A couple thoughts about the tsunami's and the new year

[Raptor]

You know, I saw an article on CNN that made me think. It mentioned that everyone should forget about their resolutions about losing weight and whatever and focus on what to do about the trajedy and preventing it in the future. I don't think I agree with that entirely.

The Tsunami's were beyond description as far as tragedy goes. That kind of loss of life and devastation is something that effects even the most cold hearted people. We need to put a huge amount of energy into finding ways to prevent it and even more importantly help with the current suffering any way possible, I agree with that. The comment comes off in a way that we should forget about the normal things we think about at new years and I dissagree with that completely. Things like this happen, we all live and die and of course we can do some things to prevent that and that is good, but to forget about our personal goals and self improvement isn't right.

I don't want to sound like I don't care about the tragedy. Nothing could be further than the truth, but like I have said before, worrying about death is a great way to forget about living. Yes I think we should do everything we can for those directly effected by the tsunami's, as well as do what we can to find ways to prevent future loss of life, but don't worry soo much about it that the joy of living is gone. Get the most out of this life, do whatever you can to improve yourself and the lives of those around you.

Just reading the thing on CNN made me want to bring those points up. I am interested to hear how people in general feel about these things, it was a really life changing thing for many in this world, how much did it effect your outlook?

[Jana]

I agree, why should you not still set goals for yourself and just think about all the devistation. I wish I could do something to help, either donate money or even volunteer to help in some way. Neither of those are possibly in my situation. However, I can pray for the survivor's.

All in all, it just makes me appreciate what I have even more because you never know when something can happen. So like Mike (and many others) have said before, you just live each day to the fullest.

[MATCHBX]

I agree. Live each day as if it was your last and you will live a more full life. You will live each minute of each day to it's fullest. Tell your loved ones that you love them. Let them know how much they mean to you everyday because you have no idea if you or they will be there tomorrow. Don't live too much in the past or you will not have a future. Remember, it's not how you die, it's how you live. Death only happens once, life happens every minute of every day.

It is so sad what happened these past few weeks. This kind of thing seems to cycle itself through the ages. Massive tragedies claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. Like was said before, we need to focus on the survivors and what can be found to prevent or minimize the loss of human life when something like this happens. It's sad that so many had to die. But if we can learn from what has happened to make preparations for the next time something like this happens to minimize the body count, they will not have died in vain. Their deaths will have a meaning and purpose.

[Raptor]

I should really stop reading CNN. With the huge financial burdens of Tsunamis and the war etc, somehow our brilliant government thinks it is worthwhile to spend 330 million to send a spacecraft 80 million miles away to crash into an asteroid so they can see what happens. If they even catch the stupid thing, how productive is it? They want to know if it has ice inside etc. I am sure there is some benefit to them in some way, but is it really a justification to spend that much cash.

[AJ]

I think the US spending any cash anywhere but the US is a crock of shit. Look at all our problems right here. Lets worry about our fucking issues first, and our own debt first and get in a position to help others. How many homeless right here in the US do we have to shit on by spending a billion on some other countries.

[Raptor]

I only agree with that to a point. There is a large majority of people in this country that are on welfare and are homeless that do not have to be. Many are lazy and don't take advantage of the systems that are already in place to help them, the numbers get skewed by them. People that are truely homeless do have places they can go for help in most if not all cases. The reason half of them don't is that it is more profitable to panhandle for them and they have drug habits they don't want to clean up to stay at the shelters. The victems of the tsunami were blameless. As the richest nation on earth, it would be pretty shitty of us to let the rest of the world to take care of tragedy like that and only worry about ourselves. I personally think people like Mr Gates and others who have obscene overabundant funds should step up and help as much as they can. Not saying they have to, I just can't imagine why they wouldn't want to. If I had what i would consider a decent income in any way, I would try to do something to help.

[Jacek]

I think the US spending any cash anywhere but the US is a crock of shit. Look at all our problems right here. Lets worry about our fucking issues first, and our own debt first and get in a position to help others. How many homeless right here in the US do we have to shit on by spending a billion on some other countries.

i can agree with this to a point. we should help a little. but not to the extent where we put out the most money than anyone else and make out economy suffer a greater amount. colin powell said he put down 350M on this incident. i would like to know where this money is going to come from.

[JDM]

I think spending money else where is our responsibility to a point.

We are ALL human beings. White, black, asian, hispanic, arabic, whatever... If we had a dictator who physically punished his people, we'd pray for help.

BUT, sometimes we lose sight of what's important. I'm trying my damnedest not to start an arguement here.

So as the others above have stated, I agree... to a point.

[Raptor]

Well, lets see, if we turn our back on the rest of the world and be stingy, we can pretty much expect the same treatment from them. America already has half the world hating it because of our abunance and freedom and the way we seem to take it for granted. Unlike JDM, I don't mind an argument on this stuff ;) I don't think it is our governments sole responsibility to do everything, but we do have way more resources that other countries, better technology and most americans do take pride in our role to help others. I really want to see the wealthy private sectors of the country help, they would collectively have the greatest impact. On another note, the things effecting other countries do also effect us. Consider the spread of disease into epidemic proportions, if we don't do anything about it, we could be hit really hard by it.

[JDM]

I don't think we can start an argument, we're all pretty much saying the same thing... I just hope that 'you know who' doesn't read this and say something INCREDIBLY stupid.