Hey Freaks,
It’s been a really interesting week here in the old
IZ, and it’s only half over.
I’ll have more on that a little later.
I would like to take a moment to reflect upon the happenings in the Gaza Strip. It would seem that a “levee-like” structure or two collapsed/failed and allowed the contents therein to flood the town and kill at least 5 people. (there is something vaguely familiar about this story…but I just can’t place it) Making the event even more gruesome is the unfortunate fact that the “levee-like” structures were holding back a lake of sewage.
Ick. Totally
Ick!
The following is from an Associated (with terrorists) Press article:
“The collapse early Tuesday sent a wave of sewage into the village, killing two
women in their 70s, two toddlers and a teenage girl, and injuring 35 others,
hospital officials said. Abu Shamalha said nearly 100 homes had been
destroyed.”
There is definitely something familiar about this! I just can’t place it…someone help me here…this reminds me of something and I just can’t remember what!
The AP continues,
“John Ging, head of the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, warned of a larger spill if a new sewage plant isn't built quickly.”
So, in other words, the people in Gaza not already drowned or covered in poo have officially been warned. I am certain that the residents of Gaza are at this very moment taking decisive action to remove themselves from the affected area.
"The real threat now comes from another facility up there which is equally
overloaded, except that this time it's one and a half million cubic meters of
waste water and sewage that could spill out into the area and cause an even
bigger disaster," Ging said.
Just imagine it, one and a half MILLION cubic meters of waste water and sewage, all coming at you at once! That’s like a hurricane-force wave of POO!
Wait a minute! I think I remember now! That’s it! This is New Orleans, and that bitch Katrina, and the crappy levees…and George W Bush! Damn him all to hell! I can’t believe he would stoop to this level again! Blowing up a sewage plant and killing all those innocent people! Damn you W!!! Damn you Karl Rove!!!
The AP continues:
“Though international sanctions against the Palestinian Authority have frozen some sewage projects, those measures did not appear to have affected the facility near Umm Naser. Gaza City's mayor, Majid Abu Ramadan, blamed the collapse on local people digging dirt from an earthen embankment around the structure and selling it to building contractors for $70 a truckload.”
Oops…sorry. I guess “W”
wasn’t actually to blame for this one…my bad…
OK, all joking aside, this is a great example of what happens when you cross the line between individuals and groups. An individual, assuming rationality and some understanding of causality, knows better than to undermine the foundation of his own home, happiness, and livelihood. “People”, on the other hand (and as the Mayor clearly implies) will often act in concert to achieve results that can only be characterizes as “crappy”.
I had a wonderful history teacher once, who defined maturity this way:
“Maturity is putting off momentary gratification for long range goals.”
Sort of like doing without a quick buck in order to actually build your town into something better than it currently is. The really ironic thing is that these people apparently flooded their town with poo in order to help build up someone
else’s town. (Also, lets be honest, the only long range goal these people have is destroying someone
elses home, specifically the
jooooooosss.)
Perhaps now that people have died, the people of Gaza will understand the consequences of their actions. Maybe they will realize that putting those paltry few dollars in their pockets just
wasn’t worth it. Maybe they will realize that not only was it not worth it, but it was their action, and their action alone, that was directly responsible for the destruction of their town. Maybe, just maybe, they will have matured.
Who am I kidding, they’ll still blame Bush!
In the end, the blame has to be shared with those individuals that allowed the digging to take place. I mean, morons are morons and should be dealt with as such, but to see destructive behavior taking place and ignore it should also be criminal.
(slight pause to consider the U.S. Congress and the insolvency of virtually every social program since FDR.) Surely there have to be a few relatively smart people around who saw what was happening and accepted the responsibility to stop it.
Where would we be as a society if we just sat idly by and allowed the destructive actions of others to slowly erode the foundations of our society? As luck would have it, we really won’t be waiting all that long to find out. The clock is ticking, and the structural integrity of the levees marked “Social Security”,” Medicare”, and “Medicaid” become weaker every year. We as taxpayers continue to allow greedy, rent-seeking politicians to scoop out the foundations of our fiscal solvency in exchange for the few dollars of political profit they can obtain. And when the levees break, and we are left for dead, covered in the excrement of our forefathers, where will they be?
Like the residents of New Orleans, and the residents of Gaza, we have been warned.
Please take a few moments to read what a few of my Blog-brothers have written on the subject.
Peace
-Jason
http://wizbangblog.com/http://michellemalkin.com/index.htmhttp://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24936_Cesspool&only
In my defense, the odds of me not posting this are just incedible!
