Heartache & Misery

The hurricane had barely hit Houston when there was a frantic rush to save the pets. Aid workers, airplanes, crates, National Guard, humane societies and doctors were deployed in a massive evacuation process that transported those hundreds upon hundreds of poor animals to the many different locations across these United States. One could not but be moved by this compassionate operation!

She said: “If only they cared for people as much as they do for animals in our country!” Her words were startling, in a way, and remained at the back of my head as I viewed the latest images of human heartache and misery on my television screen and thought to myself: what a strange dichotomy this is!

Just in these past two weeks we had the CEO of Equifax testifying before Congress about the massive breach that occurred within that company putting at risk the private information of about 145 million people. The breach was due to two factors: human error, in that the negligent security team member in charge of placing a certain required patch on the Equifax system didn’t do their job; the second factor was technological, in that the Equifax system did not detect that the patch had not been placed. Believe it, or Not: One Person, One Human Being, One Cog in the Security Machine put at risk the credit information of 145 million people! The CEO resigned and was rewarded with a ninety million compensation package!!! Go figure!!!

Then on October second, I woke up as I usually do in the wee hours when even the birds were still sleeping. It was a fresh and brisk dawn heralding the arrival of a fall season that I love. Much as I enjoy my cup of coffee and cigarette in these few pre-dawn minutes with my own thoughts and feelings, I dread going in and switching on my television. What, I wonder, is the disaster of the day going to be, for, it seems, that there is a new dramatic catastrophe greeting me every single morning?

And, certainly, there it was: the blood-curdling events in Las Vegas the preceding evening that ended up with a tally of 58 dead Human Beings and over 500 injured Human Beings! All due to One Murderer! How can this even be remotely possible? I am aghast! The world is aghast!

I have been in a daze since that morning, listening to all the stupid talk and frivolous analysis by Mainstream Media Personalities who seem to wait in giddy anticipation for such tragedies in order to make themselves sound more important and relevant; for Corrupt Politicians to go on the air and spout out their decadent opinions about the morbid event with discussions of guns and gun laws – and reasonable legislation that they won’t execute – and get their day’s five pathetic minutes of fame!

As a political junkie myself, with opinions galore that I am constantly mouthing off, I find that talking politics today seems to be so senseless to all the innocent dead, their families and loved ones. No one can console them enough for losing a Human Being out to enjoy an evening of fun and entertainment. We, and all our loved ones, families, friends and neighbors have attended concerts and events at arenas and other venues. It could have been any one of us, or ours, being massacred that fateful evening.

At the end of the day, the blame for that carnage is on Every One of Us!

It is we, the People, who prove every day that we are Unkind, Cruel and Wicked. It is really Us who have abandoned our Civic Duties while in search of our own selfish and egocentric satisfactions at the expense of All and Everything else, and we disregarded our fellow human beings at home and all across the planet while in search of those trivial needs and wants. It is Us who get all riled up and directed this way and that by an irresponsible media that is concerned only with its revenues, and by corrupt politicians engaged in the game of playing politics with our lives and well-being. Alas, we continue to elect those same ones! How could we but be responsible for all the tragedies and chaos that we moan and groan about when we are silent as the vultures in our political and corporate lives continue their bleeding of every decent, moral and ethical law on the books? It is Us who are not demanding better while in venal pursuit of our immediate pleasures, because we are too neglectful to be constantly engaged in our political, societal and cultural issues shrugging them off with the mostly flippant: That’s Just the Way It is. Yes, the unfortunate reality is that it is Every Uncivilized One of Us who is responsible. You, Me, He and She. All of Us.

Here we are, becoming more and more paranoid and in a constant state of worry and anxiety due to all this chaos! All around us the toxicity of our planet is increasing so that we don’t know anymore whether to fret about our computers and devices being eavesdropped on and hacked, or the electronic systems of the tens of vendors that we deal with on a daily basis, or all the myriad issues challenging us daily. We don’t know anymore whether the next threat will come from corrupt Political Un-Leaders, hacks, a breach, a home-grown or foreign terrorist, a pathogen; a hurricane, a flood, an airplane, a truck, a concert, or a drone. Certainly we cannot underestimate the fact that none of us, or any of our institutions, have yet adjusted to the Pandora’s Box of Technology in this Information Age with all its positives, negatives and humongous unknowns. Quite terrifying!

Yet, Internet and Information Age notwithstanding, I am absolutely convinced that it is every one of Us that is causing all our chagrins, and until we care enough about all of humanity and much less about our own individual selfish pursuits then our condition will never ever improve, and none of us should be surprised when the next mass act of violence occurs . . . it is not anymore a question of If, but only a question of When and How Devastating and Heart-breaking!!