and not going anywhere. We still have about 11″ here in the yard, but we also have subfreezing temps until at least tomorrow (think it was 0 last night). But that one dipshit Senator threw a snowball on the Senate floor a few years ago, so suck it libtards!
@sab: a friend of mine in the Houston area told me they had three snow plows for the city. He’s a federal worker and told his boss he was telecommuting. They’d already made plans for that, but still.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
wcjb.com/2025/01/03/one-cedar-key-business-closes-3-more-reopen-after-2024-hurricane-season/.
Same Amy Henderson who was very happy with the support she received during whatever hurricane hit Cedar Key. She owns the Dilly Dally and it’s Floriduh so I doubt she’ll be lacking MAGat customers. I do hope she manages find the brown colored laborers to get her place fixed up again when the next Gavin Newsom manufactured hurricane hits her town.
eclare
Love the people using boogie boards as sleds!
No snow here in Memphis, but bitterly cold. My dog has been plastered to my side all day, which made it really convenient for her to hit me when she threw up this morning. Change of pants, drive on.
satby
Irish coffee was a very good call.
And we just broke into double digits (14°) for the first time since Sunday. Almost feels like spring 😂
Spanky
If you’re looking for an upside to snowmageddon, remember that freezing temps kill ticks.
(Mostly.)
Old School
The Gulf of America gets snowstorms all the time. The Gulf of Mexico didn’t.
Xavier
Nobody even likes it when the state renumbers highways! About 15 years ago the state changed a highway number to 337, and everybody still calls it South 14…
eclare
@Spanky:
And mosquitos!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Mai Naem mobile ¹:
When did he take over that responsibility from Teh Gays? If so, he’d better do a better job of targeting because their track record was pretty slapdash. //
Spanky
@Leto: Down here in balmy Southern MD, the January 6 snowfall is still covering most of the yard.
japa21
I mentioned in the previous thread how my grandson , who has lived most of his life in the Midwest, is in Pensacola going to school. While everyone else was huddled inside, he and another student from the Midwest were constructing a 10 foot tall snowman ⛄️.
ALurkSupreme
I agree with Betty. It’s just “the Gulf” to anyone who lives next to it.
Ned F
Two guys I grew up listening to and reading passed away yesterday but have been absent from the news as of yet, are Garth Huson, the last surviving member of The Band and Jules Pfeiffer the illustrator and author. Two artists that we’ll still be listening and reading long after the orange hairball has passed.
eclare
@japa21:
Wow!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Spanky:
And a lot of other annoying, albeit not potentially deadly, insects.
We watched how the box elder bug population grew and grew over 22 years back in Central Misery because our winters kept getting milder and milder and the result was not killing the larvae of those bastards.
NotMax
@sab
Erica Fox, Creole Woman.
;)
cmorenc
Snowed 4” right down to the tide line at Sunset Beach,NC which is the southern-most barrier Island in NC, separated from South Carolina by Little River Inlet. My neighbor across the street on the island sent me pics, and it is other-worldly. The beach strand here is very wide and gradual sloping down to the ocean, normally blond/light brown sand, but today covered in snow, it’s stark-white, sharply contrasting with the greenish-blue of the icean.
I didn’t get to see it myself, I am out in Grand Junction Colorado the entire month of January at my daughter’s house, hanging with her and my 3 young grandsons, also getting in a considerable number of ski days up at the local resort an hour’s scenic drive from her house.
NotMax
@Ned F
Feiffer.
Ned F
satby
@sab: they’ll be ok. Supposed to be 46° in Baton Rouge tomorrow; cold for them, but the snow will all melt.
I went out to sweep the snow off my sidewalk and car a few minutes ago. The remains of snow on both are melting in the sun even though it’s only 14°. Solar power!
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: True dat; but trying to explain how more heat causes a breakdown in the polar winds, permitting some of that ridiculously cold air to head way down south.
And, gods save us all, they are too stupid to understand any planetary science; and too stupid to understand that they don’t understand.
NotMax
@NotMax
Linked to an obit earlier here.
Ned F
@NotMax: That’s Hudson too. My cold fingers are skipping keys.
Princess
I’ll pay atttention when they change the name of Gulf of Mexico Drive to Gulf of America. Which they may well do, who knows?
RaflW
The worst part is that millions of people will use the snow as ‘evidence’ that climate change is fake.
eta: Also what Professor Bigfoot said @4 above.
hells littlest angel
Nice to see some long-form TV news reporting. Too bad it’s about the weather.
