We have survived Sandy and were without power for 5 days. Our building was relatively unscathed, we had no flooding, and we had great friends(with power and water) who were happy to take us in for a few days. We consider ourselves lucky. My parents still have no power, my Grandma’s house (along with most of Long Beach) were pretty badly beaten up and other parts of the city are still recovering. There is still a lot more work to be done.
As someone who ran the NYC marathon last year, I realize how much effort was involved in putting it together. It was unfortunate that a giant outpouring of hate for the marathon caused it to be cancelled because that probably tied the hands of the Mayor and New York Road Runners. They should have done something(either a shorter race or loops around Central Park) to compensate those runners who spent an enormous amount of time training as well as the money to get here(40,000 of the 48,000 runners are from out of town).
The Red Cross is a tremendous organization that does great work and the percentage of dollars that gets translated to aid is outstanding. I understand their need to raise funds now and to do so while the disaster is fresh in everyone’s minds, but putting all the funds into your general fund to distribute as you see fit is NOT what people think of when they text to donate or send in a check. No one considers that their funds may not be used to help the current disaster. It’s not right.
Speaking of donations, where is Romney’s PR that can make his events go according to plan and in a positive way? I don’t believe he should be getting the flack that he is for collecting donations of food and clothing(everyone on my Facebook page, and everywhere else is doing it), but can’t he just have an event where he does something and everyone thinks its nice. He really needs a new PR guy.
Speaking of which, I never really liked Chris Christie because I think he gets a lot of props for “telling it like it is,” which generally amounts to having no tact and offending people. However, I like the fact that he was not afraid to praise the President when he thought he did a good job. With the state of politics today, that is rare, and he should be applauded for it.
I don’t know what the rest of the country is like, but no one around here is even talking about the election. It seems as though any momentum that Romney might have had or been building is lost and I see Nate Silver(a former high stakes poker player) keeps upping the chances of an Obama win(I think it is up to 85% now).
I am halfway done with Imagine by Jonah Lehrer. I think its very interesting and similar to a lot of books I like about how to improve on things using unconventional and scientific means. That said, I just googled it and found that he made up some (relatively) unimportant parts of the book and that he has been shunned as a writer and that all of the books were recalled by the publisher. Oops.
Atlantic city got major flooding and a lot of houses and areas were destroyed. The casinos seem to be unaffected and the Borgata Fall Open is going on as scheduled, so I will be heading down there tomorrow. I hope there is a enough action, since I am sure that many of the people who would come to play are dealing with the aftermath of Sandy. Either way, best of luck to you guys!
