Oy, Ike!

Congress is in chaos; the Federal government broken! Dow Jones plunges into a deja vu Black Monday. Wall Street fears trickle down to Main Street. The automobile-addicted Southeast faces empty gas pumps. And Kruschev’s due at Idlewild (sorry, when panic ensues, an old TV theme song plays in my head). 

Who cares about run on banks when a post-Hurricane Ike Houston faces a more urgent crisis — a run on challahs for this evenings Rosh Hashanah festivities.

Seems that Hurricane Ike left several of Houston’s kosher bakeries in tsoriss. The family-run Three Brothers’ Bakery, a favorite source for the of the yellow, eggy braided bread sustained serious damage by Ike. The bakers planned to knead 3,000 of the challahs for those who need the special round Rosh Hashanah bread to dip into honey, symbolizing the circle of life and hopes of a sweet coming year. To be challah-less during the High Holidays equates to being without fruit cake at Christmas (well, in theory). And any matzo or similarly unleavened alternative will not cut it.

The Houston Chronicle reports that other Jewish food purveyors rush to take up the slack. [Note, I am constantly baffled that in a city the size of Houston — the fourth largest in the US — we have so few true Jewish delis, bakeries, and other food establishments. In my mid-sized Iowa hometown with a tiny Jewish population, we had four kosher Jewish delis and other food stores.]

People stood in line at Kenny & Ziggy’s deli praying to wrangle some challah. Other Jewish mothers (and daughters) resorted to baking their own. 

The Almighty did not smite Jews alone during this holiday season. Hurricane Ike hit during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, a time when Muslims fast, pray and practice charity. The storm cut power to thousands of Muslims homes in Houston, making their nightly break-the-fast meal a vexation. 

But according to the Houston Chronicle, many Muslims believe the inconveniences of powerlessness gave new meaning to their Ramadan observances. Some said the hurricane tested their faith while others said it intensified their understanding of the needy and suffering.

The lack of bread, the lack of power. What has the Lord wrought? If a natural disaster can bring new empathy between often sworn enemies, perhaps some divine intervention with strategically pinpointed whirlwinds may be just what the world needs.

“Lost: The Sequel”

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Ike pummeled the upper Texas coast, upwards of 400 of its residents cannot be located, according to today’s Houston Chronicle. Hopefully, many of the missing still may be without the power to contact worried family. Or some evacuees chose not to return. Or those who could afford to jet to Aspen or Paris to ride out the storm took a relaxing side trip before returning.

Or, as many family, friends and officials fear, maybe they were swept away into the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston Bay or buried in the new sand drifts carved by Ike. 

The Chronicle reported that the body of Gail Ettenger, 58, a Bolivar resident who attempted to ride out the storm, washed up 12 days later in a debris pile in Chambers County — 10 miles inland from her home.

As Ike hit land, the Coast Guard rescued about 100 Bolivar residents who remained behind, thinking the storm would take a southerly course. But as the hurricane intensified at least 150 people were still stranded on the peninsula, the Coast Guard reported.

They most likely weren’t the only beach dwellers taken by surprise by Ike’s furious path. Newscasts predicted ike to be a “minor” Category 2, a “weakling” many had ridden out without hassle before. But Ike pumped up into a Cat 3 packing Cat 4 storm surges when it punched in. Those who gambled may have lost everything.

Abandoned and overturned cars along marshes, debris fields and flood waters may harbor more ominous clues. Were the vehicles merely pushed by the surge from the safety of their garages, or were they transporting late evacuees who met the floods head on?

Many of the doomed areas rely on limited volunteer fire departments to spearhead rescues and they are literally swamped (no pun) with search and rescue — or recovery — efforts.  The professional local first responders also find resources exhausted.  Even so, the Chronicle reports that the Galveston County Sheriff’s office denied assistance from the respected non-profit Texas EquuSearch SAR teams from coming in to help locate some of the 200 lost souls in that county alone, even though many of the missings’ relatives requested such assistance. EquuSearch, by the way, has spearheaded search-and-rescue operations for missing persons internationally.

Who knows how many of the transient populations that live in Galveston and coastal compounds cannot be accounted for since no one possibly cares about them?

Yes, who really cares about them all — the transients and the other 400 missing souls? How come the national news hasn’t jumped on this story like a pit bull with lipstick?

Is it that the missing or dead are invisible — wiped out to sea or buried in tsunami-like debris piles or buried in unmarked graves underneath sand dunes? If we had those visibly shocking bloated bodies floating in what were once yards and streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, maybe Anderson Cooper would focus a camera on one as he motored by embedded with SAR teams? 

