Nature and Humans

Mother Nature can be accused of piling it on us lately. The tsunami in Asia, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, mudslides in Guatemala and now this terrible earthquake in Kashmir! The human race is under siege! It has been a tough, tough year.

Add on the man-made catastrophes, and the list becomes truly daunting. Genocide in Darfur, Islamo-facist attacks in Britain, the Iraq war, narco-terrorism in Latin America.....our current era seems very precarious.

It is also interesting how quickly non-affected populations forget natural disasters. Guatemala had a horrible disaster in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch hit the country with 180 MPH winds - 9,000 people died from that storm. In January, 2001 India was hit with a huge earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people - does anyone here in Chicago remember those disasters?

The bluesman sayeth, "There is no sense worrying about the things you can't do nothin' about." "Mourn, rebuild, move on" is the credo of many people that survive natural disasters.

In Chicago, we don't have hurricanes or earthquakes. Our natural disasters are smallish events - a tornado or two, blizzards, heat waves. This is another reason why I love Chicago.