back up and running

happy nude year everyone. i hope day one wasn't filled with too many broken commitments. personally i've given up on making new years resolutions. all i've noticed they do is fill up gyms and empty fast food restaurants. my theory is if you can't make a promise to go work out more, or stop smoking, or blah blah blahing on any other day of the year why would you be able on new year? moving right along, a quick thank you to my sometime contributor gertha hershey for an insightful responce to the article i posted in my last blog. today's topic will hopefully cause some discussion. earlier this evening while watching the first few minutes of meet the press i heard a comment from one of tim's co-hosts stating that the big story of the year was undoubtadly hurricane katrina. but in her words she had thought that this disaster would shed light on the outrageous poverty in new orleans. instead, she pointed out, the main thing that people focused on was the poor excuse for a disaster relief effort. upon hearing this i left the room to think, and came up with a comparison i had never considered before. quite some time ago a chap named upton sinclair wrote a novel titled the jungle, which i consider to be one of the best novels i have ever read. in this book sinclair tells the story of a family of poor immigrants who migrate to the united states in search of "the golden dream" or w/e. but instead of finding this, all their hopes are crushed leading to a very sorry ending (that i wont spoil, go read the book). anyway, when this book debuted the american public was disgusted by the tales of the meat packing plants and other unhealthy goings on. this lead to huge changes in the meat industry. what the american public failed to notice was the human tragedy contained within the books pages. the deplorable conditions that not only the meat was kept in, but the people. unfortunately it wasn't until many years later that people began to see the significance of sinclair's work. as i'm sure you've noticed by now (being the clever folks you all are), there are some distinct parallels between the public's reaction in both cases. we seem to have once again glazed over the part of the story that requires the most humanity. hopefully though it won't take us quite as long to realize the err of our ways.

that's about it for my new year’s day post. thanks to everyone who wished me a speedy recovery from a nasty bout of the flu. i'm feeling a lot better tonight and hopefully will be back at work tomorrow.