Perhaps Ike chose to leave no bodies, at least none we can find at present. Maybe no floating corpses exist. Maybe they will never be found. 

Nevertheless, their story needs to be told. They must not be forgotten because I see no reports on national news about the Lost 400.  I hear no debated words condemning the continuing ignominious and ignoramusful response of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to another natural disaster. That the Department of Homeland Security fails to make the disappearance of 400 US residents a top priority should send shivers of terror down our collective spines.

Unfortunately, these Lost 400 are invisible. No one talks about them on the network or cable news. Friends outside the area do not ask about the future of the Lost 400. That’s why I think we need to make a TV series about those still missing from Hurricane Ike. Let’s make it a sequel of the popular, Emmy-winning TV drama Lost.  We can call it Lost: The 400 about a bunch of people from all walks of life who, instead of crash landing in an airplane on a deserted island, are swept away from a populated island into parts unknown.

Maybe if we knew their names, faces, relationships, families, hopes and dreams as we do the fictional TV characters, the fan site blogs would pop up to help locate them, their plight would be discussed around water coolers at work, and the 24/7 TV news cycle would yak them up — of course, only as long as the ratings remain respectable.

© 2008 winkingbuddha.com

Those Winking Blue Eyes

My mother held a crush on Paul Newman. Even in black-and-white non-Technicolor days before she could swoon over those trickster deep blue eyes, mother venerated Paul. She carried the torch not so much that he was a cinematic god, as he was our cinematic god — a lansman, one of the tribe, a Jewish Cary Grant when most Jewish actors resembled Fyvush Finkel. Oy, so Paul’s lineage proved only half-a-Yid, he played Ari Ben Canaan in Exodus. He fought for our cause and we adopted him. He became “mishpocha.”

Here came an actor with Jewish roots, handsome enough to get the girl instead of Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy (well, at least in the bicycle scene). A Jewish actor who could play a momzer and still be a mensch; a Jewish protagonist who could take the punch and not fall down. Newman served as the standard to which all my future dates could never match — blond, blue-eyed, rugged and (at least partially) Jewish.

I doubt Newman adhered much to his Jewishness anymore than he acquiesced to Hollywood. Newman dressed in the black tie trappings, regularly walked the red-carpeted gauntlet of paparazzi, and acknowledged his Faustian obligations to fans. Yet, Newman seemed much more comfortable in his cable cardigan, a baseball cap or a NASCAR  Indy Racing firesuit than Armani. The green of Connecticut not the beaches of Malibu became his home. He fell in love with a starlit, Joanne Woodward, for more than fifty years. He made Nixon’s enemies list long before today’s trendy Hollywood-Washington fornication.

Newman was the anti-Brangelina. He eschewed the society page to make salad dressing in his garage. Although he called his Newman’s Own product empire “a joke that got out of control” he served as an innovative entrepreneur who promoted all-natural (and often vegan) foods, environmentally friendly packaging and recycling long before being green was easy kitsch. With the mission statement “Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good,” Newman’s company gives all profits to charity, at least $250 million to date. 

One of his favorite recipients was “The Hole in the Wall” Camps, now an international group of respites for children with life-threatening illnesses, including the cancer that took his own life. Newman much preferred to hobnob with the kiddos at camp, named after the real Butch Cassidy’s rat pack, than the snobs on the Walk of Fame.

Newman should be remembered as a humanitarian not an philanthropist. Humanitarians envision a world greater than their own Brentwood (or River Oaks) boundaries. Humanitarians symbolize the quality of being humane. Humanitarians give of the abundance of their own humanity, not the affluence of their wealth. He did so quietly, humbly and unselfishly. He exploited his celebrity to promote true philanthropy rather than exploiting philanthropy to promote celebrity.

Buddhist believe that when we die we reincarnate into a different form based on the karma we merited in past lives. Those who acted with greed and gluttony may find themselves returned as “hungry ghosts” reborn with such tiny mouths and grotesque stomaches they can never savor all gourmet succulence that surrounds them. Others who earned merit through benevolent works may evolve as bodhisattvas, enlightened beings who return to Earth to aid others find Nirvana (or eternal happiness). 

Often, when a great Buddhist teacher or bodhisattva dies, rainbows, shooting stars or other strange phenomena appear in the heavens. I don’t know if Paul Newman believed in Heaven (Buddhists really don’t). But I have to admit, today the sky gleamed with an extraordinary deep shade of blue.

© 2008 by winkingbuddha.com

Enlighten Up, Already! River Oaks Update

Yesterday, I discussed the serious problems Houstonians face in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, specifically the endless wait for up to 500,000 customers to get any semblance of power restored.

After reading today’s Houston Chronicle, I realize that not only do the poor folks in Galveston and surrounding small towns suffer, but that Houston’s swankier residents also endured hardships due to this hurricane.

