Oh yes, my dear. Nothing like cold pizza straight out of the 'frig for breakfast! Also good are cold spaghetti, potatoes au gratin and just about any other comfort food you can think of. What a way to start a day off ;)

The pump where I filled up at 2.49 on Monday now advertises 3.09 as predicted by the giant oil companies who are looking to gouge us all as the Gulf coast attempts to begin recovery from Katrina. This type of opportunism sickens me, even as the country pulls together resources to mobilize rescue and relief efforts for the greatest natural disaster we have ever witnessed. They are, in my humble opinion, no better than the looters roaming the streets of the French Quarter.

We all know the drill, after watching hours of live coverage from the scenes. It is catastrophic beyond words, what has happened to the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama...not unlike a war zone. As far north as West Tennessee there are power outages that are affecting millions more besides those still stranded in attics floating in flood waters. And the worst is yet to come.

It's time now for corporate America to share the wealth that it has amassed off of the back of the working man and woman. After all, it's tax deductible and who needs a good deduction more than your favorite megastore. One of the more glaring examples of this need is in the area of healthcare. Companies that are paying stockholders record earnings can afford to back off a bit and focus on their true reason for being, which is providing health care to those who truly need it regardless of the cost. One way to do this would be to pay their trained medical personnel for time spent on teams for the next few months when diagnosis and treatment of disease will become the next crisis.

I won't belabor the point, for the drama itself is enough reminder that we are never really safe from disaster, be it natural or man-made. My hope is that eventually we will take that fighting spirit that always emerges after a crisis and use it pro-actively to make not only OUR country, but the entire world, a better place.

Keep the faith. ^j^