Jim Wheeler
BS, USNA, Annapolis, 1959; MSA, The Geo. Washington U., 1975; Submariner, Commander, USN, 1959 - 1981; Aerospace battery engineer & mgr., 1981 - 1999; Political affiliation: Mainly of the Democratic persuasion but not a fan of the extremes on either side.
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Still Skeptical After All These Years by James R Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at jwheeler59@me.com. Copyright 2015 James R. Wheeler
Tag Archives: Joplin Missouri
Give A Gift, Save A Life
I just can’t help but admire good ideas, so I am motivated to update one such that I blogged on a year or two ago. It is WeatherCall. (Disclaimer: I have received nothing whatsoever for plugging this service.) If you’re … Continue reading
Posted in Safety
Tagged Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, gift, GPS, inexpensive gift, Joplin, Joplin Missouri, Meteorology, Television, Tornado, Weather Phenomena, Weathercall
4 Comments
A Memoir of Permanent Change
An EF 5 tornado, one of the strongest on record, struck my home town a year ago on a Sunday evening, May 22 at about 5:30 PM. Its path was only a couple of miles south of our house. I … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged disaster, disasters, EF-5, EMT, Joplin, Joplin Missouri, Tornado
7 Comments
Little Things Mean A Lot
In reading my morning Joplin Globe my eye was caught by two seemingly unrelated articles, subjects I later realized had a certain aspect of human nature in common. Most readers will recall that Joplin Missouri was hit by a record-breaking EF-5 tornado … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Philosophy
Tagged Abraham Maslow, Associated Press, City Manager, EF-5, hierarchy of needs, Joplin, Joplin Globe, Joplin Missouri, Tornado, weather radios
6 Comments
Overreacting In Tornado Alley
Have you noticed? Government tends to become overprotective when public safety is the issue. I am all for reasonable efforts but there is an ongoing campaign in Joplin Missouri now that is over the top and misguided, in my opinion. … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, government regulation, Politics
Tagged 9/11, Big Brother, human nature, Joplin Globe, Joplin Missouri, National Weather Service, NWS, overreaction, politicians, Weathercall
8 Comments
Tornado Accounting
By now I think just about every news junkie in the United States associates Joplin Missouri with tornadoes. Our local newspaper, the Joplin Globe, has finally published a roundup of something I’ve been waiting for ever since our town was … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Politics
Tagged Federal Emergency Management Agency, Joplin Globe, Joplin Missouri, property taxes, Tornado, tornado damage
9 Comments
That’s The Way It Is
All too often newspaper commentary is banal, predictable and light on originality, so when I find a column that is none of those things I think it is worth some attention. Investigative reporter and journalism teacher Max McCoy (whose picture … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Evolution, Religion
Tagged Dinosaur, Earth Sciences, evolution, Human, Joplin Missouri, optimism, Religion and Spirituality, Reptile, survival trait, Tornado, tribes, Walter Cronkite
21 Comments
Is Economic Clarity an Oxymoron?
As the nation struggles to emerge from the worst recession since the Great Depression, the issues are becoming harder for politicians to ignore and the 2012 election is shaping up to be one of the most meaningful that I can … Continue reading
Rebuilding Joplin
I am offering this post in answer to a number of inquiries about helping out financially or otherwise with the aftermath of Joplin’s tornado disaster. I have posted before about concerns that many charities are inefficient. The Red Cross was given … Continue reading
Posted in charity, Disasters
Tagged American Red Cross, charity, Joplin Missouri, Joplin tornado, Missouri, rebuild Joplin, Tornado
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Old Dogs and Weather Tricks
It was the late 1970’s and I was standing on our front porch in Lawrence, Kansas, watching two small tornadoes dance across the landscape south of town a few miles away. Mollie was yelling for me to come down to … Continue reading
Posted in Weather
Tagged Joplin, Joplin Missouri, Joplin MO, National Weather Service, Tornado, tornado damage
7 Comments
Textbook Irony
A recent blog post by Anson Burlingame discussed how our public schools are doing a poor job of teaching children the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. He is well qualified to address the issue because he has done substitute … Continue reading
Still Skeptical After All These Years 