On Friday I found myself in the mood for a really good Harlan rant. Luckily YouTube was able to set me up:

And alas, true, every word.

Great NYT piece today about the general weather amnesia setting in over in Florida, only four years after we got our collective asses kicked by five hurricanes in six weeks.

“Officials tell us that they are really quite worried about people who would not cooperate, who are not aware of what was about to happen,” said Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard report. “And just thinking of the mobile homes, if people stay and they really are blown all over, public officials, ambulance services, Red Cross units have to go find these people and provide them with support and services.”

The public cost could be significant. Miami-Dade County has spent $250 million in local, state and federal money cleaning up from the hurricanes of 2005, Katrina and Wilma, and officials say that when people are unprepared, the expense rises substantially.

That is partly what worries Larry Gispert, director of the emergency management office for Hillsborough County, on the Gulf Coast. Mr. Gispert says the questions he has received at preparedness seminars this year — like “When is the next hurricane coming to Tampa?” — show that residents are woefully uninformed.

I used to live in Tampa, so I can tell you that folks there live in their own special breed of hurricane denial. But still, you have got to be kidding me.

When Hurricane Charlie zeroed in on the Tampa/St. Petersburg area in August 2004, a friend of mine who lived in Clearwater Beach (only a mile from the projected coastal impact zone) insisted to me that she didn’t have to evacuate. She was new to Florida; we hadn’t been hit by a hurricane in a long while, and in fact had been in a drought for most of the last six years or so. My friend figured that she was far enough away from the beach - distanced enough not to fear the storm surge. At the time, like many recent Florida transplants, she didn’t really know what a hurricane was.

Hurricanes are rated in terms of five categories, much the same as tornadoes are. A “Cat 1″ is an excuse to stay indoors, bring in the lawn furniture, make sure your insurance is up to date, and stock up on batteries, candles and bottled water. A Cat 2 ramps that up a notch; you might lose some shingles, a tree might fall, things get knocked around. You’ll probably still lose power for a few days, but a Cat 2 is hardly the end of the world.

Things start getting serious at Cat 3. Now the winds are well about 100 miles per hour. Coastal regions are hit with up to 12 feet of storm surge flood. Buildings start taking damage. So do power grids. Cat 3 hurricane winds scream past your windows with an unearthly roar. If you’re caught in a Cat 3 storm, you know it.

Cat 4 was Charlie. Up to 155 mile per hour winds. Storm surge flooding as high as 18 feet. A Cat 4 storm destroys things. Homes. Buildings. Churches. It relocates trailer parks quite effectively. Being in a Cat 4 on Monday means living in a FEMA trailer on Friday (or whenever they can bother to show up).

A Cat 5 is simply the end of the world. The finger of God. Apocalyptic damnation. Death and destruction, devoid of hope or honor. If you find yourself in a Cat 5, you’re an idiot for not getting the hell out. If you survive, plenty of people will be on hand to tell you so. (But don’t worry - you probably won’t live to hear it.)

So anyway, my friend was new to all this and decided not to evacuate ahead of Charlie. Again, a strong Cat 4. I told her: this isn’t a joke. It’s not an excuse for a party. If Charlie stays on course and hits Clearwater head on, there’s going to be nothing left of it. You’re not going to be inconvenienced: you’re going to be dead. Get. The. Hell. Out.

My friend got lucky. A bunch of people in Punta Gorda didn’t. Charlie turned a few degrees east at the last minute and landed a bit south of Clearwater, an area that it promptly then destroyed, before marauding his way through the state, crossing Orlando and punching out through Daytona Beach.

“When is the next hurricane going to hit Tampa?”

Lord, oh lord.

Reductionism is everywhere in our society, the marauding anti-ideology that shames thoughtful discourse in favor of surface-appealing just not giving a fuck.

So I love it when we occasionally discover that, yes, somewhere behind personal opinion and emotional diatribe and superficial and unthinking belief, there is actually a meaningful reality that we can see and touch and appreciate. That some things are actually just true.

This is exactly the kind of story that I seriously dig (no pun intended), from Reuters:

Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.

Clad in scuba gear and edging through narrow tunnels, researchers discovered the stone ruins of eleven sacred temples and what could be the remains of human sacrifices at the site in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Archeologists say Mayans believed the underground complex of water-filled caves leading into dry chambers — including an underground road stretching some 330 feet — was the path to a mythical underworld, known as Xibalba.

According to an ancient Mayan scripture, the Popol Vuh, the route was filled with obstacles, including rivers filled with scorpions, blood and pus and houses shrouded in darkness or swarming with shrieking bats, Guillermo de Anda, one of the lead investigators at the site, said on Thursday.

