They keep coming, and we can't stop it

The damn tornadoes, that's what I'm talking about. Out in Oklahoma, throughout the whole region, they just keep coming.
And there's not a damned thing anyone can do to stop them, or avoid them, or do anything but stand by helplessly while Mother Nature runs her vacuum.
Afterwards, yes, we CAN, and should, and DO rush in to help. It's what we'd hope for, were we the victims.
And we could indeed be the victims, anywhere, any time, any one of us.

Tornadoes are less a regional phenomenon than some disasters. Hurricanes hit shorelines, floods occur near rivers, mudslides are usually in hill country (slide implying gravity), forest fires happen in forests.
Tornadoes, like earthquakes, can happen anywhere.
Therefore, they can happen to you.

Now, they do have preferred playgrounds, like the Great Plains for tornadoes and the San Andreas in California, but they can happen anywhere.

The one advantage in the Plains is that usually one can see (if one is looking) from miles away and hopefully take shelter before the twister gets to you.

Last night, because of heavy rains, many, many people could not see because of the heavy rains and the preternatural darkness of the storm. Many, many people are today still shaking, still fearful, and still looking for loved ones. I hope that everyone locates one another, and that losses stay low. I wish that no one would die in these horrific storms, but that has already happened, and there's nothing I can do to change it.

I wish I could.

I haven't had a close encounter with a twister, although members of my family have. Heck, I have a brother in Kansas. My sister played tag with one last spring.(She won.)A long time ago, one collapsed my grandfather's barn. Then there was the Thanksgiving tornado, mid 90s. I went outside because it was so hot and humid, and heard the trains about a mile away, cane inside and said, "It's still and sticky, and I heard a train. Think we should hide?"
A tornado took down a garage and damaged some trees approximately a mile away.

I still shake at the memory.
The Menace that roars out of the night.
Out of the nowhere.

I can't help you, Oklahoma. Not in the preventive, sheltering, protecting ways you are so in need of.
I wish I could.
I will do what I can to help afterwards, but it will never be enough. It can never be enough.
And there's always going to be guilt that I can be so grateful it wasn't me or mine, and I feel bad about that, too.

Because I know it could have been.
May someday be.
It's good to know you will understand, if that time ever comes.

But for now, I think we would all like to put this into the past.

We are trying to help do just that.

Blame in Boston

Yesterday, someone or someones blew up the finish line at the Boston Marathon. People were hurt -- a former political in from Ohio was quoted as talking about arms and legs falling everywhere. An eight year old child was killed. The death count is probably not yet final, as the injured try to recover and some may not be able to withstand the shock.

Someone seems to have thought it would fun to blow up a garbage can. Maybe. At this time, that's the most consistent story I've heard of the actual bomb. I don't know if it's true.

I'm ashamed, though, of the immediate reaction of too many fellow Americans. The first impulse of those. The first thought of too many of us who could not be there "doing" is to decide which foreigners they should blame. Which Arabs.

Now, it is possible that this was Middle-eastern based. It seems unlikely to me. None of them have stepped up to brag about it. Of course, it's possible they feel it was a failure, as only three died, and there are talks of five or twelve other bombs planted everywhere around the city -- and a fire in a library that was NOT involved.

Let's not place blame until there's been time to look around.. Let the healing begin, let the families regroup, let the experts take a look before we even think of who we can blame. Let's have cause.

I do wish the media would back off. At this point, they are only spreading hysteria and possibly misinformation.
"new information" was just headlined, but the new information is yet another runner talking about he was just running long and heard an explosion and saw smoke. Umm-- sorry. The first thing known was there was an explosion and smoke. A new mouthpiece is not new information. Let's not confuse the two.

The Boston Marathon is a race. A race where endurance and completion of equal importance to winning, being first.
Let's use that objective and have that goal, in finding the perpetrators and punishing them. The first -- runner,or  thought is not always the finest