Joint pain woke me early. I got up and fixed coffee. Turning on CNN, I saw a miracle in process.
A team of Mexican and German rescue workers had just pulled a seventy year old woman out of the rubble of the Cathedral. Dehydrated with broken bones but still miraculously alive after seven days, she kept repeating the prayers that had given her strength during her ordeal as a surgeon from Doctors without Borders treated her,
Anderson Cooper interviewed the doctor when he finished giving her water and dressing her wounds. He covered her with a blanket and explained he had done all he could. The airport was diverting planes with medical supplies and field hospitals in order to land combat troops with heavy equipment and armored vehicles to patrol the streets in case there were looting and riots.
An ad for a mid-winter get away at a resort in the Bahamas came on. Right next door to Haiti, it looked good. Sandy beaches, sunshine, private cabanas with tropical drinks served at your whim. Best of all ‘stay three days and the fourth is free!’ This was followed by a ‘Claritin Clear’ commercial.
The News came back with a clip of the victory speech of Scott Brown, the young man who won Ted Kennedy’s seat in a special Senate Election. Brown made a wise crack about his wife, a newspaper reporter, who had revealed her bias and voted for him. When the exuberant laughter died down, he thanked the American people for their money contributions and their phone banks into the state that turned out the kind of vote needed for his win. He praised them for doing the right thing by just saying no to this foolish extravagance of healthcare for everyone!
When pundits with opposite narrative arcs of potential civil collapse or restoring constitutional “Christian Values” appeared, I turned off TV.
I opened my computer and noticed on the homepage that Wall Street had enjoyed a huge surge in certain stocks at the prospect of Brown’s win. I checked the website of that Bahamas resort. Free day or not, the rate for one day would consume my total monthly income.
On to my emails! I found an offer from a company in Luxemburg for a new service. If I mount a camera on my monitor, I can talk with you face to face over live video. This is great! No more tedious typing with painful arthritic fingers. In real time I could chat with you while sipping my morning import Swedish coffee. All I have to do is download the software – and it’s FREE!
There is one small blip in this new addition to our personal freedoms. You’d have to live in the right time zone and plug into your computer on the same schedule I observe.
Until then, I will use my usual mode to express my joy at living in the ‘most prosperous, most charitable, most compassionate Nation’ on the face of the earth!