If you’ve done much reading about underworld myth, you’ve encountered the arduous-journey-to-hell story before. Sort of the inverse of the Campbellian hero’s journey, normally presented as some sort of Jungian archetype arising out of the collective human unconscious. Nothing to see here; simple answers; just kinda cooked it up around the campfire and doesn’t much mean anything.

Except, at least in the Mayans’ case, the “road to hell” was an actual thing. Found. With temples and artifacts dating as far back as two thousand years. And apparently they weren’t alone - according to the story, Mayan groups throughout southern Mexico and northern Guatemala and Belize had their own tunnel systems to the underworld,

I read something like this and immediately think of the Spanish conquerors who went back home with condescending dismissals of “savage” religions. Not worth thinking about. Just misguided faith. Nothing to see here.

Except there was.

Sometimes, it’s worth digging. Worth caring. Because you never know what you’ll find when you’re willing to get past what everyone thinks, to find the truth under all the myth. You may discover in the end that the only fiction involved was the one you arrived with.

Now that I’m married and life is seriously calming down again (for the first time since December), I’m thinking back towards Less Urban more and more. We’ve got a lot to talk about. The Frannie Mac and Fannie Mae crisis. Oil prices nearing $150/barrel. The unravelling of the suburban American way of life. And, of course, where we’re all at right now in the final season of Galactica.

I’m getting my collective nonsense together. Stay tuned.

It is not too often that Saudi Aramco announces a delay in project start-up. Thus, when it said that it was not yet ready to bring on stream the 500,000-barrel/day Khursaniyah oil field development, some eyebrows were raised. All major contracts on the estimated US$6bn project—more properly known as the Abu Hadriyah, Fadhili and Khursaniyah (AFK) development—were awarded by third quarter 2005, after a relatively rapid tendering period, with completion and first testing due in late 2007.

Should be interesting to see what happens when people finally realize that energy and technology aren’t interchangeable values, and that really expensive oil doesn’t guarantee the sudden arrival of Star Trek dilithium crystal technology to save the day.

Posit: what happens when a global economy, more or less dependent on the production of a specific nonrenewable natural resource by a specific region of the world for its growth, discovers that said region is physically unable to supply that growth anymore? Or even better, is in a permanent decline of production capability - and with nothing realistic to replace it?

Britney Spears For President In 2008!

20 Things That Are True But Nobody Wants to Admit

20. We all love a good musical. Admit it. You turn on High School Musical or Grease and next thing you know you’ve watched the whole darn thing.

19. Even guys think David Beckham is good looking. We compensate for it by making fun of his voice and saying we hate him but there is not a guy on earth that wouldn’t like have the ladies throwing themselves at you .

18. Motorcycles are unsafe. It’s not IF you are going to get hurt, but how bad

17. Your golf score is inversely proportional to the time you spend with your family. It is impossible to shoot in the 70’s and spend the correct amount of time with your family if you work or have ANY other hobbies.

16. That old fraternity t-shirt needs to be thrown away. It’s not getting any younger in the drawer and it certainly has too many holes to wear anywhere.

15. Valentines day is worthless. It’s becoming more and more meaningless each year. Kind of like Microsoft.

14. You will never stay thin without exercise. You can diet all you want but it is next to impossible to diet forever.

13. Gambling is for the poor. Rich men don’t gamble. It is OK to take a gamble now and then. More than once a year and you are wasting your money and time. The lottery is for the poor and uneducated.

12. You don’t talk to your parents enough. We all know it but we don’t do much about it. Everyone I’ve ever met regretted this at their parents funerals. Spend time with them now.

11. We hire people based on looks. You’re not supposed to, but we all do it. Two people equally qualified will be decided on which one looks best. I choose the personality I can get along with best , but ugly usually loses. Not legal, not right , but true.

10. We overmedicate. Your body is made to heal itself of simple things. If you eat correctly, get a good nights sleep, and exercise, for the most part your body can take care of itself. If you take ibuprofen every day then how is your body going to learn to take care of itself?

9. Creativity is under emphasized. It’s hard to put your creativity on a resume but it’s a trait that is highly desired and needed in business. Everyone copies or improves. Creative people approach from a whole new angle.

8. “Inch by inch, life’s a cinch.” If you do a little everyday things will get done. Procrastinate or try and do everything at once and you will fail.

7. Republicans have 0 percent chance in the next election. I don’t care if Reagan came back. This one goes to the other team this year. Let them figure out how to get out of the war.

