This morning I found out that two blogs I read faithfully were both talking about the American news accounts of the earthquake in Kasmir.

I'd like to talk about that, too, but first I need to express my profound sympathy to the peoples of Pakistan, India, and, especially, to those affected. These cataclysmic, ineffable tragedies, whether man-made or natural, give me pause and often put me in a funk. Quite frankly, I can no more conceive of twenty thousand deaths than I can ten billion galaxies.

Now, my related issue.

Right after Katrina, when the news was all about those stranded at the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center, I kept hearing over and over about how scenes resembled the third world and how American citizens were being treated like third world refugees. Those comments, to put it mildly, disgusted me.

I regularly watch BBC World news on PBS. For the past several months nearly every night's show has a short report from the Sudan, Malawi, or another country neglected by the US media. I've seen countless, sickening reports of famine, displacement, rape, murder, and political strife and the temporary aid camps we in the west give to those on the wrong end of nature's and mankind's wrath. Those pitiful people, who've done no wrong, would probably move to the Superdome in a moment, and it's an insult to them to compare their plight to those of huddled near the convention center.

What struck me is how willing we are to subject the Africans to shabby tents and lengthy trips for water, how blind an eye we cast on their scrabbling for filling, but non-nutrtional roots or the casual, inhumane dropping of wheat from helicopters as if we're feeding animals at the zoo, but making American citizens wait a day or two for three thousand packaged meals is treating them like "third world citizens."

What happened in and around New Orleans was horrible, no doubt about it, but it never even approached the horrors we permit in developing countries. Those waiting in New Orleans had clothes for God's sake, a luxury we're more than happy to deny those who don't hold blue passports.

The earthquake in Pakistan, once again, I think demonstrates precisely the difference between the developed and under-developed countries. Our homes and buildings aren't constructed of mud, as were those in Iran and here, our depots are overflowing with blankets, food, and cots, and those in the rest of the world have none of that.

We send ours from New Orleans to Texas in air conditioned buses. The women of the Darfur region, after being raped and their husbands killed, get to walk to a barely leveled camp that teems with disease, starving children, and no prospects for any future life.

That's what I consider the third world. Not the steps of the Superdome.

This morning I found out that two blogs I read faithfully were both talking about the American news accounts of the earthquake in Kasmir.

I'd like to talk about that, too, but first I need to express my profound sympathy to the peoples of Pakistan, India, and, especially, to those affected. These cataclysmic, ineffable tragedies, whether man-made or natural, give me pause and often put me in a funk. Quite frankly, I can no more conceive of twenty thousand deaths than I can ten billion galaxies.

Now, my related issue.

Right after Katrina, when the news was all about those stranded at the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center, I kept hearing over and over about how scenes resembled the third world and how American citizens were being treated like third world refugees. Those comments, to put it mildly, disgusted me.

I regularly watch BBC World news on PBS. For the past several months nearly every night's show has a short report from the Sudan, Malawi, or another country neglected by the US media. I've seen countless, sickening reports of famine, displacement, rape, murder, and political strife and the temporary aid camps we in the west give to those on the wrong end of nature's and mankind's wrath. Those pitiful people, who've done no wrong, would probably move to the Superdome in a moment, and it's an insult to them to compare their plight to those of huddled near the convention center.

What struck me is how willing we are to subject the Africans to shabby tents and lengthy trips for water, how blind an eye we cast on their scrabbling for filling, but non-nutrtional roots or the casual, inhumane dropping of wheat from helicopters as if we're feeding animals at the zoo, but making American citizens wait a day or two for three thousand packaged meals is treating them like "third world citizens."

What happened in and around New Orleans was horrible, no doubt about it, but it never even approached the horrors we permit in developing countries. Those waiting in New Orleans had clothes for God's sake, a luxury we're more than happy to deny those who don't hold blue passports.