Of course I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I’ll bet it doesn’t mention climate change.
Leto
@Spanky: Yup; most of the homes here in the neighborhood still have a good 10-11″ in them; most of the sidewalks are clear, but have a few assholes who haven’t done it STILL. Then we have the places where the snowplow buried the exit off the curve with like 3ft of snow. I just want to walk my dog, not go on expedition…
The Eagles game on Sunday should be around 43F; verifiable heat wave!
Elizabelle
@cmorenc: I was wondering where you were skiing in NC! Enjoy CO and the grands.
Ohio Mom
Isn’t it enough that we have an entire continent named after us, North AMERICA? And for that matter, there’s Central and South America, too. (Do I need to say this is snark?)
Really, this is the silliest diversionary tactic ever, but it seems to be effective. Every time a reporter asks someone about remaking the Gulf is another moment when they aren’t asking things like, “Economists are predicting tariffs would raise prices by (whatever) percent? How would that effect you?”
I’m all for leading questions when they lead in a direction I like.
Old School
hells littlest angel
Full name the Yawning Gulf of American Stupidity.
RaflW
@cmorenc: Is that Powderhorn? I’ve been curious about that place for years. I did XC ski on Grand Mesa once. Didn’t really expect the air to be that thin! But the views north when I skied close to the edge (not too close!) were beautiful.
Leto
@Professor Bigfoot:
“If I don’t understand it, then nobody understands it! It’s all one big con to try to make me… eat less bacon? Walk a little bit more? Ride the bus with… those people.”
I just can’t with these people. I’ve tried understanding them, tried reasoning with a number of them, and I’m tired of it. We’re long past the point of trying to appease them, or bring them up to speed. I’ve taken one of our mottos, “Lead, follow, or get the F out of the way,” and applied it to them: kick their ass to the side, get as much shit done as you can.
Belafon
@Elizabelle: Might, um, come in handy, eh.
Leto
@cmorenc: @RaflW: we have video of cmorenc’s experience on the slopes, and it’s something.
Oh, I’m just being told there’s a second video. Well, lets go to the tape.
scav
Just head-canon it that the Gulf of America they’re so so proud and patriotic about is the dead zone they’re so so busy building there. America’s manifest destiny is to trash increasing parts of the planet.
BC in Illinois
They ran through the briers and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the places where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ’em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of ‘Muricah *
+ + +
* (Modified to fit the meter)
Elizabelle
@Leto: What do you think about those in the military now? Quality, or more of this stuff?
I was concerned to hear — maybe just rumor has it — that they as a group had voted for The Felon. Bad!
JML
When the Gulf has more snow (by a LOT) than MinneSnowta, things are gettin’ weird.
Old School
@BC in Illinois:
In memory of Garth Hudson:
When I get off of this mountain
You know where I wanna go?
Straight down the Mississippi River
To the Gulf of Merica
Leto
@Elizabelle: as disappointed as I am, it tracks. The military is inherently conservative, has hated D’s since Carter, and is awash in right-wing shittery. I’ve already heard stories of junior enlisted asking if it’s illegal to follow illegal orders, as in: “But what if my commander tells me to participate in the deportation shit/policing US citizens.”
The retired officers that were part of the J6 insurrection should’ve been recalled and stripped of rank/retirement. The retired enlisted that were there, same. There’s numerous precedent for that, it’s not some type of crackpot legal theory. A more comprehensive report can be found in this Guardian article on the topic:
Extremism in US military is ‘sleeping danger’ says author of Pentagon report
Here’s the DoD report from that article: Report on Countering Extremist Activity Within the Department of Defense
This report tracks just like the one that wasn’t released in 2010/2011 because conservatives squealed like stuck pigs. Like all the rest of our institutions, don’t expect this one to save us. I’m not counting on them at all.
A Ghost to Most
At least in Florida, people understand their limitations with respect to snow. In DC, snow causes all kinds of mayhem. In Buffalo, it’s Wednesday.
BC in Illinois
@Old School:
Sorry to hear of his passing.
The Band was the first concert I ever took Mrs BC to – – in Chicago, in 1970.
Another Scott
Glad the snow missed you!
“South China Sea”
“Persian Gulf”
Lots of weirdness can be tied up with place names, and attempts to use or not use them.
Has anyone suggested “North Caribbean Sea”?? Or “Gulf of 3500 Structures“??
[ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]
;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
eclare
@Leto:
I remember when Janet Reno got all sorts of grief because she wanted to study the issue after OK City.
rikyrah
I love watching the videos of all the folks down South who have never seen serious snow.
Kids, babies, adults, animals…
their joy and wonder brings smiles to my cynical heart.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Ditto.
Leto
@eclare: yup. Dr Kathleen Belew wrote an excellent book about this, Bringing Home the War. Highly recommended.
Ben Cisco
@Leto:
EVERY SINGLE BIT OF THIS!!!
NotMax
Cue up Johnny Horton.
We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
;)
eclare
@Leto:
That looks good, thanks.
Trollhattan
Kiddo in North Carolina yesterday saw a windchill of 5 degrees. Boggled by this.
Trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Great, isn’t it?
We had snow one time at my college and the students who rushed out to scrape snowballs out of the inch or so to have snowball fights and make tiny snowmen were in utter joy. Hawaii, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Nigeria, exotic San Diego, all were thrilled.
Nobody accepted my “Let’s take your car out, I have tricks to show you” offer for some reason.
Josie
Here in Houston we had snow everywhere and it turned to ice last night. Duncan the corgi is very concerned. He is eleven years old and has never seen snow or snow ice. He is busy when we go out looking for a patch of grass on which to do his business. It takes twice as long to accomplish things. We have been housebound for two days since the city asked us to please stay off of the roads. Three snowplows for the whole city–what a joke. We know what to do for hurricanes, not for this.
Elizabelle
@Leto: Thank you for the answer and the links, Leto. Will review them.
And yes re stripping them of rank and retirement. Conduct unbecoming, for sure.
We were too lenient.
I do wonder how the families and witnesses who turned the J6 dirtbags in will fare.
ascap_scab
The Gulf of Woes. Yep, that works for me. From now on, that’s what I’m calling it.
frosty
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: If you ever get there stay at the Low Key Motel. I don’t know their politics but the Tiki Bar has a great Rum Manhattan.
cmorenc
@RaflW: Powderhorn is excellent – 1650 vert, nice variety of runs, would be considered a moderately large ski mountain anywhere else but Colorado. However, it really is a local’s mountain – there are a very limited number of condos And vrbos, but no village, no restaurants beyond the base lodge cafeteria and a sandwich/pizza place just beside the base lodge. However, if you have a car, you can stay in a motel in Palisade or Junction and do the very easy, spectacularly scenic 50 min- hour commute along the colorado river and then turning off onto and climbing the plateau creek watershed at the bottom of high, in places sheer canyon walls to either side, until you emerge to more open countryside with a great view of the north side of the Grand Mesa and the ski runs in the distance.
cmorenc
@Elizabelle: It would have been a blast to be there with cross-country skis and ski out on the beach strand. But for good reason, all my ski gear now lives permanently at my daughter’s house in Grand Junction, where the probabilities are vastly greater of a pow day in the nearby mountains.
Kayla Rudbek
@Leto: seconded. They should have faced a firing squad in my opinion.
Dan Myers
I could go with Gulf of the Americas. I doubt if Donny Dumbfuck and his MAGA Minion Morons realize that we’re all Americans from north of the artic circle down to Terre de Fuego. Of course, they don’t think the people who read this blog are real Americans either.
sab
@Kayla Rudbek: I am not that bloodthirsty. Bad retirement is good enough for me.
“Oops. I phucked up my pension.
Or
” Oops . I phucked up my government pension.”
Gloria DryGarden
@hells littlest angel: Yawning Gulf of American Stupidity.
This could be the exact pov of most nations, about us. It also would be a reasonable title for all kinds of media, a song on TikTok, a blog, a newsletter title, a rock band
Harrison Wesley
Gulf of Clam, Cult of Glam, whatever.
Ken
Go to minute 10 of the video: For 10 minutes, it’s all about the snow and happy families, and then at the 10 minute mark, it’s “we need your help locating a murder suspect”. Florida.
PaulWartenberg
Hopefully the snow will be gone when I travel to Gainesville on Jan. 31st – Feb. 1st to attend the Sunshine State Book Festival. I hope some of you in Florida can stop by to meet local authors on Saturday. Does anyone want the website detailing the event?
jame
If the Gulf’s name has to be changed, it should be the Gulf of Chicxulub. That would have an impact!
Gloria DryGarden
@jame: YES! Genius! The gulf of Chixulub. It’ll be a fun spelling challenge every time, too. But embedded in actual geography and ancient times. I love this.
ETA spelling correction: the Gulf of Chicxulub.