We hosted a bbq! Gosh, it has been waaaay too long since we've done that! We busted our asses cleaning up and it was so worth it! Now, we have a clean house, and we had a great evening. We just might start doing that more regularly. It was very fun to have Nicholas and Jackson over to play with the girls. They all had a blast. And, we have the most wonderful friends in the whole world - - they are all so intelligent, so thoughtful, so articulate, so funny, so caring....! I could go on and on!
It's been a difficult week, watching all the hurricane disaster footage. It has motivated me to check up on our earthquake kit because we now have proof that we are going to have to fend for ourselves for at least a week when the big one hits (yes, when, not if!). The government (local, state, or federal) is just not equipped to swoop in and rescue us the way most people imagine. People today have what I refer to as the "CSI mentality". I used to call it the "Law and Order mentality", but it seems like CSI has overtaken Law and Order these days. What I mean by it, though, is that a large segment of the population has had their fantasy/reality borders blurred by these tv shows. A crime is committed, investigated, solved, and the perpetrator is tried and incarcerated in just 40 minutes. This, in conjunction with the "Disneyland syndrome*", just sets people up for discontent. (*This is where people act recklessly, believing they can't get hurt, and then sue when they do) It's time we realized that with a disaster of this magnitude, we're going to see dead bodies, and we're going to see rescuers pass them by to deal with the living. We're even going to see some badly injured passed up for the less injured. It's called triage. We just don't normally see it so up close and personal. A hundred years ago, we read our news a day after it happened, or we heard it on the radio. Thanks to the immediate access to video and photographic reporting, all disasters today are magnified. It's not so bad to magnify a smaller-scale disaster, but it exponentially balloons with the larger ones. As an example, I'm sure the looting was bad, but I also realized I was seeing the same footage over and over, for days on end, so I have to wonder if it was as rampant as it was portrayed. I know my friends outside of SoCal always think we are burned up in wildfires or have fallen into the ocean in landslides when they see our disasters in their media coverage. As George Orwell alluded in 1984, the media is a powerful tool in controlling the masses. The immediate access to info on the internet was great, until you realized some people were perpetuating rumors or inaccuracies, which hindered rescue efforts - - and if you went back to many of the news stories, they were actually revised once more accurate facts were received. It was nearly impossible to keep up with the myriad of negative headlines on the home pages, and if you didn't take the time to actually read the articles, some of them were sort of misleading (sensationalized, I guess). I'm not trying to diminish the magnitude of the disaster at all, I think the whole situation is tragic and sad; it just cheeses me because it seems so irresponsible. Something to mull over...
Wow, I didn't plan on going on a rant, but maybe these topics are related. I think the disaster thing made hanging out with the friends more special. Just thankful we have them, and we are all okay.
John is in Las Vegas right now (visiting his other family-LOL). For the first time ever, the thought of him getting on an airplane without me tugged at my heart. He's such a good travel buddy.
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