So, there have been tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and mudslides. Over 20,000 people have died in the earthquake this weekend alone. Does anyone else get the impression that the universe is trying to get our attention? Maybe someone or something is attempting to tell us something. Like how fleeting life is. Like how not much else matters when you're trying not to die. Like how it doesn't matter where you live or where you're from, nature is the great equalizer. Like how there is enough senseless death in the world without various leaders sending their soldiers out to kill and die. Or how about demonizing random enemies-of-the-moment (gays, Middle Easterners, Mexicans, etc.) to further one's own agenda? Using people's entire lives as a bargaining chip for power? Doesn't it seem that maybe the powers that be are trying to shake some sense into us, literally? To make us look at ourselves and really see what we're doing to one another? How mean and uncaring and selfish we all have become? I know I'm over-simplifying, but thousands of people (American and otherwise) have died as a result of actions taken by us since 3,000 odd people were killed on September 11. Their deaths were tragic, but how many more people are going to die to avenge them? In one day, nature killed almost that many in New Orleans. More than 3 times that in Asia this weekend. It seems like such a waste of time that we are constantly finding new and different ways to kill people, while at the same time publicly deploring the killing that other people and natural disasters precipitate. Like, it's only good killing if we do it. Can we cut the hypocrisy for just a second and get over ourselves? The way the world works? Sucks. It DOESN'T work. We have to find a new way. A lot of new ways. But as long as the people in charge are the ones who benefit tremendously from the way the world works now, nothing is going to change.