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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Pac NW Floods

It is scary how isolated you can get. We had a huge storm here the last few days, lots of rain (~4") and wind over Sunday and Monday, but today in Portland there was bright blue skies and with the clearing it almost seemed like spring.

But elsewhere in Oregon and Washington people are scrambling to get away from floods and literally running for their lives.

But, jeez, you'd never know it by me. I don't have television anymore (and never watched local news even with I did) and don't listen to the radio. I read all the national newspapers (NYT, WP, BG, LAT) on the Web, and I read the local paper (Oregonian), but it's real easy to just skim over the headlines and it doesn't really sink in in that skimming that the stories are real and people are suffering. I walked to the library today, and then to the office supply store, and earlier went to Safeway for some lunch... It was a beautiful day in the city. I read some papers and did some research and answered some email... but you can spend your entire day with your head stuck up your little life and hardly even aware of what is going on, even 20 miles away from you.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? It's about what you would have experienced 100 years ago, but was that a good thing or not? Of course, they didn't even know to ask the question.... I often think that the world is going mad for worrying about what is taking place a half a continent (or planet) away, about every little shooting and murder and child abduction, and that it's ruining our society, at a time when many people don't even know their neighbor's names... so I am not sure. It is confusing.

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