Saturday, September 17, 2005

Ghoulies and ghosties, etc.

I've been asked many times, over the years, how I can read & watch "that horror stuff." Vampires and monsters and ghosts and clowns in the sewers and . . . Doesn't it scare me? Doesn't it give me nightmares?

Nope. Not really.

Consider, if you will:
Hurricane Katrina was an excellent dress rehearsal for Homeland Security; a dress rehearsal for their response to the next terrorist attack on the U. S.

Go ahead. Take a moment. Let that really sink in.

Gives you a nice warm fuzzy, doesn't it?


Nope. Horror fiction and horror movies don't bother me a bit. Bring on the monsters, bring on the vampires, bring on the things that go bump in the night.

Not nearly as scary as real life.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Mommy Dearest

We think we're so smart. We think we're so powerful. We think we're so important.

And then, every once in a while, Mother Nature decides we need a reminder. Sometimes, she just taps us on the shoulder and clears her throat.

But sometimes, it's a big ol' whop upside the head that leaves us seeing stars and looking for our teeth.


Yes, there were a lot of people who could have and should have left the gulf states when Katrina headed toward them. And why they didn't, those of us at a distance may never understand.

But there were many, many, many who could not. The children, the aged, the poor, the sick, and those who stayed to look after them.

And now, as we sit in our intact, air-conditioned homes, with our full refrigerators, and bitch about what this is doing to the price of gasoline, they are living on rooftops. Pushing through water you and I would be afraid to step into in a hazmat suit. Living with dead bodies, no food, no water, no sanitation. In a city that was once a jewel of the South.

http://www.redcross.org

Please.