The world is a mess

I've been watching CNN news this morning while doing e-mails and getting ready to go to staff meeting. Pretty depressing news.

Nearly 1,000 people were killed yesterday in Baghdad, Iran in a stampede. Someone apparently said that there was a suicide bomber, so people panicked and ran. Some were suffocated and crushed, while others drowned in the Tigris River.

Today is the one year anniverary of the massacre of 330 people, primarly young children at their first day of school, in Boslen, Russia.

Hurricane Talin is hitting Taiwan.

Then there's Hurricane Katrina, whose effects on the southeastern gulf coast of the U.S. continue to be devastating. The mayor of New Orleans predicts that there may be hundreds to thousands of dead there, and is requesting that all of New Orleans be evacuated. Hundreds of thousand of people are now refugies, having lost everything but the clothes on their back. Then there is the looting, including the whole gun collection of a Super Walmart store.

It's surrealistic to see all of this, especially the effects of Katrina. Ironically, the president of Venezuela pledged a million dollars of relief aid for the U.S., even though teleevangelist Pat Robertson made a comment that a contract to assassinate him should take place.

Perhaps one benefit of this whole tragedy is that the U.S. will need to accept help from other nations. I saw this after the 9/11 bombings in 2002. As the world's primary superpower, the U.S. sometimes seems to not need help. It often is only tragedies like these provide opportunities and the necessity to receive from other nations.