So, let me summarize two harrowing stories that appeared in today’s Houston Chronicle:

Ike’s Aftermath: Let Them eat…osso buco?

and Being Powerless Doesn’t Stop The Party

The rich are different from you and me. Their affluent abodes never take on affluence during storms. Many of Houston’s poshest pads accessorize their curbside appeal with invisible buried power lines invulnerable to tempests and the resulting inconvenience of blackouts.

However, some of the humbler River Oaks denizens found that Hurricane Ike failed to distinguish zip codes. Those whose electricity grows on tree poles evacuated to more welcoming climes, jetting to Paris, Aspen or New York (in summer, how gauche!). Those who lacked private aircraft sought out refuge in Four Seasons or Five Diamond lodgings around the Lone Star state. One socialite, already safely in Austin on “philanthropic business” found her suitcase(s) contained only “a cocktail dress, diamond earrings and running shorts and a t-shirt.” Hopefully, she also included some Jimmy Choos to complete that ensemble.

Houston’s movers and shakers weren’t spared moving and shaking from Hurricane Ike. The Houston Chronicle reports that “the prized Bentley of one major player was smashed by a tumbling tree.”

Thus, no one escapes hurricane or karmic forces. All are twisted in the enduring loop of samsara (suffering). Some of us just spend it shoveling sewage from our living rooms and others sweat over gala party rescheduling snafus at the toniest Tony’s restaurant.

Enlighten Up, Already!

 

Enlightenment leads Buddhists to Nirvana.  However, here in the post-Hurricane Ike Houston area more than one-half million of us wait not for enlightenment but for any sliver of illumination to lead us to the bathroom after sundown.

The Galveston area is without essential utilities such as electricity, potable water, sewage (except that which is in streets and homes). The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston’s largest medical facility as well as its largest employer, is shut, perhaps for months (I know, I tried unsuccessfully to get a prescription renewed from my doctor there). Texas A&M University’s marine branch will be land locked at College Station for at least a semester. Neighboring communities are in the same boat –literally with incongruous the sailing vessels in streets and yards.

In Houston, CenterPoint Energy, the regulated power company that handles power grids (or in our case, gridlocks), reports that more than 500,000 of residents are still without electricity, two weeks after Hurricane Ike attacked. According to a local TV report, CenterPoint may not have power restored to all its customers until November, so deep frying that Thanksgiving turkey outside may become a nutritional necessity rather than a Texas epicurean tradition.

By the way, CenterPoint Energy, one of the nation’s largest regulated energy utilities, is the step sibling of Reliant Energy, a deregulated electricity seller and wholesaler.  In other words, Reliant Energy is what you get when you flip your switch. CenterPoint gets Reliant Energy there. Therefore, I assume that neither Reliant Stadium — home of the Houston Texans so-called football team — nor Reliant Center — big profit-making convention center — both named for that unregulated power family ever worried about food rotting in their concession stands.

Zen teaches that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. However, in Houston the journey toward our post-Ike re-enlightment sometimes falls several steps behind.

Fractured trees abound in every Houston neighborhood. One clean-up team, pruning broken limbs to assist a CenterPoint fix-it crew, accidently severed a functional electric line. The hot wire fell on to the roof of a house which immediately caught fire, thus bringing long-lost illumination temporarily to the neighborhood until the fire department doused the blaze. On the plus side, that house escaped any storm surge flooding during Hurricane Ike.

A Little Ego Can Be Beautiful

After hassling Hurricane Ike for two weeks and suffering from post traumatic hurricane exhaustion, I indulged in a much needed visit to the local beauty salon — now that the lights are on and the water is again potable.

I now sport a beautiful new hair style along with a new outlook on life!

Sometimes we all desire a bit of ego satisfaction, even Buddhists!

Ike Disaster Strikes River Oaks

The beach front communities of Gilcrest, Bolivier and Crystal Beach are no more. Tattered debris of people’s lives line city streets up and down Bay Area communities. Galveston residents still may not return to their homes and those already there find mud, sewage, toxic chemicals and various varmint homesteaders in their houses. Hundreds of thousands of residents (including my ailing 96-year-old mother-in-law) still await electricity. Many traffic lights throughout Houston fail to work, resulting in massive traffic backups and crackups.  Many schools have yet to reopen due to lack of power or water damage. Hospitals run like M*A*S*H units, if lucky. One triage unit dealt with a man who contracted flesh-eating bacteria. While 57 people have been killed by Hurricane Ike, the number of missing has yet to be reported.

