THINGS THAT PISSED ME OFF TODAY

THINGS THAT PISSED ME OFF TODAY

My cats made a mess of the litter box. I had to take a hedge clipper to the wisteria and arbor vitae that have grown practically wild in my yard. I had to take a plunger to the toilet. The car door didn't latch the first time. Quality Paperback Book Club hasn't acknowledged my payment. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer left another stupid typo in an article.

And then I read more about what's happening in the Gulf states, and you realize that everybody there would be happy to have to deal with the crap that pissed me off today.

Worse, I keep thinking about people with whom I'm acquainted and hoping they're okay. Even if they're people to whom I haven't spoken in years.

Over at The Blue Chair, Jim Chadwick points out that, despite our amazing civilization, we live on a knife's-edge between extreme modernity and Third World status. How right Jim is. What would you do if your house disappeared in a flood? If there was no electricity for the ATM? If there was no gas for the car? If there were no roads to truck food into your city, no fresh water to drink, and sewage and corpses drifting in your street?

Oh, and, by the way, to those of you in the world who are enjoying this, let us point out that when Banda Aceh nearly disappeared from the face of the planet, nobody here was happy to see those people perishing or struggling. If your world view, your politics, or your religion lets you be happy with the pain and suffering and destruction of others... well, it's the one time I hope that there really is an afterlife anything like the one I was taught about when I was a kid.

I'm going to write a check to the Salvation Army today. I trust you'll write one to someone today, too.

LINKS:

Situation grows more desperate.

"It's like we're in Afghanistan," said Lisa Washington of Algiers, who came to the Dome with a large group from the Lafitte housing development. "People are getting raped. People are getting killed. People are getting diseases. We're fighting for our lives right now." From the New Orleans Times-Picayune weblog, published by reporters who can't get to the newspaper's building.

Missing persons board.