Sept 25, 2005 - Hurricane Rita winding down...

Dear Sis~

Hurricane Rita has pretty much played itself out and from what I'm seeing on my little 5" TV, the damage was considerably less than anticipated. Still, if you are one of the victims who has lost all of his/her property, or the house, or a loved one, there is no consolation in the storm's reduced fury, nor any wisdom in the old adage that pain, disappointment and conflict are just the universe's conduit to life's reality... Stepping back to look at the bigger picture, with the increase in the number and severity of hurricanes in general, it is clear to me that global warming is definitely a contributing factor. Whether mankind's actions are behind global warming or whether it is just some sort of normal, cyclical thing may be debatable, (though in my mind the issue is settled; we are screwing this planet up!) but the reality of global warming is not debatable. We'd better get used to more hurricanes like Katrina, because they're coming.

Remember when we were kids in Miami and we rode out (and played outdoors in)hurricanes? I remember especially Hurricane Donna in 1960 and Betsy in 1965, because they were so powerful and they hit Miami squarely. Still, I played outdoors during both (yeah, I was always doing stupid stuff, wasn't I?) Now, can you imagine what the result will be when a Katrina-sized storm hits Miami Beach and Miami head on? It will be catastrophic, especially on Miami Beach, where no point of land is higher than 10 feet above sea level. Hurricane Andrew was bad, but lots of folks don't understand that the main brunt of Andrew hit Homestead and Florida City, 25 miles south of Miami. If it had hit 25-30 miles farther north, it would have been twice as worse. And one day, that will happen.

I'm not much of a TV watcher; usually I check out the news and Discovery Channel, and an ocassional movie. But being in a cell 24 hours a day, well, I watch more TV than I otherwise would. Anyway, I decided to check out some of the new TV drama series which are making their premiers and I was universally disappointed, even disgusted, at how so many of them were police/detective shows which involve the most despicable and outrageous criminals/ suspects conceivable. In particular, these shows feature female victims (usually kidnapped) who are horribly tortured and murdered. Then the graphic details are featured in the program. One new show is called Killer Instinct and it is representative. It features shallow, wooden characters mouthing lousy dialogue, plodding along through predictable plot scenarios. The common denominators are always unbelievably psychotic torturers/killers who dismember, rape and torture female victims. The unspoken (and none too subtle) message is that maniacs lurk everywhere, and that your typical criminal is a psychopathic murderer who must be hunted down and shot dead by the hero police who are handicapped by their scrupulous adherence to the criminals' constitutional rights and the "liberal judges" who seemingly live for nothing else except to release obviously guilty murderers on legal hyper-technicalities. And when the cops "bend the rules" by beating confessions out of suspects or fabricating evidence, the suspect is always obviously guilty so as to reinforce that the ends justify the means. I've yet to see one of these shows (like NYPD Blue or Law and Order) where they arrest the wrong guy and then beat a false confession out of him or fabricate false testimony, as happens in the real world. But besides that, what really bothers me about these new shows is their focus on graphically showing women being tortured and maimed and murdered, over and over and over. There's a real sickness to it, and I wonder who patronizes these brainless shows. It says something about us as a society when every night on every channel the 3 major networks feature such mind-dead tripe which caters only to our basest instincts. It's sad and disappointing.

OK, Sis, enough babbling for now...Keep your chin up and a smile on your face!

Love & Peace,
Bill