The earthquake in Pakistan, once again, I think demonstrates precisely the difference between the developed and under-developed countries. Our homes and buildings aren't constructed of mud, as were those in Iran and here, our depots are overflowing with blankets, food, and cots, and those in the rest of the world have none of that.

We send ours from New Orleans to Texas in air conditioned buses. The women of the Darfur region, after being raped and their husbands killed, get to walk to a barely leveled camp that teems with disease, starving children, and no prospects for any future life.

That's what I consider the third world. Not the steps of the Superdome.

It comes as no surprise to my readers, but my list of talents is pretty damn long. Exhaustive, some would say. Still, there are things I don't do well, and you're looking at one of them.

This blogging thing has me stumped. Either that, or it demonstrates my lack of precision and focus, even with the categories. Yesterday's entry, which I've never read, is an example of my suffering.

I get carried away. On occasion I think of lots of things to write in my blog during the hours when I should be doing something else. This, I think, is normal, but not how I then handle it. I sit down, start writing my new entry, and before I know it I've written half a page and have yet to even get near my point.

Then, I panic. Blogging is a 21st century activity even though it started way back in the 1990s. I think I have one foot, maybe two, still firmly planted back in the century of my birth and am not adopting as well as I might like. Blogs should be short, something one can read while holding one's breath, and I just ramble on and on, endlessly, hypnotized by the words showing up on my screen.

Then, instead of a sharp, succinct entry that people can read with pleasure, I end up with a scrawling page of gibberish that scrolls way past the editorial features.

This is not good. On the other hand, it's me.

It comes as no surprise to my readers, but my list of talents is pretty damn long. Exhaustive, some would say. Still, there are things I don't do well, and you're looking at one of them.

This blogging thing has me stumped. Either that, or it demonstrates my lack of precision and focus, even with the categories. Yesterday's entry, which I've never read, is an example of my suffering.

I get carried away. On occasion I think of lots of things to write in my blog during the hours when I should be doing something else. This, I think, is normal, but not how I then handle it. I sit down, start writing my new entry, and before I know it I've written half a page and have yet to even get near my point.

Then, I panic. Blogging is a 21st century activity even though it started way back in the 1990s. I think I have one foot, maybe two, still firmly planted back in the century of my birth and am not adopting as well as I might like. Blogs should be short, something one can read while holding one's breath, and I just ramble on and on, endlessly, hypnotized by the words showing up on my screen.

Then, instead of a sharp, succinct entry that people can read with pleasure, I end up with a scrawling page of gibberish that scrolls way past the editorial features.

This is not good. On the other hand, it's me.

Today I may have lied to dental student Shervin but odds are that he'll never notice. I strongly believe he isn't among those who look for foosas and find my blog.

What happened is this: during a lull in the endless waiting for one of the required doctor consultations I mentioned the good thing about going to the dentist is the opportunity it gives me to blog about it. The inference being that I would, but now that I'm home, I won't.

For some reason I was thinking today about Rosemary Woods and the famous missing eighteen minutes on one of the Nixon tapes. Maybe it's because of all the politics that have been going on lately, but I'm disappointed.

The thing is, I'm looking for things against the current administration, and few things make me happier than reading about DeLay, Rove, and Mike Brown. The thing is, we don't have anything scandalous in this country.

Even when I think back to Watergate, I mean, what was it? Breaking in to get inside info on the other party's plans. I'm sorry, but that really isn't so horrendous or such a big deal now that I think about it. Neither is DeLay's siphoning money around, or anything else I can remember being "apalling." Politicians are douche bags, and that about covers the lot of them.

Hell, Clinton swore under oath, which might be a big thing, but he was talking about sex. If anyone does, the President of the United States deserves an occasional blow job, even if it comes from a dumpy intern.

I remember reading an Andy Rooney piece years ago, before the Soviet Union collapsed. He was writing about some spy incident and mentioned that probably the most important information either side got from their years of spying and millions of dollars was a list of the opposing spies. It's a fairly closed system.

