"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." MLK, Jr.
The last couple days have been .... eventful.
We had an incoming missile "false alarm" in Oahu two days ago. We are fortunate in that we were in a yoga class at 8a-ish. When an alarm sounded over the music, our instructor shrugged and forty or so of us went on practicing, oblivious, not realizing that chaos was ensuing outside the studio. We didn't experience the last 15 edifying, terrifying minutes of our lives that most Hawaii residents endured.
In thinking about it, though, I'm with Winnie the Pooh on this one: I feel comprehensively blessed to have people to whom it would be hard to say goodbye. I'm blessed in that department and will let each of them know it ... daily.
The State of Hawaii is maintaining that it was just one human's error (although I'm still slightly incredulous despite my DMV experiences here), rather than a sinister plot to incite fear and increase defense contracts, which was my first take.
Mostly, I feel for that one human—the guy sitting at that state agency desk for ten years somewhere in a windowless office within Diamond Head. He hit the wrong link with his mouse twice and 1m people thought they were going to die. One family even tried to put their baby down a manhole. He no doubt read about that ... and the families huddled in garages, crying ... and the old people, struggling to get to safety. I pity that state employee who, we're told, won't lose his Job but has been reassigned. Likewise I pity his loved ones, whose hearts are breaking for him. I wonder if his friends and family will stand by him, shoulder-to-shoulder, after he made the biggest mistake of his life. Or if they will instead—to use MLK, Jr.'s metric--remain silent.
The last couple days have been .... eventful.
We had an incoming missile "false alarm" in Oahu two days ago. We are fortunate in that we were in a yoga class at 8a-ish. When an alarm sounded over the music, our instructor shrugged and forty or so of us went on practicing, oblivious, not realizing that chaos was ensuing outside the studio. We didn't experience the last 15 edifying, terrifying minutes of our lives that most Hawaii residents endured.
In thinking about it, though, I'm with Winnie the Pooh on this one: I feel comprehensively blessed to have people to whom it would be hard to say goodbye. I'm blessed in that department and will let each of them know it ... daily.
The State of Hawaii is maintaining that it was just one human's error (although I'm still slightly incredulous despite my DMV experiences here), rather than a sinister plot to incite fear and increase defense contracts, which was my first take.
Mostly, I feel for that one human—the guy sitting at that state agency desk for ten years somewhere in a windowless office within Diamond Head. He hit the wrong link with his mouse twice and 1m people thought they were going to die. One family even tried to put their baby down a manhole. He no doubt read about that ... and the families huddled in garages, crying ... and the old people, struggling to get to safety. I pity that state employee who, we're told, won't lose his Job but has been reassigned. Likewise I pity his loved ones, whose hearts are breaking for him. I wonder if his friends and family will stand by him, shoulder-to-shoulder, after he made the biggest mistake of his life. Or if they will instead—to use MLK, Jr.'s metric--remain silent.
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