A Different Country

I sometimes spend time listening to Talk Radio on the way into my office . In general I try to keep it to sports because I am online all day long and clued into the news as it happens. Sports provides a nice interlude of things that I enjoy but in the grand scheme of things are not real important.

Since Katrina hit I have altered my habits somewhat and spent more time listening to the news or the bobbleheads around the dial. This morning one of them said that the hurricane has changed the US forever and compared it to 911.

I am not so sure that I buy into that line of thought. This is a natural disaster. Mother Nature brought this about, the earth and not man created the mechanism through which so many people lost their lives, homes etc.

That doesn't mean that I am insensitive or trying to minimize the tragedy, but rather that I try to make sense of things in a different way.

911 placed the US on a crash course for war. It forced multiple changes on so many different levels. Katrina will have a very serious impact, but one that I see very differently.

I don't expect it to hit the national economy in the same way as 911. It will most definitely have an affect, but I don't expect the same impact. Now I'll qualify this by saying that I am not paid for my thoughts on economics so it may be that I am just dead wrong, but ..........

Here is what I want to see happen as a result of this. I want to see a renewed emphasis on emergency preparedness on a local, state and federal level. I want to see an emphasis on people working together to help those who were hurt and a push to develop alternate sources of energy.

Now is a great time to really try and make an effort to seek out more cost-effective and hopefully environmentally friendly resources that we can use to power our homes, business and autos.

It is a chance to make the legacy of Katrina far more positive than it stands to be seen now.