Of Cruise Ships and Meteors

This past week has proven nothing more than how fragile our lives are. We all like to think we are in charge. Think again. Forces around us, man or nature made, call the shots. Whether it is God or life forces or Karma or the river of life, we are at the mercy of events; not the other way around.

So you’re driving down the street in Chelyabinsk, Russia, when a streak flashes across the sky followed by a blinding flash of light followed by an explosion that shatter glass all over the city causing injuries to over a thousand people. Was it North Korea? Was it Iran? Was it Obama’s latest kill the bad guys drone? No…it was a ten ton meteorite that exploded in the sky then landed in a frozen lake outside the city limits.

Meteorites seem to have an affinity for Mother Russia, the last one landing there in 1908 wiping out about 1000 square miles of Russian wilderness. We in North America are not immune either. The one that landed in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico did nothing more than wipe out the dinosaurs. Talk about inconvenient.

Meanwhile, simultaneously an even larger asteroid was hurling to within 17,000 miles of earth in its trek across the universe deciding to do a too close for comfort earth fly-over under the weather satellites. Where is Tom Cruise when you need him?

Scientists say that these two events were not related. Really? There are no coincidences. It seems perfectly plausible to me that what landed is Russia was either a companion of or a break away from the main event that interrupted some of our cell phone connections for awhile. If that is the case, whose fault is it? The answer is simple: George Bush.

Then there were the cruisers who fared better than the Gilligan Island Castaways, but not by much. I now have an answer for my friends who continually ask me why I don’t cruise: the Carnival Triumph… which caught fire crippling the ship’s electrical systems leaving several thousand “guests” stranded with no toilets for five days as tug boats pushed the ship to Mobile at a speed of four miles per hour. Oh gee, sign me up for that…along with those ships visited by the norovirus and the Costa Concordia which I believe is still lying on its side off the coast of Italy.

I am claustrophobic, among other things, and being stuck out in the middle ocean on a floating piece of steel even in the best of conditions has, let’s just say, limited appeal to me. Are you nuts? I keep waiting for a terrorist to torpedo one of those things…wait a minute…that already happened, the Achille Lauro. As my memory serves me, they shot an old guy in a wheel chair and threw him overboard.

At any rate, it made for great drama as the Carnival Triumph was pushed into port…listing to one side…but all lit up on the outside. If they didn’t have much electricity, how did they light the sides and top of the boat…excuse me…ship? Meanwhile, the President of Carnival Cruise Lines talked about their concern for their “guests”/ prisoners….kind of like passengers on the tarmac in an airplane who are stranded for hours because they are worried about passenger safety. It must be somebody’s fault.

I know….George Bush.