But those stories are not the biggest disasters and disruptions facing many Houstonians.  Our well-healed and storm-protected River Oaks residents (i.e. where Houston’s JR Ewing types sip mint juleps and plot hedge fund takeovers) received a disturbing e-mail from the management of their beloved River Oaks Country Club.  Seems Hurricane Ike leveled 180 trees at the pristine and formerly shady and green River Oaks golf course.

With such damage yet to be removed, River Oaks golfers may have to relocate their foursomes to the smaller Augusta Pines or to the ancient (circa 1999) Greg Norman designed Meadowbrook Farms (alas a course that allows public to put as well) or to Redstone Golf Club, home of the PGA Tour’s Shell Open tournament. 

Perhaps FEMA or their Congressional cohorts might reimburse them for their loss, hardship and golf relocation expenses. And probably with the way our lobbyist system and trickle-down tax breaks work, I’m sure the River Oak golfers received more than adequate compensation already.

Remembrances of Storms Past

Since we stalwart residents of the Texas Gulf Coast suffer from post traumatic hurricane exhaustion, I’m much too tired to retell the adventures of the last week as my family evacuated from Hurricane Ike.  Thanks to good karma or just that recently upgraded roof, the storm limited damage to the elderly trees throughout our neighborhood. I hope soon to write up a report of the events of the week of Ike, but until then, I thought I would reminisce about other hurricanes past. And as this blog professes to relate somehow to Buddhism, I’ll recall the story of how Hurricane Rita blew away my chance to meet the Dalai Lama.

In September 2005, I had free tickets to the most talked about performance in town — His Holiness the Dalai Lama was to speak at Rice University. The previous night he served as keynote speaker at a $1,000 a person gala spotlighting all spiritualism in society, including Buddhism and “other” escoteric “New Age” philosophies. 

Unfortunately, that August and September 2005 brought two samsaric (and perhaps karmic) events to the Gulf region, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Because Rita wobbled to the right and the civic leaders fearing another 24/7 media (not just natural) disaster, they issued a mandatory evacuation order for the city. An estimated 2-million-plus vehicles clogged all routes leading from the Houston area. Journeys that normally took about two hours evolved into 15 hours of nonstop stopped congestion. Gas, food, water ran out as road rage flared in the 200 mile traffic jam. One hundred elderly people burned to death on a bus as traffic inched by.  

Thus, His Holiness’ talk about benevolence, compassion, peace, and kindness was cancelled and the leader of the Tibetan people had to be whisked out of town despite the gridlock that ensued. As the Dalai Lama is a Buddha in the flesh. And karma being what it is, all the evacuees headed north on clogged, congested and conflicted freeways while the His Holiness was escorted south in the direction of Hobby airport,  serendipitously in the opposite direction of the disconbobulation. And whether because traffic was fleeing the city, or because he was the Dalai Lama and actualized such things, no cars blocked escape route from the city. He caught his winged transport with plenty of time to spare.

I wrote a blog about the rather perplexing juxtaposition of $1000 tickets to see a poor monk and us poor supplicants whose free tickets to his public lectures blew away in hurricane winds. So, I decided to create a new blog page called Reincarnations to post past blogs or writings that may have renewed relevancy for today. 

So please check the new-and-old Reincarnations page to read the oldie but goodie blog, Houston Serves The Dalai Lama a Rita

Cyber Zen

I became a Apple computer disciple decades ago when I saw a demonstration of Apple’s new computer code named “Lisa.” Although too expensive for my corporation to consider, its ease of use and incredible graphic capabilities totally overwhelmed me. I beheld cyber-Nirvana and performed prostrastrations to the Enlightened One, Steve Jobs. From that day forward, I discounted the dogma of DOS and became an Apple arahant.

Whenever employers attempted to convert me to any form of Microsoft or Windoze, I lashed myself to my MacIntosh. Even when my trusty Mac lacked enough memory to run my e-mail function, I stole time from a fellow Apple outcast to download Internet kilobytes. But even with its limited capabilities and capacities, my little ol’ Mac kept running when the rest of the office blanched with regular Windoze viruses, worms, bugs, hiccups and related attacks of nausea.

That’s why I find it so karmic, zen-like or just serendipitous that whenever Microsoft really needs excellence in computing or special graphic capability, their marketing department, graphics folks, or advertising agencies always reach for the best — Apple Mac computers and software. The news report linked below tells how Microsoft used Apple hardware and software to create its new ads about how much better Windoze is than the Job’s toy. Seems to me that the poor schlep who is lost in the whales colon isn’t named Jobs. Maybe Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld stopped off at that mall’s Apple Store when they finished buying shoes and really liked what they saw.

So for an ironic, zen-like, karmic moment, check out this story “Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ campaign created with Macs”