And I'm starting to see that it's the same way with American political scandals. I get all jazzed, but I have to admit it's over small potatoes that matter more politically than realistically. I think in the future I'll count to ten before getting all riled up, and I hope Shervin agrees.

Today I may have lied to dental student Shervin but odds are that he'll never notice. I strongly believe he isn't among those who look for foosas and find my blog.

What happened is this: during a lull in the endless waiting for one of the required doctor consultations I mentioned the good thing about going to the dentist is the opportunity it gives me to blog about it. The inference being that I would, but now that I'm home, I won't.

For some reason I was thinking today about Rosemary Woods and the famous missing eighteen minutes on one of the Nixon tapes. Maybe it's because of all the politics that have been going on lately, but I'm disappointed.

The thing is, I'm looking for things against the current administration, and few things make me happier than reading about DeLay, Rove, and Mike Brown. The thing is, we don't have anything scandalous in this country.

Even when I think back to Watergate, I mean, what was it? Breaking in to get inside info on the other party's plans. I'm sorry, but that really isn't so horrendous or such a big deal now that I think about it. Neither is DeLay's siphoning money around, or anything else I can remember being "apalling." Politicians are douche bags, and that about covers the lot of them.

Hell, Clinton swore under oath, which might be a big thing, but he was talking about sex. If anyone does, the President of the United States deserves an occasional blow job, even if it comes from a dumpy intern.

I remember reading an Andy Rooney piece years ago, before the Soviet Union collapsed. He was writing about some spy incident and mentioned that probably the most important information either side got from their years of spying and millions of dollars was a list of the opposing spies. It's a fairly closed system.

And I'm starting to see that it's the same way with American political scandals. I get all jazzed, but I have to admit it's over small potatoes that matter more politically than realistically. I think in the future I'll count to ten before getting all riled up, and I hope Shervin agrees.

I'm not a bad cook, or maybe I am. I don't know.

I've been fixing things and eating them for years, but many are the same things, ones I know how to cook. Of course, when I make something new that I like, I end up making it a lot and then forget something that I enjoyed in the past, but that's the way it goes.

When it rains and I'm home, I make chili. When I'm ill, I make chicken soup, but that's about the extent of my rituals. Everything else is catch as catch can, but I usually try to make something quick. Most famous, of course, is my Asian Fajitas Surprise, which can be just about anything. Thus, the surprise.

Today it was hot, damn hot. Unseasonably hot. "Turn on a fan and leave a cotton rag in the freezer" hot. I knew I'd be hungry around dinner time, hungrier than a salad, so I thought I'd make a cool and filling pasta salad. The thing about pasta salads is I've never made one before and have only eaten them once or twice in my life, so I don't know much about them.

I could look up a recipe, but that's no fun. I just remember that they were cool and had fusilli in them, a pasta I don't think I have, so I made mine with mostaccioli, which was handy. The centerpiece was going to be brocolli, but when I looked at it, it had spoiled.

Hmmm, I thought, now that a ton of pasta was cooking. I had sugar peas, celery, bell peppers and decided to cook those, but then decided the celery would be better raw. (It would add "texture")

It looked a bit weak and I considered tomatoes, and still might, but I looked in the freezer and found some emergency peas and carrots. I steamed the veggies and by the time the time they were done the pasta, naturally, was a solid lump in the collander. That's easy enough to fix, and into a big bowl went most of the pasta and most of the vegetables, cooked and otherwise.

Then, I dumped in what was left of my salad dressing, an amount that's probably excessive, and put it in the fridge to cool down. The pasta and veggies that didn't fit in the bowl went in a smaller bowl, with no dressing. A couple hours later I was hungry, but the salad wasn't cool yet. I just took the smaller bowl out, dumped in oil, vinegar, whatever spices I grabbed and seasoned it with salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese, and the result was ... filling.

I'm not sure it's a real pasta salad, so I think I'll call it my Pasta Salad Surprise. Eating like this it's a wonder I didn't die years ago.