Hypnotized by a TV Hurricane 9/1/04

Is it a mind-trick in an effort to ignore the Republican Convention? I watched the prime time coverage last night. I couldn't bring myself to watch the expanded cable coverage, and still flipped back and forth to Frances, wondering which way she will go. I thought Arnold gave a great speech, although it was generic, and could have just as easily been given by a Democrat. I admit to being shocked by his confession that he *became* Republican before he could speak or understand English, newly immigrated, while watching the Nixon-Humphrey debates on a public television, when the stranger next to him translated what the men on television were saying, and what he was told Humphey had said reminded him of encroaching socialism in his beloved native Austria. Then the President's daughters, Barbara and Jenna, took the podium, and a dumbfounded pall infected the hall. I cannot believe that their material was professionally-written. It was awkward, inappropriate and badly-delivered (could anyone else hear one of them constantly clearing her throat?). I *almost* felt sorry for them. It made me cringe and I thought the discomfort of the squirming audience, particularly the senior Bushes, was visible. So I flipped back and forth to the spinning saw-blade vacuum of water and wind that is Frances, traversing the Caribbean on it's way to the US, wondering which way it will go, thinking of my friends and family in its possible paths, chatting with one of them online, talking to another on the phone, considering the various evacuation possibilities. I finally gave into my inner geek and to the impulse to visit the NOAA website and look at satellite images, infrared and false color, and to read the discussion and analyze the strike probabilities (why do they keep dismissing the model that shows the subtropical ridge weakening and the storm taking a sharp turn to the north?). There is clearly no good place for this monster to go. I guess I could say the same thing about the convention.