Oreste D’Arconte: What is a name? Ask Ida. | Columns

Do you know what all hurricanes, tropical storms, typhoons and wildfires have in common? No, not global warming – of course also – but they all have names. Ida and “enrée”, for example, are very recent memories.

We have had four heat waves here this summer which is unusual.

I read somewhere that some think heat waves should have names as well, not only to track them, but to help us realize that they can be as dangerous and destructive as other “natural” weather developments. .

I like the idea. I asked several friends to suggest suitable names for heat waves and they had some great ideas. However, I did not write any of them and I do not remember them.

I found the obvious Heat Wave Sweaty Betty, but it’s hard to come up with a whole alphabet of male and female names for heat waves.

But what about Heat Wave AC please? Or, continuing alphabetically, Heatwave Boiling, Heatwave Chill Out, Heatwave Drowns Me, Heatwave Eat More Ice Cream, Heatwave Fans Galore… Pretty lame, right? I am sure you can do better. Fortunately, you have several months to think about it before the next heatwave. Or you ?

Have you heard of this elephant in an animal orphanage in Sri Lanka who had twins for the first time in 80 years. Global warming, of course.

On the bright side – excuse the pun – a new player, tomorrow.io, is a space technology company that works to help meteorologists get more accurate predictions of major weather events using satellites. .

Not that forecasters need it …

saturday sermon

“The greatest trick the devil has ever played was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.”

– Charles Baudelaire

Doesn’t that drive you crazy …

… When that skipping rope TV ad says nothing rhymes with Liberty Mutual? What about the puberty ritual?

I did not know

The tax exemption enjoyed by religious institutions each year in the United States is approximately $ 71 billion.

So you’re so smart …

Last week I bet you couldn’t tell me which country is responsible for the compass, movable type, mechanical clocks, and iron smelting.

My answer: China. I took the paper off the list because I thought it was a gift, but you’re too smart. Correct were Bert H. (“I don’t know about this, but I know China is responsible for quite a few inventions), Terence O. (” I go with my standard answer whenever there is a question about where something was developed… ”), Kathy H., Doug. W., Team Marie and Bob, Dan West (“My first reaction, based on Gutenberg’s press and Bavarian clocks, was Germany, but somewhere in my mind’s record I remember hearing that the Chinese had invented or discovered, the compass, and come to think of it further, that they had movable type for printing on rice paper. Actually, I really don’t know, but I’m going with China. ”) Three more readers guessed Germany wrong.

Now I bet you can’t tell me, without looking, which two cloned animals were born in China in 2018. The deadline is Wednesday at noon.

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