Eat, Drink, and be Merry

Pat Robertson doesn't have to tell you that the world is a seemingly scary place to live right now. Natural disasters, Wars, and Terrorism are all around. Now, the threat of a pandemic is evolving into a perfect storm with the spread of the bird flu through the East. To all of this doom and gloom I say, "Eat, Drink, and be Merry!"

This saying connotes, strong middle ages usage. In that time there was little predictability to health and mortality. But somehow in our modern world we feel that we can predict our lives. We plan our lives out for 5, 10, 25, 50 years into the future, but we have no guarantees. The one guarantee that we do have is that you are reading this right now. Talk about carpe diem. You may finish reading this post and be wiped off the face of the earth, which figures poorly in to your life's plan. So, my advice is: make sure you have a good life insurance policy, a well drafted will, take seriously the serious things in life (family, friends, and beer), and Eat, Drink, and be Merry!

Would you like a ride...

We took our daughter to Pellissippi State Community College for the annual hot air balloon ride. Good times were had by all--except the daughter.

De ja vu

August 29, 2005

September 22, 2005

Before/After

There are some great before and after images of Katrina. If you have a few minutes check it out...

NOAA

USGS

Google EARTH

Google Maps

I told you so.

After calling for Mike Brown's resignation 10 days ago, Mike Brown finally got the message. Another service brought to you by e-community.

Epidemic?

I don't want to strike fear in anyone. MSNBC, CNN, and FoxNews are such experts at distributing desperation that I would not want to diminish their impact. I just have one question: What usually happens when we travel?

When I travel I usually get the sniffles--at a minimum and sometimes I get far sicker. As far as I understand this phenomenon, our immune systems build up antibodies to local environmental viruses and bacteria. When we are exposed to foreign strains of disease, we are ill-prepared to deal with those strains.

New Orleans is forcing every citizen to evacuate the city. As we have seen, the city is one of the poorest cities in the nation. Obviously, survival and not healthcare has been a priority among many of the citizens. So, when half of a million people are distributed across the United States, they seem to be simultaneously planting their disease all across the country and invading territories of foreign disease with poor defenses. Could this be a recipe for a far greater disaster?

As stated, I am not a doctor or scientist, so maybe someone more equipped could better address this issue.

Hobbies Investments

As I have watched obsessed over Katrina's devastation this last week, through my media center computer, I have really thought about the hobbies that I have in my life. The winds and the water came into these people's lives and wiped away all investments that they had. Months and years of acquiring "things" was wiped away in the matter of hours, in turn, the victims will get a piece of paper--at best.

While watching the finely tuned news channels, I realize that countless days and hours went into creating my truly all-in-one media center. I watch all my movies, listen to all my MP3s, watch and record live TV, download dynamic content, and even read blogs on this media masterpiece, but it did not come cheap. I paid 2 hours of reading to my daughter, 1 hour of teaching her how to ride her bike, 30 minutes of watching her gently drift into sleep, 4 hours of dinner conversations with my wife, 8 hours of pool time with the family etc.

My innocent hobbies look like a real waste. Of course, today I can point to the media center and say, "yeah but come on this thing really rocks (which it really does)." But that is so hard to quantify when filing a claim with the insurance company. Even worse, the insurance companies don't offer riders for "time lost with family" or loss of consortium.

Don't get me wrong, I am a material man from way back, and I am not formally renouncing my materialism or my hobbies. I am, however, noting that there may be some calculus that I should apply to my hobbies. For example, brewing beer should override updating the caller id function of the media center. Why? Because beer brings people together, and because it is evidence that God truly loves us.

Hobbies are pastimes when time is surplus, but when time becomes a commodity, hobbies become investments. The idle time that we once were able to spend frying ants with magnifying glasses transforms into invaluable seconds. Later in life, people would stake fortunes to recreate those misspent and forever vanished seconds.

"America's Poorest"

As you know from my other post, the Tsunami does not bode well as a comparison to Katrina. While the 9/11 comparisons fail on a number of levels (namely that 9/11 was an act of war), numbers of casualties and media scrambling do compare.

High above sea level, from two towers that reached into the clouds of New York City, power brokers of commerce had their lives taken away from them. The nation mourned the tragedy, and people took vigil in front of memorial walls. Reporters dug into people’s lives and tried to help heal a nation in mourning.

Four years later, from ghettos below sea level and the poverty line, “America’s poorest” were hit hard by “nature’s fury” in New Orleans. (trademarks of MSNBC). The nation observed the tragedy, and people looted Wal-Mart’s televisions. Reporters hovered over the lowest socioeconomic strata and cast judgment on the “poorest” members of our society.

Unquestionably, the people with all of the air time in New Orleans are from a different social strata than those of New York’s 911 victims. I know this because the reporter tells me so. The similarities of comparable numbers of loss of life stop there. The wall-to-wall news coverage of 911 has now been interrupted by an increase in commercial breaks. The president’s heroic call from the rubble has been replaced with an admonishment to the federal agencies. The pleadings from families searching for lost loved ones have been dubbed with the same 30 second looting loop.

New York City fire fighters stared death in the face as they entered those buildings over and over again. When the structures began to fail, the firemen continued to go into those buildings. 24 hours a day emergency workers fought to save human life. From all around the country people drove into the war zone fighting to help save lives.

Some New Orleans precincts report 60% truancy of their own police officers, and the remaining 40% were only visible during the daylight--not to mention the lack of aid from volunteer personnel. People that were never afforded the privilege of private swim lessons were left to drown in the abandoned buildings while half of New Orleans’s finest had found refuge.

I just wonder if this whole thing would be different if the power brokers of New York’s high rise were in the buildings in New Orleans. Would they classify stealing as ingenuity? Would the coverage of a tattered-suit-executive carrying a firearm be portrayed as heroic survival strategy? Would they be made to pile into a 15,000 person sarcophagus?

Wanted: FEMA Director

Mike Brown? How about Tommy Lee Jones? Is someone available to manage this operation that is able to multitask and prioritize?

Just wondering.