It's Catching

She's sad. She's been sad since Christmas Day and I can't help her. And it's infectious. I'm starting to get sad myself since every suggestion I make to alleviate her sadness seems to be either ineffectual or rebuffed.

It's more than just her that's making me sad though.

It's what's happening around the world. The tsunami disaster has left me shaken; an entire island the size of California moved 100 feet. Over 80,000 dead and counting. Cholera, malaria and typhoid all moving to the forefront of diseases.

My co-worker is from the Phillipines and together, we've enjoyed many discussions about South East Asia, since I spent a lot of my formulative years in Malaysia and Singapore. Had that earthquate hit about a hundred miles north, three major cities in Southeast Asia would've been hit: Kuala Lumpur, Djakarta and Singapore. I can't even contemplate the consequences there. There would probably be no more Singapore, being a teeny island of 225 square miles.

It's hearing that 32 people were blown up by being lured into a house.

It's feeling that compassion, empathy, and all-round niceness will lose out to distrust, slyness, deceit, and malevolence.

It's feeling that right now, in board rooms all across the globe, people are sitting around trying to figure out how to turn this calamity to their advantage, how to make a profit from the disaster. Not that they're trying to make it worse, but it's like the fox coming to the hen houses and seeing one unlatched and trying to figure out how to unlatch the others.

It's feeling that the leader of this country I call home, is too busy clearing brush to address the world, rally his citizenry and showing great acts of kindness.

It's feeling that it's only a matter of time before greed conquers all.

Filed under Bloodsport, err Relatives.