Politics… We’ll have plenty to write about next week…
Sandy… So, Sandy came out of the South Caribbean as a small tropical system with the chances of becoming a hurricane, but only a category one at that (just a cat 1 like Wilma, remember?)… It would be affecting Jamaica and Cuba and would eventually come into the Atlantic with a likely NE trajectory; finally it would become a sub-topical system and would dissipate into the North Atlantic… And as we all know now, it turned out to be the most devastating storm the North East of the USA has ever known, the second most expensive natural disaster ever in North America’s recorded history - second only to Katrina, according to preliminary estimates - and the second year in a row that the NE is severely affected by severe storms (Irene last year)… If you still think that the scientist are just a bunch of wolf criers, and that burning fossil fuels (coal and hydrocarbons) the way we've been doing in for the last 100 years does nothing to the atmosphere, you are either lamentably ignorant, or ideologically shortsighted (drill, drill, drill, baby!) or you need to head back to your doctor and have your prescription re-issued (and refilled!).
On as related subject, though different perspective, some folks were complaining in an on-line forum about the facts that ‘so much publicity is given to the damages Sandy did to the US but little is said about the damages it caused in the Caribbean’… As you can imagine, the range of comments and responses is vast and wide. Some of them, however, were worth a second look, like this one where a guy said (semi tongue-in-cheek): “the problem is that, while the estimated cost of Sandy to the US is preliminarily about $50B, the damage to the Caribbean was about 17 (or maybe 18) coconut trees – big deal!” You can imagine all the nasty responses this one got… Another one I found interesting (close to home), was related to a devastating fire and subsequent explosions (very costly on money and lives) that happened about three month ago in the biggest oil refinery in Venezuela; this guy said: “Why are we so taken with ‘our Caribbean brothers and sisters’? When the refinery burnt, only the EU and the US promised – and delivered - help and assistance while none of our Caribbean brothers and sisters even sent a telegram of condolences, let alone help…”
Regardless of what the doomsayers may say, my friends, we continue to lead by example and are still the Shining City on the Hill!
Quote of the week… “I have thousands of people hurting, cold, and hungry to worry about; I have entire cities devastated and destroyed. If you think I give a damn about presidential politics at this time, you don’t know me.” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie answering a question from A FOX reporter prompting him to criticize Obama and FEMA. Watch this man; he’s going far…
Food for thought… (Recently stolen from Hiram Perez, who was my first supervisor @ IBM 37 years ago…)
“You know what getting married is? It's agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because you're the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates. And he does the same for you. You're his responsibility now and he's yours. If no one else will take care of him, you will. If everyone else rejects you, he won't. What do you think love is? Going to bed all the time?”
-Jane Smiley, novelist (b.1949)
So, choose wisely, my friends…
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