Befuddled

I am overtaxed and overloaded.

The events of this last week were too much for my aging brain.

I wake to find that Lehman Brothers (a brokerage firm that has been around for 158 years) has gone under.  One article described the Lehman Brothers employees pouring out of their headquarters caring bags of their stuff into Times Square. Merrill-Lynch appears to have been saved from insolvency by having been bought up by Bank of America.

Earlier I was worried about friends, a couple, living in Houston.  We called them right before Ike hit and they were prepared.  And Saturday, I think it was, they got a call through to us saying they were OK.  But the connection kept breaking up.  Sunday they called again and I was able to speak with my friend for 5 to 10 minutes but then he had to get off because his cell battery was running down and at that time (up to the present, as far as I can tell) he has no power to his place and no way to recharge the cell.

I imagine their ice box has pretty much melted out.  There they sit in that sweltering heat with no air conditioning.  2 million are without juice, and they say it may take WEEKS to restore power to all who have been affected.

Since when has the Red Cross started calling the people who evacuate to their evacuation centers not evacuees but “clients?”  Is there some stigma involved in being an evacuee that is lessened by calling an evacuee a client?  I don’t get it.

And was it a public official who said Evacuate or Face Certain Death!  Boy, that’s like if you don’t do what we, your oh-so-trusty-worthy-government tells you, we are cutting you lose and letting you die as you will.  Whatever happened, to leave nobody behind?  Or maybe that’s just the Marines. 

Or what about just good old plain Christian Charity.  And so we had CNN newscasters berating people who were not evacuating as troublesome, irresponsible people who deserved whatever they got, as if they were bad, bad children refusing to obey their parents.  And of course those newscasters were speaking with no direct knowledge of what might be involved for some people in even being able to evacuate.

Over all, not a pretty picture.