Phew - What a Week

Don't know if you've been watching the news but it's been a bit of a week here in the USA.

First we had the dreadful bombings at the Boston marathon. It took me back to when I lived in London in the 80's and even before that - the IRA bombings that came out of nowhere, maiming and killing at random places like shopping centers and village pubs.

There is nothing funny to say about the Boston horrors, except perhaps to lament the media coverage in the days ahead. CNN in particular, had me hanging my head in despair. First they had a suspect in custody (not true), then they had an arrest (not even close); next, the FBI basically told the media to shut the - up, by asking them to refrain from reporting until there was an official statement. CNN unbelievably then spent the rest of the day "walking back" their reports and analyzing how they could have made such an error in the first place. ("Walking back" is the news phrase for "We screwed up and shouldn't have said that.")

Next day I woke up to learn that the whole of Boston was on lock-down and the suspect was on the loose. Can you imagine looking out your back window, wondering why the tarp on your boat is flapping, seeing blood and then realizing that the man everyone is looking for is on your property? Hopefully, apart from the trial and the inevitable circus that will be, it's all over.

Meanwhile in Texas, a fertilizer plant exploded injuring hundreds of people, killing a handful and destroying many homes. Sadly. lots of people are still unaccounted for. And here in the mid-west, we had torrential rains which flooded large areas. In downtown Chicago, where people insist on building houses with basements, a lot of people had over five feet of water in their basements. And let me remind you, it's not clean water coming from a tap; it's often sewage water as the city pipes back up. Yes, I know. Happened to me several years ago and it's not nice. Whole towns in the Chicagoland area were "closed" as all the streets were flooded. It's very flat round these parts, with rivers and lakes everywhere. When those rivers get full, well...you can imagine.

Take a look at what happened in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago -

So yes, we're just picking up the pieces and getting on with things. Now where was I?