Hey all,

I've spent the last few days working, writing absently, avoiding my quilting project like the plague (you would too if your next step was to cut 112 identical sets of triangles - it takes a special kind of mindset to do that), and doing my best to follow what's happening down south with Hurricane Katrina. This has been quite a task, since the only tv channel we get at the apartment is FOX, which doesn't have a local news team in Maine, so we get no news at all on tv. I've been trying to stake out cnn.com, but their info is usually pretty basic and often at least half a day behind. They're probably trying to get you to pay to watch their stuff on cable or whatever, but I can get into that rant another time.

For those of you who may not know what's going on (I have no idea how much US news gets broadcast overseas), basically a big section of the southern US was hit by a category 5 hurricane this week. New Orleans is totally swamped, literally - over 80% of the city lies below sea level and at least two of their levies holding back the surrounding bay and ocean have been breached. Parts of the city are under 20 feet of water. Right now they're talking about at least 2 months before anyone at all will be able to think about rebuilding there. Even then, it may not be habitable again. There are about 15,000 people stranded in the Superdome, which was opened to anyone who couldn't evacuate the city before the storm hit. They have no power, no running water, and are pretty sure that they won't be able to move at least until the middle of next week. The southern coasts of Mississippi and Alabama were just as heavily hit, with lots of reports that there just isn't anything left standing along the coast at all - no houses, no hotels, no nothing. Biloxie and Mobile are flooded as well. Projected fatality last time I heard was in the thousands.

There are lots of people who might think that in some way the US deserves to have something like this happen. I know a lot of people in and outside the country who violently disagree with our politics and our recent (and not so recent) military actions. Right now is not the time to express my own feelings about those things, whether in favor or against. The people who have been hurt by this are probably not anyone who was even indirectly related to US foreign policy. Millions of families have lost their homes, their loved ones. These are normal people who went to work just like all the rest of us three days ago, probably never imagining how terribly their lives might change in so little time.

If you are so inclined, please hold these people and their families throughout the country and the world in your thoughts and prayers.

God grant us strength and peace.

~bw