29 August 2008

Darkest day

Today, of course, is the three year anniversary of Doomsday. (A future Doomsday I?)

Ironic that at this date, we should be again surrounded and threatened by lethal dangers out in the tropics as we make a mad and perhaps futile scramble for survival.

But let us take time to remember the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina.

Because of the events which transpired some three years ago now, hurricanes and tropical systems have taken on a whole new meaning for the residents of south Louisiana.

We have gained a newfound respect for their power, wrath, and destruction.

The nightmare scenarios which had been predicted for years came true in an instant. The protection which our federal masters had declared safe and secure failed at the first opportunity and laid waste to hundreds of square miles - land that even today sits in a paralytic limbo, stuck between seeming apathy on the one hand and bureaucratic shenanigans on the other.

As a people we have become more cynical and less prone to take faith in empty promises. (Can't you tell, from reading this blog?) That I have definitely noticed.

Ronald Reagan once said that one of the most evil sentences known to humanity was "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." Few understand the evil of that statement firsthand.

Let us hope that history does not repeat itself here in a few days' time. I do not want to have to add another black letter date to the list of future commemmorations.

Sadly, humanity rarely learns anything from history, even recent history.

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