Please ignore previous idiotic post

After watching the news reports and reading a blog reporting out of New Orleans (thanks to Karzender for the link), I realize how petty and whiny my previous post, bitching about skyrocketing gas prices, sounds. What the hell am I complaining about? I have my life, my home, a job to go to, and a car to get there. How many people on the Gulf Coast have lost any or all of these? How many would give anything to have a car to fuel with $3-or-more-a-gallon gas, or a job to drive to that hasn't been engulfed by the waters of Lake Pontchartrain?

It's chilling and infinitely sad to watch the reports of looting and violence. How thin is our society's veneer of civilization. How quickly it all breaks down. I can cut some slack to people who are scavenging food for their families -- hell, you gotta eat, and it's certainly better than having it go to waste -- but I don't think I can ever comprehend the mindset of those who can look on such a massive disaster and see it as an opportunity to acquire free TV sets, guns, and anything else they can lay hands on.

I am reminded overwhelmingly of the societal breakdowns depicted in The Road Warrior and other Mad Max films, the most recent War of the Worlds movie, and more apocalyptic novels than I can name, though the first one that comes to mind is Pat Frank's classic Alas, Babylon! It's easy to dismiss these as fictional dramatization and exaggeration, but look what happens when one small region of the country is devastated by a natural disaster. Makes you wonder if War of the Worlds or Alas, Babylon! might actually have underestimated the impact of a nuclear war or an alien invasion.

Next time I pump $40 or $50 worth of gas into my car, I'm going to remember the deadly competition for gasoline in The Road Warrior and thank my lucky stars that it only takes money -- not heavy armaments -- to keep my car going and in my possession.