Highly Recommend, Maybe.....

I admit my initial reaction after finishing Five Days was "why did I even read this?"

This was one of the most intense, infuriating, disturbing and thought-provoking books I've read in a long time. I suppose that's probably the reason most people read certain types of non-fiction, but this has taken me a long time to process and I still can't get it out of my head.  

Basically it is an account of the experiences at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans before, during and after Hurricane Katrina.  The disturbing and thought-provoking part comes from the fact that around the fifth day of remaining trapped inside the hospital, there were patients who were euthanized.  Whatever your feelings about euthanasia, for me the infuriating aspect was synthesized by the remark made by a daughter whose elderly mother had been injected with the lethal dose (I can't quote it exactly because I don't have the book here, but essentially) - My mother had Do Not Resuscitate orders - we never meant DNR to stand for Do Not Rescue.

Why why why did it take five days to get everyone out of that hospital.  Memorial is not an island in the middle of the Pacific. To me the crime here was the fact that it took so long to completely evacuate the place.  There were many heroic efforts, no doubt, both inside and outside of the hospital, but I would have given the medal to the guys from the bayous who arrived with airboats - one desperate couple hooked up with one of these boat owners and directed him to the hospital where they not only rescued the husband's elderly mother, but other patients and staff as well.

It's a frustrating story, but the current horrors in the Philippines reminded me that I wanted to (I guess) recommend this book.  --cds

Recent Absence

Our recent absence from Florida was the result of a quick trip North to visit our Vermonters before the winter sets in.

It was a busy week with lots of leaf raking and swing swinging.

We arrived just in time to help put the finishing touches to Ruthanne's Halloween costume.  She was a great pirate.

Marcus enjoyed observing Trick-or-Treating from the confines of his stroller.  Luckily the weather was fairly balmy though breezy.  I can remember a great many ice-y and blustery Halloween nights when the boys' costumes had to accommodate parkas and wooley hats and mittens.

We spent most of our time just enjoying the grands - lots of laughing and chasing and coloring.....

... and silliness with Grandma's glasses.

The Vermonters will be here in Florida in March for a winter visit - already miss them!  --cds

Change of Plan

I was going to stick in a book review today to mark my return to blogville (I've been absent, lazy, busy, etc etc etc), but this morning I watched Ken Burns talk about a project he just completed regarding the recitation of The Gettysburg Address.  Number 1, I was reminded how much I love Ken Burns - he's smart, serious, seems true to his beliefs and ignores his critics, which is good because I think he's just about the best documentary-creator ever.  Anyway Number 2, he talked about the importance of putting famous American speeches and documents to memory, or at least parts of them, or at the very least recognizing them, so in support, let's re-visit:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--cds