6. The anonymity of the Internet has turned the younger generation into a bunch of online punks. The way they talk to each other on line is shameful. If some of these guys talked to me like that in person I would put them down like Chuck Lidell.

5. A human life is worth more than an animal’s. Despite what PETA and the other crazy groups will tell you. DO NOT harm a human to save an animal. (This does not mean I don’t value an animals life, it just means that if an animal were dying and I was dying, I think there are some people that would help the animal first and let me die)

4. A person that doesn’t smoke is EXTREMELY bothered by someone who does right next to them. We never say anything because we don’t want to cause a scene or make someone mad but almost everyone is bothered by it. Laws will take care of this over next couple years.

3. We all have the will but most don’t have the dedication or the preparation to meet that desire. There are so many people that want the world but aren’t willing to sacrifice anything to get it. Nice things take hard work. A healthy body means getting tired. Nice things take long hours at work. A good family means sacrificing some personal things (see golf above)

2. We love “bad people”. The world would care less about Lindsay Lohan if she acted like a nice young teen. People are drawn to and curious about people that do bad things. Go to your local online news and see what percentage of the stories are about people doing bad things. Almost all. Why? Bad is entertaining.

1. Anything man made in large doses is most likely not good for you. Follow this rule and you will probably live longer. Remember the “everything in moderation” rule. This especially applies to man made ingredients. From Aspartame (my vice) to Zoloft, watch the intake.

In the meantime, I took K out to the beach over the weekend and proposed. She said yes. Expensive ring and everything. Then we went back to the room, drank champagne, admired the diamond on her finger and enjoyed being engaged.

We’re getting hitched in July, in a small ceremony of close family and friends. What can I say? We’re both grownups, we both have been through our share of bad relationship situations, and we both know a good thing when we see it; we didn’t see much point in playing games, not at our age. I’ve met her family and friends, she’s met mine, and everyone loves everyone. Excitement all around.

The jaw-dropping may now commence.

Katrina’s arrival in West Palm Beach was noted by some, commented by others, but generally not appraised with the high concern that others of her kind garnered upon their arrival in the Sunshine State. What she did have going for her - and what most who came into contact with her dramatically underestimated - was one hell of a body. Especially for her tender age, she was remarkably well-built. So while most people blew her off because of her relatively gentle voice, anyone who took the time to appreciate her measurements knew that she was destined for big things.

Katrina left Florida after a day or so, enjoying the unusually warm summer waters found in the Gulf of Mexico at the time. There she found all the resources she needed. Katrina then swung up to the north, revved up to Cat 5 levels and destroyed New Orleans.

Men in high political office famously stated later that no one could have predicted Katrina’s impact on Louisiana. But the truth was, anyone could have. Anyone who knew what barometric pressure was, how it affects the integrity (and so, the life span and intensity potential) of a hurricane, and what happens when a remarkably low-pressure hurricane system enters a large body of hot water. It was math. Anyone who knew the math could have predicted Hurricane Katrina several days away, the only area of interpretation being final landing point.

There’s another storm coming now, and once again, it’s math. It’s a financial storm, and it is coming. If you want to be prepared for it, do the following.

1. Get thyself to the nondiscretionary side of the economy, or at least as close as you can, ASAP. Don’t be easy to lay off. Have several backup options.

2. Start cleaning house in terms of your personal relationships. Begin thinking in terms of your personal village - that cozy, select group of people who you would fight, kill and die for. Then look at your entire social circle, one by one, and ask yourself: how does this person impact the overall integrity of my village? Do they contribute or just consume? Asset or liability? Are they good for my best friends, or do they isolate me from them? Start the painful process today of distancing yourself from people who compromise your ability to maintain and protect your most trusted relationships. We are entering a time in history very soon where your worst enemies could well turn out to be your closest friends, and vice versa.

3. Get thyself close to civilization. Don’t be a two-hour drive from the nearest grocery store, and be prepared to do more walking. Maybe invest in a good mountain bike, equipped for utility usage - big saddlebags, sturdy rack, spare cables, good tools (and a couple good books on bike mechanics), and street slick tired reinforced for puncture resistance. Get ready to live without your car.

4. Know your neighbors and what you offer each other in practical terms. If you offer nothing, get something to offer. Today.

5. Use the limited time you have to start learning practical, low-tech skills that will have commonplace barter-trade value. In all of human history, it has never been easier or cheaper to learn new skills than today - but that could change fast and without warning. Focus on learning how to get by in a dramatically lower power-consumption society.

6. Get your debt under firm control. And for the love of God, keep it there.

There’s a storm coming, and it’s been coming for a while now. We’re getting the first rain bands right now, but the cold numbers say that it’s going to get much worse. Be ready for it when it arrives, and make sure your loved ones will be ready.

