Giving Thanks

Monday was Thanksgiving in Canada, and I paused to realize that I have a lot to be thankful for. Good health, (relative) prosperity, family and friends, living in a safe and secure country, and not having experienced natural disasters that have befallen much of humankind, especially over the last year. There but for the grace of God go I. Never forget that.

I want to make a point of talking briefly about the terrible earthquake that happened in South Asia over the weekend. Upon my return to town, I did the rounds of the usual blogs that I check out regularly, and I was extremely disappointed to see that nary a one brought up the earthquake. These are the kinds of moments that make me want to make this an anti-blog blog. Apparently politics has trumped humanity right now, and I am compelled to question the motivation behind a lot of the hurricane blogging. A disaster like the earthquake should put all others into perspective. As of this writing, there are 41,000 estimated deaths, and that number might rise. And the number of homeless people is in the millions. As a humanitarian disaster and crisis, this dwarfs Katrina, Rita, Stan and 9/11. It deserves at least as much attention as last year's tsunami. Mother Nature can sometimes be the worst terrorist of all, and we are helpless to do anything about her. I hope everybody still has a bit of generosity left.

I'll leave things at that while I shake away the cobwebs of a few days away from the writing routine. Tomorrow I'll likely be back to senseless opining while atoning.