A few random thoughts

I am very upset over the hurricaine damage in New Orleans and the gulf coast. If I let myself, I could go into full tirade mode, but instead I simply offer the following questions, to which I do not have answers:1) What percentage of National Guard troops are now overseas dealing with other "conflicts" and if this were not the case, how would the situation be different (or would it)?2) An evacuation of New Orleans was ordered before the hurricaine because it looked like it was going to be bad. What efforts (if any) were made to help people get out of the city who did not have cars? How different might it have been if the busses evacuating people now had showed up before the hurricaine hit?I won't even get into the funds that were cut for flood protection in the area, but you can read about it here in Der Speigel (English Version): "No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming".------At the risk of a great deal of oversimplification, I think there are two ways for people to act in the world, to let life happen to them or to make things happen. I know that personally, if I spend too much time in the first category I quickly become miserable.-------I received a letter today from the Stadt Frankfurt am Main (city of Frankfurt, Germany) informing me that I was not born. Ok, the gist of the letter is that they have no record of my birth, but as far as I'm concerned it's pretty much the same thing. Though this is surely an error (I will not bore you with the saga that has been going on for months regarding trying to get an international birth certificate and why I need one), for some reason it is mildly depressing.-------On the writing front I am still making progress. I am thinking of this chapter as a sort of "curtain call" for many minor characters and am having fun with that. I am still hoping to have a draft ready for the Tuesday, September 6 deadline for my writing group!