Early 2008. Watch for it.

If the worst fears about these loans materialize, the economic damage would likely extend well beyond the United States because much of the debt has been packaged into securities sold to pension funds, banks and other investors around the world who were hungry for high yields. The fallout could also further depress housing prices, leaving U.S. consumers feeling poorer and less likely to buy the merchandise imported from overseas.

There’s very little that I can say about The Bourne Ultimatum without ruining big chunks of the plot. I can’t even discuss sequel possibilities without ruining part of the ending. So here we go - the official Less Urban unreview of The Bourne Ultimatum.

Let’s start with a recap of The Bourne Identity.

Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, a highly trained CIA assassin fished out of the Mediterranean by a fishing boat and nursed back to health, absent any memory of who he is. He remembers everything else - how to speak several languages, how to fight, how to use weapons, cities and places and things - but has no idea who he is. Jason does, however, quickly conclude that he’s dangerous, and in the company of a young woman named Marie sets out on a long journey to discover who “Jason Bourne” actually is and how he came to be. The CIA, meanwhile, is trying to kill what they see as a black ops agent who’s gone off the reservation.

Bourne Supremacy picks up the story three years later. Tragic events have driven Bourne out of hiding to put him back in conflict with his old CIA masters, forcing him to finally take the fight to the ones ultimately responsible. Not in any way related to the plot of the Ludlum novel of the same name, Supremacy extended the story of the Identity film; it wasn’t a bad film at all, but the plot came off a bit clunky. It didn’t really have the clean design that Identity had. By the end of Supremacy, though, Bourne has answered some of the questions surrounding his identity and the secret program that created him, Operation Treadstone.

And so we move on to The Bourne Ultimatum.

This is going to be remarkably spoiler-free, for a good reason: there’s little I can say about the story itself that won’t ruin it, because the plot is remarkably well-integrated not only internally but with the other two chapters.

First - and this is extremely important - ‘Ultimatum’ does not stand on its own. It’s not designed to do so. The entire point of the film was obviously to tie the three films together and close out the story arc begun in The Bourne Identity, bringing it all home to a satisfactory conclusion. This the film does in spades - but if you haven’t seen the first two films, don’t even think of watching this one before you do. And if you have seen the others, watch them again before going. You’ll enjoy Ultimatum much more for it.

Most of the film is about addressing unanswered questions from the first two films, loose threads left hanging. In between the usual Bourne fare - car/motorcycle chases, deception, manuevers, and lots of overall sneaky shit - Ultimatum takes the first two stories and sets them within a (somewhat) new overall context. As usual, the pacing is extremely busy and quick, even frantic; it didn’t seem to suffer the plot drag that infected Supremacy, but it might actually be too frantic for some. It’s easily the most action-oriented of the three Bournes.

Expect to be somewhat unnerved by this one, in a way that didn’t happen with the other films. You think you know what happened earlier - you don’t. Not really. The events themselves were basically what they were.. but context is everything, and the one thing Jason Bourne is lacking most is context. In this film, he gets context.

By the time you reach the end of the film, you will have definitive, concrete, unambiguous answers to virtually all of the significant questions posed by Identity and Supremacy. You will know exactly what Treadstone was - in a way that goes much more deeply and personally than we’ve seen so far - and the true profound significance of Bourne’s inability to kill Wombosi in Identity. It’s a lot more profound than you think.

And yes. By the end of the film, you will know exactly who Jason Bourne is, and how exactly he came to be. Blatant, direct, and without a doubt.

And in a way that might have you leaving the theater a bit creeped out.

Acting was good, all around. Matt Damon’s got the Bourne act down pat, and I honestly think he’s improved at it. Julia Stiles has a meatier role this time; rather than standing around dumbfounded or being terrorized in subways, she actually gets engaged in the storyline - for the first time in the Bournes, you get the sense that her character is actually a highly trained CIA operative rather than a lost college intern. Joan Allen returns with style as Pamela Landy. Best of all, David Strathern (Good Night And Good Luck), a favorite of mine, joins the cast as the new boss CIA heavy. He does a great job.

I liked this film a lot. It was well built, the plot hung well, and I absolutely loved how thoroughly it tied the three films together into a single whole. It effectively turns the three films into a single movie and it does it well.

And finally, if you’re the type who just wants to see Matt Damon kick ass and be all sneaky-like, alongside lots of car chases and spectacular explosions, there’s plenty of eye candy in Ultimatum to go around. You won’t be disappointed.

That’s about all I can say. Watch the other two again. Then go see Ultimatum on Friday.