The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.
- Carl Hiaasen
I just finished reading a column I found on the AP Stylebook’s Facebook page about “gender-neutral singular personal pronouns.”
The column was 2,684 words long, which proves the human animal thinks about sex way too much.
I have one friend who is so consumed with the politics of sexual identity that they seem to have almost completely lost the genial personality they had when I met them. It’s their identity, so I guess they are entitled to do what they want with it, but I thought a lot of them before they bid farewell to reality.
(The previous sentence may send one of our editors to the booby hatch, funny farm, loony bin, nut house accredited mental health facility.)
It’s none of my business what pronouns you want to use, but just don’t get your knickers in a twist if I make grammatical errors when I am writing about you.
Wait, I hear a reader clearing his throat.
“Are we to assume there will be some point to this rambling essay, T. Michael, you beacon of brilliance, you?”
Indeed, and I shall now get to that point with my usual artistry and alacrity.
I’ll try not to be long-winded, but I want to discuss the somewhat ridiculous and misguided practice of using male names for hurricanes that began in 1979.
Giving a hurricane a male-sounding name — which might not mean anything in another 50 years — just seems wrong to me. I’ve known a lot of men: some I liked, some I didn’t; some were annoying, some were engaging, but none of them ever tore through my life and left a trail of devastation quite like some of the women I have known.
Most hurricanes we deal with in Georgia begin as tropical waves off the coast of Africa before making a “Transatlantic crossing” (a phrase that seems highly suspect in 2025) and become tropical depressions or storms in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
And yes, I said Gulf of America.
Sorry, Mexico, but we won this one fair and square. Our coastline is 300 miles longer, and 33 major American rivers empty into it. Only six of your rivers contribute any water at all to the gulf. Consider yourself fortunate we don’t start calling Yucatan Peninsula, Ourcatan Peninsula.
Speaking of name changes, the Chattahoochee River is not a “tributary” of the Apalachicola River in Florida as some claim. The Apalachicola is just an extension of the Chattahoochee near the confluence of the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers. Creating a new name for the portion of the river in Florida is akin to calling part of the Ganges River the Ramaswamy River (although I do like that name).
I’m going to speak to Donald Trump about changing the name of the Apalachicola to Chattahoochee ASAP).
Where was I? That’s right. I was about to talk about Bob, the first Atlantic hurricane named for a man, which formed on July 11, 1979, in the Gulf of America.
With all due respect to all the Bobs out there, I can’t think of a worse name for a natural disaster than Bob?
I mean, Bob is bald. Bob wears thick glasses and sells insurance policies. Bob is boring.
But consider Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. There’s a trio of heartbreakers for you: 1,600 killed and $167 billion in damage.
I’ve been in relationships like that.
It begins with a gentle breeze and a light rain before the high winds and storm surge arrive. So, you hunker down and hope for the best.
Pretty soon, any objects not tied down are flying all over your house. Glass is breaking. Drowning starts to look like a positive result.
Your lawyer told you to evacuate a week ago, but you wouldn’t listen.
The police are now on their way.
Your furniture is gone; the her-icane took your car; and on top of that you’re broke for the foreseeable future.
Only a woman can wreak such havoc.
So, don’t give me Bob, Hugo, or even Michael when we're talking about desolation.
Before I die, I would like to track Hurricane Windy.
Selah.